Argumentative Essay On Night By Elie Wiesel

Words: 675
Pages: 3

“No one is an island unto himself. Everything in life affects us all.” (Freddy Diament) The Holocaust is a point in history that affects everyone. “Night,” by Elie Wiesel sheds light on the trials Elie faces as a young Jewish boy during the Holocaust. Due to his Holocaust experiences, Elie Wiesel learns many positive lessons to advocate human rights, such as peace, the vitality of memory, and the value of never being silent. The Holocaust teaches Elie Wiesel a major part of human rights, peace, through his personal experiences. In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Wiesel says, “Violence is not the answer. Terrorism is the most dangerous of answers.” (Wiesel 119) This quote states that instead of fixing a problem with violence, look at the situation and solve it with peace. When Wiesel is in the concentration camps, he witnesses the Nazis terrorize hundreds of innocent people, but none of this pain is necessary if peace solves the problem. Wiesel gives an …show more content…
Wiesel says, “That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.” (Wiesel 118) He is saying that, since the goal of the Nazis is to erase the world’s memory of the Jews, if important lessons taught by the Holocaust are forgotten, then the Nazis will succeed. History repeats itself, so applying lessons from the past prevents the same horrible events from reiterating. Wiesel reflects on the awful things he witnesses during the Holocaust when he says, “The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind was meant to be sacrificed.” (Wiesel 118) If people forget the memory of the Holocaust, then evil wins and valuable lessons burn. The vitality of memory is a very important aspect of human rights that Wiesel expresses in his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech in Oslo on December 10,