From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences

by Elie Wiesel

  I am exhausted.

  Not as much as me.

  If I were God I would bring a huge forest and put it here, on the road before us. Then the transport would have to stop. And we could rest. I am sleepy, aren’t you?

  Sleepier than you.

  If I were God I would see to it that all things would be sleepy. Trees. And stones. And trains. And guards.

  That’s all? I still prefer my royal palace. Except it isn’t simple, I know that. If all people become princes, what about our guards? I don’t want them to become princes. But … I think I have an idea. They will stay outside the palace gates. We’ll call them only when we are cold: to light the fire in the stove.

  But isn’t it what they are doing now?

  Now?

  Yes, now. Look: the fire over there … The flames are as high as the heavens. They illuminate the world.…

  No. Not the world; only the palace. I am so happy. God has granted my wish. My dream will be fulfilled. We are going to live in the most glorious palace in the world. And since God is so nice to us, we shall sing for Him, okay?

  My body is aching. I can’t sing.

  We must. We’ll dance, too. For Him. We want Him to be proud of us. And of all His creatures. Don’t you agree that God is proud of us? I am proud of Him.

  …

  Do you hear me?

  I am listening.

  May I ask you a favor?

  Maybe.

  Teach me how to pray.

  I can’t. I am too cold.

  Teach me … I don’t want to freeze to death.

  Don’t worry. We are approaching the palace.

  What Really Makes Us Free?

  IS THERE a nobler aspiration than the desire to be free? It is by his freedom that a man knows himself, by his sovereignty over his own life that a man measures himself. To violate that freedom, to flout that sovereignty, is to deny man the right to live his life, to take responsibility for himself with dignity.

  Man, who was created in God’s image, wants to be free as God is free: free to choose between good and evil, love and vengeance, life and death. All the great religions proclaim this. The first law after the Ten Commandments had to do with slavery: it prohibited not only owning slaves but also entering into slavery voluntarily. One who gave up his freedom was punished. To put it another way: Every man was free, but no man was free to give up his freedom.

  To strip man of his freedom is not to believe in man. The dictator does not believe in man. Man’s freedom frightens him. Imprisoned as much by his ambition as by his terror, the dictator defines his own freedom in relation to the lack of freedom of others. He feels free only because, and when, other people—his subjects, his victims—are not free. The happiness of others prevents him from being happy himself. Every free man is his adversary, every independent thought renders him impotent.

  Caligula felt sure of his own intelligence only when faced with his counselors’ stupidity; Stalin derived morbid pleasure from the humiliations he inflicted on his ministers; Hitler liked to insult his generals. Every dictator sees others as potential prisoners or victims—and every dictator ends by being his own prisoner and his own victim. For anyone who claims the right to deprive others of their right to freedom and happiness deprives himself of both. By putting his adversaries in prison, his entire country becomes one vast jail. And the jailer is no more free than his prisoners.

  In fact, it is often the prisoner who is truly free. In a police state, the hunted man represents the ideal of freedom; the condemned man honors it. As Jean-Paul Sartre said, in Occupied France, the only free people were those in prison. These men and women rejected the comfort of submission and chose to resist the forces of oppression. Once imprisoned, tormented, tortured, they no longer had anything to fear. They knew they were lost.

  When the great French Jewish humorist Tristan Bernard was arrested by the Germans after months in hiding, his fellow prisoners were surprised by his smiling face. “How can you smile?” they asked. “Until now, I have lived in fear,” he said. “From now on, I shall live in hope.”

  It is because his victims cling to hope that the dictator persecutes them. It is because they believe in freedom as much as in life itself that he is determined to deprive them of both.

  Heroes and martyrs became the pride of their people by fighting with a weapon in their hand or a prayer in their soul. In a thousand different ways, each proclaimed that freedom alone gives meaning to the life of an individual or a people.

  For a people—that is, for a social, ethnic, or religious group—the problem and its solution are both simple. When a people loses its freedom, it has a right, a duty, to employ every possible means to win it back. But resistance can be expressed in nonviolent ways too.

  The Jews who lived in the ghettos under the Nazi occupation showed their independence by leading an organized clandestine life. The teacher who taught the starving children was a free man. The nurse who secretly cared for the wounded, the ill, and the dying was a free woman. The rabbi who prayed, the disciple who studied, the father who gave his bread to his children, the children who risked their lives by leaving the ghetto at night in order to bring back to their parents a piece of bread or a few potatoes, the man who consoled his orphaned friend, the orphan who wept with a stranger for a stranger—these were human beings filled with an unquenchable thirst for freedom and dignity. The young people who dreamed of armed insurrection, the lovers who, a moment before they were separated, talked about their bright future together, the insane who wrote poems, the chroniclers who wrote down the day’s events by the light of their flickering candles—all were free in the noblest sense of the word, though their prison walls seemed impassable and their executioners invincible.

  It was the same even in the death camps. Defeated and downcast, overcome by fatigue and anguish, tormented and tortured day after day, hour after hour, even in their sleep, condemned to a slow but certain death, the prisoners nevertheless managed to carve out a patch of freedom for themselves. Every memory became a protest; every smile was a call to resist; every human act turned into a struggle against the torturer’s philosophy.

  Do not misunderstand me: I am in no way trying to minimize the Nazis’ evil power. I am not saying that all prisoners succeeded in opposing them by their will to be free. On the contrary—locked in a suffering and solitude unlike any other, the prisoners generally could only adapt to their condition—and either be submerged by it or swept along by time. The apparatus of murder was too perfect not to crush people weakened by hunger, forced labor, and punishment. But I am saying that the executioner did not always triumph. Some victims managed to escape and alert the public in the free world. Others organized a solidarity movement within the inferno itself. One companion of mine in the camps gave the man next to him a spoonful of soup every day at work. Another would try to amuse us with stories. Yet another would urge us not to forget our names—one way, among many others, of saying No to the enemy, of showing that we were free, freer than the enemy.

  Are We Afraid of Peace?

  FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. Does that seem paradoxical? Well, war is not afraid of paradoxes.

  Though temporary in nature, war seems to last forever. In the service of death, it mocks the living. It allows men to do things that in normal times they have no right to do: to indulge in cruelty. A collective as well as individual gratification of unconscious impulses, war may be too much a part of human behavior to be eliminated—ever.

  Life on our planet would be so much easier if only men and nations could live in peace. But apparently they cannot. Is this because they are unaccustomed to it? Or perhaps because they need to simplify things? For war simplifies everything by reducing the options. The gulf separating good and evil widens. On one side, everything seems just; on the other, unjust. There is no need to think too hard a
bout it—no one worries about subtleties in time of war. Time itself becomes subordinated to war.

  If only we could celebrate peace as our various ancestors celebrated war; if only we could glorify peace as those before us, thirsting for adventure, glorified war; if only our sages and scholars together could resolve to infuse peace with the same energy and inspiration that others have put into war.

  Why is war such an easy option? Why does peace remain such an elusive goal? We know statesmen skilled at waging war, but where are those dedicated enough to humanity to find a way to avoid war? Every nation has its prestigious military academies. Why are there no academies—or so few of them—that teach not only the virtues of peace but also the art of attaining it? I mean attaining and protecting it by means other than weapons, the tools of war. Why are we surprised whenever war recedes and yields to peace?

  Unfortunately, we are forced to acknowledge that war seems inherent in the human condition—and in fact preceded it, according to an old Talmudic legend. Before God created man, says the Talmud, He was given contradictory advice by His angels. The Angel of Love was in favor of creating man because he felt that in order to survive, men would have to love one another. But the Angel of Truth opposed this suggestion, because he knew that in order to exist in society, men would inevitably invent lies. As all the angels joined in the argument, it degenerated into a quarrel and then into open warfare. All but two—Michael and Gabriel, heavenly defenders of Israel—were destroyed by the fire that they themselves had lit.

  Human beings turned out to be no better. Adam had scarcely been created before he quarreled with his wife and even with God. His two sons, Cain and Abel—the only children then on earth—became enemies and ultimately murderer and victim.

  What lessons can be learned from this? Two men can be brothers and yet wish to kill each other; and also, whoever kills, kills his brother. But we only learn these lessons too late. In time of war, whoever is not our brother is our enemy; we are forbidden to be compassionate or give in to our imagination. If the soldier were to imagine the suffering he is about to inflict, he would be less eager to wage war. If he were to consider the enemy a potential victim—and therefore capable of weeping, of despairing, of dying—the relationship between them would change. Every effort is made, therefore, to limit, even stifle, his imagination, his humanitarian impulses, and his capacity to experience a feeling of brotherhood toward his fellow man.

  Is this why people often appear so ill prepared for peace? As soon as peace knocks on the door, they seem paralyzed by distrust: what if it is but an illusion, a mirage, a trap? It is as though peace makes them uneasy—which is not unnatural, since we are so accustomed to living in fear of war that peace becomes a sort of elevated, remote ideal, something associated with the absolute, the transcendent. Peace has been so eagerly anticipated that its reality can only disconcert.

  We are afraid to let ourselves go, to allow ourselves to be carried away by an enthusiasm born of wishful thinking. It is as though we cannot forget certain images and words which, only yesterday, characterized the other side as our adversary. How can we erase the collective memory of the Gulag atrocities, the occupation of Prague, the attack on Korea? How can we reconcile the terror of the KGB with perestroika and glasnost, Stalin’s Kremlin with Gorbachev’s?

  Still, no matter how great the reward, we must not forget. There is no justification for forgetting. If we had to forget the past in order to obtain peace, I would say that I would want nothing to do with such a peace. It could only be a lie. It could only foster a costly and dangerous passivity.

  What we must do is use our memory as an opening rather than a prison. What does our memory tell us? It tells us about the absurdity of territorial conquests today. Imperialism, whether political or ideological, is outmoded. Nothing is left of the empires of Napoleon or the czars. What remains of Stalin’s global ambition? Communism is retreating everywhere. As for the Third Reich, which was to last a thousand years, today its name arouses horror and shame rather than admiration and envy.

  In general, nationalism is less tied to geography than it used to be. Western Europe—for hundreds of years so fragmented and divided—is about to abolish its internal frontiers. Hereditary enemies such as France and England, France and Germany, will unite. Despite the past? Because of the past. Memory is a source of anguish, but it can also become a source of faith. And memory also reminds us that from now on war will be without glory. It will leave no conquerors, only victims.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer expressed this aptly in his testimony before a Congressional committee in Washington. Asked what we had to do to avoid a nuclear war, he answered concisely: “Make peace.”

  The Nobel Address*

  YOUR MAJESTY, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, Chairman Aarvik, members of the Nobel Committee, ladies and gentlemen:

  Words of gratitude. First to our common Creator. This is what the Jewish tradition commands us to do. On special occasions, one is duty bound to recite the following prayer: Barukh shehekhyanu vekiymanu vehigianu lazman haze—“Blessed be Thou for having sustained us until this day.”

  Then—thank you, Chairman Aarvik, for the depth of your eloquence. And for the generosity of your gesture. Thank you for building bridges between people and generations. Thank you, above all, for helping humankind make peace its most urgent and noble aspiration.

  I am moved, deeply moved by your words, Chairman Aarvik. And it is with a profound sense of humility that I accept the honor—the highest there is—that you have chosen to bestow upon me. I know: your choice transcends my person.

  Do I have the right to represent the multitudes who have perished? Do I have the right to accept this great honor on their behalf? I do not. No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions. And yet, I sense their presence. I always do—and at this moment more than ever. The presence of my parents, that of my little sister. The presence of my teachers, my friends, my companions.…

  This honor belongs to all the survivors and their children and, through us, to the Jewish people with whose destiny I have always identified.

  I remember: it happened yesterday or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the Kingdom of Night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.

  I remember he asked his father, “Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?”

  And now the boy is turning to me. “Tell me,” he asks, “what have you done with my future? What have you done with your life?” And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

  And then I explain to him how naive we were—that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.

  Of course, since I am a Jew profoundly rooted in my people’s memory and tradition, my first response is to Jewish fears, Jewish needs, Jewish crises. For I belong to a traumatized generation, one that experienced the abandonment and solitude of our people. It would be unnatural for me not to make Jewish priorities my own: Israel, Soviet Jewry, Jews in Arab lands.… But others are important to me. Apartheid is, in my view, as abhorrent as anti-Semitism. To me, Andrei Sakharov’s isolation is as much a disg
race as Josef Begun’s imprisonment and Ida Nudel’s exile. As is the denial of Solidarity and its leader Lech Walesa’s right to dissent. And Nelson Mandela’s interminable imprisonment.

  There is so much injustice and suffering crying out for our attention: victims of hunger, of racism and political persecution—in Chile, for instance, or in Ethiopia—writers and poets, prisoners in so many lands governed by the Left and by the Right.

  Human rights are being violated on every continent. More people are oppressed than free. How can one not be sensitive to their plight? Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere. That applies also to the Palestinians, to whose plight I am sensitive, but whose methods I deplore when they lead to violence. Violence is not the answer. Terrorism is the most dangerous of answers. They are frustrated, that is understandable; something must be done. The refugees and their misery; the children and their fears; the uprooted and their hopelessness: something must be done about their situation. Both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people have lost too many sons and daughters and have shed too much blood. This must stop, and all attempts to stop it must be encouraged. Israel will cooperate, I am sure of that. I trust Israel, for I have faith in the Jewish people. Let Israel be given a chance, let hatred and danger be removed from her horizons, and there will be peace in and around the Holy Land. Please understand my deep and total commitment to Israel: if you could remember what I remember, you would understand. Israel is the only nation in the world whose very existence is threatened. Should Israel lose but one war, it would mean her end and ours as well. But I have faith. Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and even in His creation. Without it no action would be possible. And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all. Isn’t this the meaning of Alfred Nobel’s legacy? Wasn’t his fear of war a shield against war?