“The Perils of Indifference” is a speech that was delivered by Elie Wiesel in Washington D.C. It reflects about his time as a holocaust survivor. World War II took the lives of around 11 million people from 1939 until the last surrender in 1945. This was also the time of the Holocaust that was led by Adolf Hitler of Germany. If Hitler wanted something done it instantly became a plan for the German army. The Nazis forced families out of their homes, and took them to live brutal concentration camps to become slaves, or dead. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, spoke at the White House to share his story. Wiesel’s used literary devices to reach his main point that was not to forget what happened in the past, but to not allow it to happen again.
Wiesel’s tried to reach the emotions of the audience saying that “he was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart” as he started out his speech. Buchenwald was the camp Wiesel had been forced to live in during the war. He tells about the day he was set free from his concentration camp by the American soldiers, as he talked about remembering the look in the eyes of the American soldiers. He knew that soldiers saw what the people in the camp had suffered, and saw hope. Wiesel starts multiple phrases with the word “gratitude” to show his thanks to the …show more content…
He used anaphora to list positive things that had happened. He said that the world is no longer the way it was when Hitler was in power and the world does not live in the past. Wiesel goes on to say, “Have we learned from the past? Are people now more aware, less indifferent to the lives of another human being?” These lines are followed by a caesura to let listeners know that the speech is about to end and to add emotion where it is needed most. Wiesel ties the end of his speech in with the beginning, and delivered his point that the world can not allow this to happen