I grew up with Holocaust survivors. They weren’t my parents, but people my parents had helped bring to America after World War II.
We heard stories that were similar to the stories told in Elie Wiesel’s book, “Night.” Some people think that Wiesel’s book is a work of fiction and that he made up the stories. But growing up knowing so many survivors – all of whom told similar stories – it is incredulous to me that people think that Elie Wiesel’s stories were made up.
Elie Wiesel died on Saturday, at the age of 87. Like many survivors of the Holocaust and World War II, he was one of the last living people to tell his story and bear witness to the atrocities committed.
I talked to Mr. Wiesel once, the day that the Museum of Jewish Heritage opened in New York. He was unobtrusive, and was there like anyone else. He has been involved in getting funding and making sure the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., came into being and was the inspiration of many people so the New York museum could be built.
What he saw was unimaginable, and the hate that he witnessed invaded every part of his soul. He wanted to make sure no one forgot.
I am often asked, “Why do you work in South Sudan?”
According to our own Department of State, South Sudan has been the site of the largest ethnic genocide since the end of World War II. We know there have been other mass killings, such as the starvation of Chinese under Mao, but people have been tortured and slaughtered because of their ethnicity in South Sudan, where approximately 4.5 million people were murdered. This killing took place over 50 years, so it hasn’t garnered as much attention as Rwanda, where the death and killing took place in a very short period of time.
I work in South Sudan because the stories are so familiar. The stories that people tell are stories of survival from torture by people who hate, and those stories are similar to the those Elie Wiesel recounts in his writings and speeches.
His wisdom and the ability to put into words his and other experiences is what we are mourning now that he has died. We have used his wisdom in helping people to recover from the rage, anger and hate that they have experienced in South Sudan.
I have recounted some of his more famous quotes here: “No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”
As we deal with the carnage of ISIS/ISIL, we can go back to Mr. Wiesel’s quote and hope that younger generations growing up in these parts of the world can be taught his words and treat others well, without “collective judgement.”
Despite all he had been though, Wiesel made his mark on future generations by talking about gratitude. It may seem strange coming from someone who survived the camps at Auschwitz, but he believed that gratitude was part of our humanity.
He said, “When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.”
He also was thankful on a daily basis for the life he lived, even if he was haunted by what he had seen as a teen in the camps. He said, “For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.”
As we are working with people in South Sudan to set up a virtual Holocaust museum so people’s memories and stories will be preserved, Elie Wiesel’s writings provide the backdrop of what we are doing.
He said, “Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.”
What he says motivates me, as the history of people who survived the ethnic genocide in South Sudan has been wiped out. Students who grew up studying in school when the government of Sudan was in charge have never heard of Adolf Hitler or World War II. That part of history was never taught to these young people. The government of what was then Sudan did not want them to know.
Elie Wiesel wanted to make sure we remembered what had happened and we learn from it. His legacy is remembrance, and it is a gift to us all.
He said, “I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that, having survived, I owe something to the dead. And anyone who does not remember betrays them again.”
What happened in the Holocaust cannot and should not be forgotten. The story must be told.
There is a reason the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., has a room devoted to South Sudan. It is so the stories and words of people like Elie Wiesel are not forgotten and are applied to conflicts 70 years later.
Media wishing to interview Ellen Ratner, please contact [email protected].
|
