1. Elie Wiesel’s “The Perils of Indifference” Analysis
Explanation for using “shades of black” as our background: His speech starts off filled with joy: the day he was released from the concentration camp. It progresses into a darker mood: a description of indifference, what was happening in Germany, and how the USA knew about these acts. He ends with a message of hope: the USA and other counties are now intervening for the innocent. Also, Wiesel is considered a “messenger for mankind” – he is bringing knowledge and hope to the world through his charities and his writings. Also, we selected the font “Chiller” for certain portions of our presentation. This speech is a warning, and this font has an eerie look.
Megan Ariail and Jessica Ciokan

2. Who is Elie? Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel September 30, 1928 Sighet, Romania
The Jewish faith & Nazi Germany
1944 -Auschwitz-Birkenau & A-7713
[Wiesel’s Background] What the speaker would say: Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet Romania. His parents, Shlomo and Sarah, emphasized compassion and their religious faith, Judaism. Elie had three sisters: Hilda, Beatrice and Tzipora. While the Jews in Sighet heard rumors of the Nazis’ agenda, no one believed the terror would reach them. On May 6, 1944, the German army took over Sighet, and all of the Jews in that community were sent to the extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was separated from his mother and sisters, and Elie was reduced to a number: A-7713.

3. Elie Wiesel April 11, 1945 – liberation
While he survived in the concentration camp, his mother, father and his youngest sister did not. Elie and his sisters reunited at a French orphanage, and then they emigrated to Canada.

4. A “Messenger to Mankind"
Teacher/professor, choirmaster, journalist and humanitarian
1955 – Night
Over 32 awards
1986 – Novel Peace Prize
1996 – American Academy of Arts and Letters
Professor at numerous American universities
Over 19 honorary degrees
Author of 57 books
[Wiesel’s Achievements] What the speaker would say: Elie Wiesel’s humanitarian efforts shine in our dark world. After surviving the concentration camps, he worked as a choirmaster, a Hebrew teacher, and later a journalist. For nearly ten years after the war, Wiesel refused to discuss his experience during the Holocaust. After meeting with the French author, Francois Mauriac, the 1952 Novel Laureate in Literature, he decided to share his experiences. He is now a renown author, professor and humanitarian. Most notability, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee called Elie “a messenger to mankind” because of his advocacy for those without a “voice.” Through the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, Wiesel continues to advocate for many causes: Israel, Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the victims of apartheid in South Africa, Argentina's Desaparecidos, Bosnian victims of genocide in the former Yugoslavia, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, the Kurds, the crisis in Darfur and Sudan, and the Armenian genocide.

5. The Millennium Lecture Series
President Clinton and the First Lady
9 speeches, lessons or cultural showcases
(top) Professor Stephen Hawking discussed the laws of science and their effect on human life.
(bottom) President Clinton with First Lady Mrs. Clinton
[Historical/Social context and audience] The speaker would say: Elie Wiesel delivered his message, “The Perils of Indifference” during the 7th Millennium Evening on April 12, The White House’s Millennium Evenings were a series of nine speeches, or lessons, and cultural showcases hosted by the President Clinton and Mrs. Clinton that emphasized the creativity and ingenuity of the American people. The nine lectures presented scholars, artists, creators and researchers: professor ad Pulizter Prize winner Bernard Bailyn, professor Stephen Hawking, Poets Laureates Robert Pinsky, Robert Haas and Rita Dove, Grammy winners Wynton Marsalis and Marian McPartland, Professor Natalie Zemon Davis and Professor Martin Marty, Professor Nancy Cott, Professor Alice Kessler-Harris and Dr. Ruth Simmons, Elie Wiesel, Dr. Vinton Cerf and Dr. Eric Lander, and Dr. Marcia McNutt, President and Astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson. The public (American and abroad) had access to these presentations through newscasts.

6. “A Violent Century” Two World Wars “countless civil wars”
Assassinations of 5 public figures
“bloodbaths” in:
Cambodia
Algeria
India
Pakistan
Ireland
Rwanda
Eritrea
Ethiopia
1997
Serbia versus Kosovo
Ethnic cleansing of Albanian Muslims
NATO and the USA intervenes
[Historical/Social context] The speaker would say: Wiesel’s speech highlights the violence of the 20th century, and his audience would have been familiar with the “two World Wars, the countless civil wars, the assassinations” of numerous public figures and the “bloodbaths” around the world. Most significantly, his audience would be familiar with the ethnic cleansing occurring in Kosovo and Serbia. In 1997, the Serbians began an ethnic cleansing of all Albanian Muslims, thus causing a civil war between Kosovo and Serbia. A refugee crisis arose: thousands of citizens fled Kosovo. Similar to the Holocaust and other ethnic cleansings, children were forced to leave their homes, separated from their families and forced onto trains. By 1998, NATO and the United States intervened to end the genocide. This is the first successful attempt any nation to intervene and stop ethnic cleansing.

7. “The Perils of Indifference”
His greeting:
“excellencies”
“friends”
Opening anecdote:
“a young Jewish boy”
Survival of “Buchenwald”
liberation by American soldiers
“there was no joy in his heart”
Definitions:
perils = serious & immediate danger
indifference = lacking interest, concern or sympathy
Explication: In his speech “The Perils of Indifference,” Wiesel emphasizes the serious and immediate danger that occurs when people lack interest, concern and/or sympathy, and he highlights that so many people could have been saved if someone had cared enough to speak, to act and to fight (rule of 3).
Wiesel opens his speech with a salutation to President Clinton, First Lady Hilary, Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, Excellencies and friends. This technique appeals to the audience’s needs and emotions [pathos], and it creates credibility in the speaker [ethos]. Wiesel considers “us the audience” his friends; we are included. He is credible because he was asked to speak to “us” by the president of the United States. Since he is apart of the “Millennium Lectures,” we know he has an influence, a voice, the 20th century.
He continues to build his credibility [ethos] as an expert on “indifference” and the human experience by telling a short anecdote about “a young Jewish boy” who was “liberated a day earlier by American soldiers.” If the audience did not already know, Wiesel is a survivor of the Holocaust. The pain he describes opens his audience’s heart [pathos]. His picture, his imagery, pulls at the audience’s heart with phrases like: “there was no joy in his heart,” “he remembers their rage at what they saw,” “he will always be grateful to them for that rage, and also their compassion” and “their eyes told him what he needed to know.” A child should be filled with joy; he shouldn’t be robbed of it. His audience connects with his description of the men; “eyes are the windows to the soul”… and these soldiers were broken at this sight. Wiesel describes this universal human connection. In the second paragraph, he lets his audience know that boy was him: “And now I stand before you…” He again creates pathos by thanking the First Lady: he touches his audience’s patriotic heart strings and humanity through Mrs. Clinton’s work with the children. The audience sympathizes with the children, the homeless and the victims.

8. Close Reading of Paragraphs 3 & 4
Rhetorical Device
Rhetorical Appeal
Example
1) Rhetorical Questions
Logos & Pathos
“What will the legacy of this vanishing century be?”
What is indifference?
2) Hypophora
1) “What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means ‘no difference.’ A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness…”
3) Description and Imagery
Ethos & Pathos
1) “These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity.”
4) Historical and Social Context
Logos
Both world wars, civil wars, assassinations, bloodbaths, gulag, Hiroshima, Kosovo + more
5) Repetition
Pathos
“indifference”
4 times; 17 times total
Explication: In paragraphs three and four, Wiesel begins a dialogue with his audience by asking rhetorical questions. He asks his audience, “What will the legacy of this vanishing century be?” and “How will it be remembered in the new millennium?” He employs hypophora by continues by referencing the major “failures” of the 21st century, touching all cultures. This creates ethos and pathos with his audience because he makes the audience see evil as contrasted with good, and he doesn’t limit his examples to the American experience. He comments on worldwide “evil.” Wiesel follows his description of the 21st century with more hypophora. He questions, “What is indifference?” Then, he answers the question with both logical and emotional answers. Using the denotation of “indifference,” Wiesel tells the audience that “indifference” literally means: “no difference.” Throughout his speech, he repeats “indifference” 17 times, 4 in these to paragraphs. This emphasizes his point and keeps it present in his audience’s mind. He proceeds by using imagery to evoke sympathy from his audience: “A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil.” Wiesel compares light to dawn, compassion and good while he compares darkness to dusk, crime, punishment, cruelty and evil. He ends paragraph four with a series of questions that make the “indifference” seem frivolous: “…indifference as a virtue…,” “is it necessary to practice it simply to keep one’s sanity…,” “live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?”
Repetition

9. Close Reading of Paragraphs 5-8
Indifference = tempting?
Our neighbor = the Other
“Muselmanner”
Rule of three: “our work, our dreams, our hopes”
“They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst.”
Parallel structure: “They feared nothing. They felt nothing.”
Explication: Wiesel begins the fifth paragraph by describing how “indifference” can be “tempting” and “seductive.” This shocks the audience, and his sarcasm becomes more apparent throughout the paragraph through his descriptions of everyday excuses. Wiesel makes “that person” look so selfish, who doesn’t want his “work, dreams or hope” rudely interrupted. He plays on our humanity, our human emotions [pathos], our embarrassment. No one would admit to being this unsympathetic: “It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person’s pain and despair.”
He creates ethos by reducing “our neighbor” to “the Other.”
In paragraph seven, Wiesel returns to his opening anecdote, referencing the “Muselmanner.” This derogatory terms was used by WWII captives to describe those who starving, exhausted and resigned to their impending death. Returning to his anecdote emphasizes the “Other.” Wiesel and all those in the concentration camps were the “Others” to the rest of the 1940s world. No one let the Holocaust stop their work, their hopes, their dreams until too late.

10. Close Reading of Paragraphs 8-12
Rhetorical Device
Rhetorical Appeal
Example
1) Rule of Three
Pathos
“You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it.”
“the political prisoner… the hungry child… the homeless refugee”
“the killers, the victims, and the bystanders..”
2) Description and Imagery
“a spark of hope”
“during the darkest of times”
3) Repetition
Indifference
Explication: In paragraphs 8 through 12, Wiesel rebukes indifference: “indifference, after all is more dangerous than anger or hatred.” He argues, “…to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman.” He advocates for some emotion, even anger. Anger at least inspires: anger creates poems, symphonies and other creativity. Indifference is nothing – it’s standing still and emotionless. He encourages and pushes his audience to “…fight it…denounce it…disarm it.” Any action is better than no action.
As Wiesel argues, “indifference” is the end of humanity as we know it. It reduces the world into three categories: “the killers, the victims, and the bystanders.” “Indifference” only helps the “enemy” and the “aggressor” because no one is opposing him. Just a voice, a single voice of opposition, gives the victim a light, “a spark of hope.” But, not indifference, it makes the victim feel forgotten, just like the Jews did during the Holocaust.

11. “Surely, they would have moved heaven and earth to intervene.”
Rhetorical Questions:
Were Auschwitz and Treblinka “closely guarded secrets”?
Did the “leaders of the free world” know what was going on “behind those black gates and barbed wire”?
Why didn’t he allow these refugees to disembark?”
“Why were there so few?”
“Why was there greater effort to save SS murderers after the war than to save their victims during the war?”
“Why did some of America’s largest corporations continue to do business with Hitler’s Germany until 1942?
Explication: The climax of Wiesel’s speech comes in paragraphs when he reveals to the audience that people knew what happening in Germany. The red questions denotes the questions that swirl in the audience’s mind as he describes the Jews’ “only consolation.” Wiesel says that the only thing that made the Jews feel a little something was that they believed no one knew what was going on in Germany. Those inside the camps believed, they had faith, that if anyone knew about them, they would have done everything within their power to save them. But no one did. Wiesel exposes his American audience’s failures: everyone in American, the people with all the power, knew the terror occurring in Germany, and the Pentagon, the State Department, and the president did nothing. [logos] In fact, we send back 1,000 Jews to Nazi Germany who tried to escape on the St. Louis ship. Throughout his description of the “depressing tale” of the fate of those on the St. Louis, he is confused, conflict and angered. He says, “I don’t understand. Roosevelt was a good man…” and “Why didn’t he allow these refugees to disembark?” He continues, “Why were there so few” [who helped the Jews], “Why was there greater effort to save SS murderers after the war than to save their victims during the war?” and “Why did some of America’s largest corporations continue to do business with Hitler’s Germany until 1942? He confusion breaks his audience’s heart. It leaves his audience questioning: Why did this happen and the world sit by and watch? [Ethos]
Pogrom: an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group, in particular that of Jews in Russia or eastern Europe.

12. “Good things have also happened…”
Parallel structure:
The defeat of Nazism
The collapse of Communism
The rebirth of Israel
The demise of the apartheid
Anaphora
This time, the world was not silent
This time, we do respond.
This time, we intervene.
Explication: After horrifying his audience that no one did anything for those in the concentration camps, he shows his audience how they have changed for the better. In paragraphs 18-20, Wiesel highlight the “good things” that have happened during this century. His parallel structure reminds his audience that while the century was traumatic, humanity still fought for humanity. The anaphora in paragraph 20 encourages his audience. His repeated use of “we” in paragraph 20 also encourages his audience creating pathos. The audience feels as though the whole world is working together; no human is working alone.

13. “…carried by…extraordinary hope”
Series of rhetorical questions
“What about the children?”
Rule of three
“the deportation, the terrorization of children and their parents.”
“disease, violence, famine”
Return to his anecdote
“And so, once again, I think of the young Jewish boy from the Carpathian Mountains… And together we walk towards the new millennium, carried by profound fear and extraordinary hope.”
Explication: While he has the audience uplifted, he asks them a series of rhetorical questions. These questions make his audience think: “Does it mean we have learned from the past?” and “Does it mean that society has changed? These series of questions make the audience reflect– have we changed? Will the new century be filled with peace and freedom? Are we, Wiesel’s audience, going to avoid “indifference”? Wiesel believes we will based on his return to his anecdote; while he walks with fear, he is also filled with “extraordinary hope.” Wiesel’s strongest appeal in his message is his appeal to people’s emotions. By showing the inhumanity of our world, he shows us our failures, and he contrasts them with the good we have started to do.