Elie Wiesel
(1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
Nobel acceptance speech (1986)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sid…" by Elie Wiesel?
Elie Wiesel 155
writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and … 1928–2016Related quotes
Elie Wiesel
(1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor
“To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed and never the oppressors.”
Marek Edelman
(1922–2009) Jewish resistance member
A True Mensch - Obituary to Marek Edelman by David Rosenberg http://thethirdestate.net/2009/10/a-true-mensch/
Richard Bach
(1936) American spiritual writer
Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit (1994)
“Be silent and safe—silence never betrays you.”
John Boyle O'Reilly
(1844–1890) Irish-born poet and novelist
Rules of the Road.
Freeman Dyson
(1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician
Progress In Religion (2000)
Context: One of the great but less famous heroes of World War Two was Andre Trocme, the Protestant pastor of the village of Le Chambon sur Lignon in France, which sheltered and saved the lives of five thousand Jews under the noses of the Gestapo. Forty years later Pierre Sauvage, one of the Jews who was saved, recorded the story of the village in a magnificent documentary film with the title, "Weapons of the Spirit". The villagers proved that civil disobedience and passive resistance could be effective weapons, even against Hitler. Their religion gave them the courage and the discipline to stand firm. Progress in religion means that, as time goes on, religion more and more takes the side of the victims against the oppressors.
“What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.”
Elie Wiesel
book
Night
In an interview with Carol Rittner and Sandra Meyers in Courage To Care - Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, NYU Press, 1986, p. 2. Also quoted by Yad Vashem http://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/about-the-program.html and Nicholas Kristoff in The Silence of the Bystanders https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/opinion/the-silence-of-bystanders.html, New York Times (March 19, 2006).
Source: Night