OXFORD, Miss. – Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has traveled the world over the past 40 years inspiring others with his story, but he was deeply moved Monday (Feb. 8) as he sat in front of a packed audience at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts.
More than 1,000 people braved the cold weather and rain to hear the speech, which was part of the 2010 Spring Convocation for the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi.
“I am fondly moved being here with you tonight,” he said. “And because of your past, I am touched even more.”
Wiesel – professor, award-winning author, Nobel Peace Prize winner, human rights advocate – is perhaps best known for his 1986 book “Night,” which recounts the almost 11 months he spent as a Jewish prisoner at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
In an hourlong presentation that ranged from his experience during World War II to his views on contemporary issues, Wiesel explained that when he first came to America he visited the Deep South and was deeply ashamed of the legal racism that he observed.
“The way this school has coped with its past and faced its own injustice – that is something that makes me proud to be with you tonight,” he said.
Before Wiesel’s speech, Honors College Dean Douglass Sullivan-Gonzalez presented the 2010 Barksdale Awards to Taylor McGraw and Audrey Seal. McGraw, a sophomore public policy leadership major from Oxford, and Seal, a junior elementary education major from Ridgeland, each receives $5,000 in scholarship money to complete a proposed project. McGraw plans to live in New York City for a summer and write stories about the people he encounters. Seal has designed a summer camp for at-risk students in Greenville.
McGraw said getting to meet Wiesel and hear his advice made a profound impact.
“I am convinced that Mr. Wiesel is God’s intended human being,” McGraw said. “His endless defense of the defenseless and his calls to end indifference speak to his firm sense of humanity and undying courage.”
Just before the evening wrapped up, Mr. Wiesel noted that the Vietnam War ended on college campuses and that the civil rights movement found strength in them. He challenged students to speak out against injustice, to not be indifferent. That will stick with me forever.”
Wiesel encouraged high school and college students in attendance to guard against being indifferent to suffering, and he reminded them that the job of protecting humanity’s rights soon will fall on a new generation.
“The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference,” he said, explaining later, “It is not only the suffering that is so horrible. It is the idea that the suffering doesn’t mean anything to anyone.”
The Honors College continually strives to provide a university forum for world leaders to address students face to face, Sullivan-Gonzalez said.
“We all discover through such encounters that we can and should be change agents as we respond to the pressing political and ethical dilemmas of the day,” he said. “Our students listened to Elie Wiesel’s profound moral voice. He shook us all to the core with his call to challenge indifference and to respond to suffering wherever it may be.”
In response to an audience question, Wiesel said it is the job of the next generation to make sure the lessons of the Holocaust are shared with generations to come.
“Whoever listens to a witness becomes a witness,” he said. “In other words, you will become our witness.”
Wiesel concluded by recounting a 2,000-year-old legend of a man who bought a ticket to travel on a boat with a group. After the boat pushed away from the shore, the man began to dig underneath his seat. When fellow passengers urged him to stop, he said, “Leave me alone. I paid for my ticket.”
The story is significant because it holds a universal truth, Wiesel said. “Whatever happens, we are all in the same boat.”
For more information on the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, visit http://www.honors.olemiss.edu/.
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