Night by Elie Wiesel

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Recommended: Importance of silence

Many people don’t care about something or an issue until it happens directly to them or to their loved ones. Even if it were nations becoming alienated, they wouldn’t want to go near the problem or the unfairness and instead, they choose to runaway. Elie Wiesel addresses this problem in a short paragraph by saying: “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere…. Action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all.” Elie Wiesel asserts that the world community is responsible to interfere when acts such as mass murder or genocide occur. He says that “silence encourages the tormentor” and “indifference is the most insidious danger of all”. One must speak out against oppression so there can be a difference. When one remains silent and doesn’t act, they are encouraging the person responsible for the genocide, not the victim. Thus, at times when one thinks that they are just being neutral, this neutrality invites more oppression, and even worse, if one were to have a whole nation with this type of mindset. That is why I agree to Elie Wiesel’s contention about standing up against oppression.
Most people think that their voice or action against injustice won’t help because they are just one human being, but if one were to have a whole nation with this type of mentality, then there would be no one to stop the oppression from continuing. Elie Wiesel’s book, “Night,” shows the hardships and traumatizing events that Wiesel had gone through. For example: “ As we were permitted to bend down, we took out our spoons and ate the snow off our neighbors backs. A mouthful of bread and a spoonful of snow. The SS men who were watching were g...

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...ng to not be affecting anyone at all. By not taking action, she is being indifferent, which Wiesel says is “the most insidious danger of all.”
Everyone has a responsibility to fulfill towards another. That is, if one were to see injustice happening to another, they are bound to do something to help that person. Throughout the history there have been nations that have stood up to this injustice and others who have remained silent, leading to genocide of a whole nation. If the people in the nation of the oppressed would have stood up to the injustice, it would have encouraged others to do so as well and this could have made the tormentors be brought down thus, bringing peace to people of the nation. If everyone has this type of attitude that they know their voice counts, then the world would not be a place that tolerates oppression, but a world that welcomes freedom.

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