Elie Wiesel and a thug from Sussex County

To the Editor: News reports have indicated a crazed thug from Vernon attacked the venerable Elie Wiesel. Wiesel luckily survived that attack, whereby the perpetrator sought to discredit the Holocaust. Such a notion is ridiculous, and Wiesel survived the fate that has taken Gandhi, King, the Kennedys and others interested in mankind and spirituality. Wiesel has long spoken out for causes and other more recent genocide, such as Pol Pot’s deeds in Cambodia, Chinese repression and the recent events in Darfur. As a graduate student, I once had an opportunity to hear him speak, and though not Jewish, I came away with a deep sense that this is indeed a spiritual man. He talked about indifference, which was a follow-up to a speech that he made at the White House, which is touching and inspiring. He noted in that particular speech that when adults wage war, children perish. Following world events where children are not only victims, but often soldiers, makes that notion a pivotal one. He also noted that to be indifferent to suffering, such as the Holocaust, and today Darfur, makes the human being that looks away inhuman. Indifference is always the friend of the enemy. During the Holocaust, a ship was turned away from the United States; most of those people were returned back to Nazi Germany and to their deaths. Why did such events happen and why were so few involved in efforts to save those headed for almost certain death? As Wiesel noted “It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, and our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person’s pain and despair. “Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbors are of no consequence. Indifference then reduces the victim to an abstraction, which in my book enables the person to look away. But for those who are indifferent, it is not only a sin, but a punishment.” Once, while doing a project at Nabisco in Fair Lawn, I had an opportunity to stop in an Optometrist with the last name of Held. I had remarked that I had a Professor named Hans Held, whose father was a German General, who attempted an assassination of Hitler. The Optometrist told me that he was of no relation and then showed me his tattoo. I do not remember the particulars, but his discussion with me brought out the horrors of what had happened to him and his family. In any event, it is good that someone of the caliber of Wiesel survived this recent encounter, and hopefully he makes the world realize that never again means never again. In a world someone jades, we all need to stand tall and have our head above the clouds for what is right and just. Bill Weightman Hardyston