Wordless Wednesday: Music Edition

The Golden Tribe Lecture Series: Elie Wiesel

"Life is not made of years,

it is made of moments.

The song of moments make up life,
and define out entire existence."

-Elie Wiesel

Some of the greatest things we will experience in our life will happen when we least expect it.  Since I was in 8th grade I've studied (from time to time) and written several papers on the book Night by Elie Wiesel.  While some people tend to think that Night is just another piece of literature, they tend to forget it is a memoir, a piece of fact and history.  When I first read the book I realized that Elie was only a year or two older than I was at the time when he lost half his family upon arriving at Auschwitz during World War II.  He was a prisoner of the Nazi government for 2 years before being liberated, traveling to France to study and eventually being a Noble Laureate.

Tuesday night, along with Becca and several thousand others, I had the opportunity to sit in on a lecture by Elie Wiesel himself.  It's hard to believe the life he's lived, it's so inspiring.  While I listened to him I just thought about the amount of work he's done in an effort to help/aide others in his 83 years and the small amount that I've tried to do in my 23 years.  He truly made me consider why I chose to go to Mexico in the summer to build houses, why I'm so mission driven.  While our efforts are vastly different from each other, they have the same reasoning, to better the experiences of life of those who are suffering and to put an end to indifference.

"The Captains under Hitler were all PhDs (...) Cultured people simply cannot do certain things.  People who enjoy a concerto by Schubert simply cannot kill children, but here, they did.  What happened to make culture fail them?"

I don't think that, as a general public, we knew how smart the Nazi leaders were as a whole.  To be so educated and to be so twisted in thought about a group of people they didn't know, or care to understand, is something that is difficult to understand.  How is this possible?  The more educated you are, the more you should research before making such drastic moves.  I guess Hitler was more convincing that I had realized.

The lecture closed with a question and answer session, including what I considered to be the question of the hour: What would you say to someone who denies the Holocaust happened?  Elie's response was simple, "Nothing..."  Receiving a round of applause for this, he continued saying we shouldn't have to justify what he doesn't believe because he will never understand it the way we do.  We shouldn't have to convince someone that things like this have happened or are happening now.