http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635208869,00.html

Deseret Morning News, Saturday, May 20, 2006

Forgiveness is for God, Wiesel says

Holocaust survivor and author to speak at Snow College about his experiences

By Susan Whitney
Deseret Morning News

"Forgiveness is God's, not mine," said Elie Wiesel, in a telephone interview with the Deseret Morning News this week. And yes, he will be coming to Utah on Monday to deliver the Tanner Lecture on Human Values at Snow College in Ephraim. And yes, he has been asked to speak on forgiveness.

Above is the Jewish cemetery in the town of Sighet, Romania, where Elie Wiesel grew up.

"I will try to give the Jewish viewpoint on forgiveness," he said. He will use the scriptures to explain the long-held attitudes. He will go back to the sources, he said. Such research is the traditional Jewish way. Also, because forgiveness belongs to God, Wiesel will speak about what humans can do in the face of inhumanity.

Today, Wiesel is a professor of philosophy and religion at Boston University. When he was a young teenager in the little town of Sighet in Romania, Wiesel was absorbed in the religious life. He studied the Talmud every day.

When Wiesel was 15, in the spring of 1944, it seemed the terrible war was about to end. Then the Nazis came to his village. His family was loaded on box cars and sent to concentration camps. The family was separated, men from women. Wiesel never saw his mother or little sister again. Just weeks before the liberation, Wiesel's father died, too.

Wiesel has written several dozen books, one of which, "Night," is currently on the best-seller list again, having recently been chosen for the Oprah Book Club. "Night" is Wiesel's memoir of the concentration camps. The latest reprint of the book includes the speech he gave when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

The new printing also includes a new preface. In this preface, Wiesel includes several paragraphs that were taken out when "Night" was published originally. The paragraphs were perhaps too intimate, he says. They describe his father's death. [color="Blue"](what about the geysers of blood, color-coded crematorium smoke, etc?)

The father died after calling his son's name. Because he would not be quiet, he was beaten senseless by the SS guards.

Wiesel did not come when his father called him. He stayed in his bunk, afraid of being beaten himself.

Wiesel wrote, "His voice had reached me from so far away, from so close. But I had not moved.

"I shall never forgive myself.

"Nor shall I ever forgive the world for having pushed me against the wall, for having turned me into a stranger, for having awakened in me the basest, most primitive instincts."

As he prepares for his speech in Utah, Wiesel is mindful judgment also belongs to God. In his book, "All Rivers Lead to the Sea," Wiesel said he doesn't know how he would have acted if he had been in a concentration camp for 11 years instead of 11 months.

[color="Red"]In the same book he explains that Jews did not take vengence on the German people after they got out of the concentration camps. "The Jews, for metaphysical and ethical reasons, rooted in their history, chose another path." [color="Blue"](the chutzpah of this kike!)

They did hope to be treated well by the rest of the world, welcomed as long-lost brothers and sisters. But they weren't. Wiesel writes, "The truth must be stated and restated: The suffering of the survivors did not end with the war; society wanted no part of them, either during or after the war."

Our job as humans, Wiesel told the Deseret Morning News, is to witness. It is an important job. "In the biblical text, the role of witness is much more extolled than the role of judge."

In the end, he said, he doesn't believe in collective forgiveness any more than he believes in collective guilt. "Every person is responsible for himself or herself, to be accepted or rejected for what he or she has done."

He could not forgive what happened in the Holocaust because it is not up to him to forgive wrongs committed against other people. We must remember we are all individuals, he said.

The idea of collective guilt leads to racism, religious bigotry, fanaticism, tragedy, Wiesel said. "Because somebody is black, that person has to endure suffering and humiliation?"

On the telephone, Wiesel's voice was warm and his words were encouraging. When asked how he managed to endure what he did and to go on to live a happy and productive life, Wiesel seemed bemused by the word "happy." He did embrace the word "productive."

He said he and many others who survived the Holocaust learned a lesson: Every day is a gift. He had to do something with his life, not only for his own sake but for the sake of those who died.

He finds much hope in his students, Wiesel said. "All the young people I have been teaching. They are hope."

His students want to understand the 20th century. More than the 17th century, more than any other century, they want to study the 20th century, he said. "They want to understand what went wrong."

His students will do something with their lives, Wiesel adds. They talk about working for nongovernmental organizations. "They are not only interested in degrees and money." They want to help humans in other parts of the world to live with dignity.

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What: Elie Wiesel, Tanner Lecture on Human Values
Where: Eccles Center for the Performing Arts, Snow College, Ephraim
When: Monday, 7 p.m.
How much: Free
Phone: 435-283-7000
Web: http://www.snow.edu