Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and author of “Night”, was deported along with his family to an extermination camp in 1944 where they endured hardships ranging from slavery to starvation. On April 12, 1999, in Washington, D.C., Wiesel presents his speech, “The Perils of Indifference” to President Clinton, his First Lady, White House Officials, and the American people. Referring to the tragic events of the twentieth century, Wiesel lectures on the threat that “indifference” poses, and discusses his hopes for a better future. Leading the speech, the author begins with an anecdote of his childhood, the liberation of Buchenwald. He mentioned the memories of the american soldier’s compassion and rage towards the victim’s situation during the …show more content…
The author questions on many occasions as a tool to get the audience engaged and form opinions. For example, in this section, he asks “Is it necessary at times to practice [indifference] simply to keep one's sanity…?” He brainstorms ideas as to why society disdains the “other” ones; possibly because it is easier to look away than to be troubled by another’s pain and despair. In this section of the oration, Wiesel infuses the use of pathos to evoke emotions in the audience by commenting on the conditions of the prisoners in Auschwitz. “They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it.” He indicates that they were not only outcasted and forgotten by society but also abandoned by God himself by claiming “Better an unjust God than an indifferent one.” He relies on the use of repetition of the word indifference to portray the message of the speech and defines it in various ways to help the public develop a deeper