Hello and welcome to this special edition of ‘World in Focus.’ Tonight we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Shoah (also known as the Holocaust). I’m Audra Kahill and I thank you for joining me tonight. In our program we have Eliezer Wiesel, a holocaust survivor, sharing his experiences. We will also focus on the Catholic Church’s struggles throughout the Shoah and discuss reasons for changed emphasis between Pope Pius XII’s Christmas address to the 1965 Papal Document on Non-Christian Religions. We will also explore how the teachings of Jesus and the Catholic Social Teachings are modelled through André Trocmé, a rescuer of the Jews.
We will begin our program by listening to the experiences of Eliezer Wiesel, a Jew who survived the
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tragedies of the Shoah. The mystery of God can be understood through the five models of the church (see appendix D) and is the idea that the Church is open to interpretation. Q: Do you still have faith in God since the Shoah? A: ‘There are all the reasons in the world for me to give up on God.
I have the same reasons to give up on man. And yet … I don’t.’ ‘I have faith. It’s a wounded faith.’
Q: Do you believe God created the Shoah?
A: No, ‘God did not send down Auschwitz... Human beings did it.’
Q: Do you believe God was present during the Shoah?
A: When prisoners were hanged before us at Auschwitz I heard someone say, “Where is God?” I told myself, “God is there.” ‘Even in the camps I never divorced with God.’
Q: What was your reaction when you found out no one spoke out against the Holocaust while it was happening?
A: ‘During the darkest of times, we felt abandoned.’ ‘That is why I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering... Sometimes we must interfere.’ ‘What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.’
Q: I agree with your idea of interfering when human lives are at risk. We must have the courage to speak out against injustices in the hope of making the world a better place. Thank you for sharing with us tonight. We appreciate your words of inspiration.
The model, Church as Institution embodies the idea that there is a hierarchy within the
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Church. In 1942 Pope Pius XII gave his annual Christmas address amidst the ongoing horrors of the Shoah. He spoke of ‘stormy days’ and of gathering together to ‘fight for the human race.’ He also implicitly spoke of the Nazis and the annihilation of the Jews; however, many wonder why there was no direct mention. “There were various perspectives given as to why there was no direct mention of the Nazis in Pope Pius XII’s speech. Some believed he feared for his safety whereas others thought the Pope was attempting to protect Catholics from Nazi persecution. Perhaps, Pope Pius wanted to maintain the world’s limited knowledge as he didn’t want to create waves. For example, in America the extent of the Shoah was not widely known and the Pope may not want have wanted to dispel this. It could also be argued that the Pope was being politically correct to ensure the safety of his institution; however, all this aside, Pope Pius did hide 4,000 to 7,000 Jews throughout the Vatican City.” In 1965 the Papal Document on Non-Christian Religions (also known as Nostra Aetate) was released. This document clearly rejected the ‘notion that Jews bear responsibility for killing Jesus’ which supposedly ended ‘2000 years of persecution.’ Nostra Aetate also denunciated anti-Semitism saying the church ‘decries hatred, persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against Jews.’ There was a clear changed emphasis between the Pope’s 1942 address and the Nostra Aetate. This change is exhibited in the 1955 Good Friday Prayer which labelled the Jews ‘faithless’ and spoke of them as a ‘blinded nation.’ This prayer underwent many revisions and succeeded in removing all disparaging terms. André embodies the model of Church as Servant which is the belief that the church is here to serve the people of the world and share in their concerns. André Trocmé was the spiritual leader of the Protestant congregation in Le Chambon, France.
“Throughout the Shoah, Trocmé preached to his people according to his conscience which told him to ‘resist whenever [their] adversaries demand of [them] obedience contrary to the orders of the gospel.’ When Jewish refugees entered the village ‘the refugees were welcomed without hesitation.’ Over the course of four years 5,000 Jewish lives were saved and ‘not a single Jew was turned over to the authorities.’ When Trocmé and two of his colleagues were arrested for refusing to sign commitment to all government orders, the town continued to shelter Jews for the five weeks that they were detained.”
The actions of Trocmé closely align to the Catholic Social Teachings (CSTs) of Preferential Option for the Poor and Dignity of the Human Person (refer appendix A). Trocmé exhibits the CST of preferential option for the poor through his decisions to make the plight of Jewish people of higher importance than the rest of society. He also displays the social teaching of dignity of the human person when he says to the authorities “I do not know what a Jew is. I know only human beings.” This demonstrates his belief in equality for all people paralleling the definition of dignity of the human
person. Trocmé’s actions also follow the teachings of Jesus outlined in the Gospels. Trocmé modelled Isaiah 58:10 (see appendix B) when he extended the hand of friendship to the Jewish people and sends out a beacon of hope. He also modelled Luke 3:11 (see appendix B) as he shared his home with the Jews and in doing so, risked his safety. Now that we have just reflected on the atrocities of the past, let’s take the time to join in prayer. Please make the sign of the cross. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit, Amen. Please join in saying the following statement: “Dear Lord, Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.” In the parable of the Good Samaritan (see appendix C) Jesus tells his disciples to ‘go and do likewise.’ Please quietly reflect on how we can ‘do likewise’ in our society. Please join in in the following prayer: All-powerful God, Fill us with peace, that we may live As brothers and sisters, harming no one. Help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth, So precious in your eyes. Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle For justice, love and peace. Amen. Please make the sign of the cross What a lovely end to our program. Thank you for joining me tonight on the special edition of ‘World in Focus’ commemorating the Shoah. I’m Audra Kahill and I will see you next week.
In his address to Ronald Reagan, Elie Wiesel attempts to convince the president not to visit the Bitburg cemetery. Weisel is well aware of President Reagan’s situation, and thus, he crafts his speech around rhetorical techniques, namely concession refutation, repetition, and the appeals.
Having an opinion and or a belief is better than not having one at all. A great man such as Elie Wiesel would agree to that statement. He believes standing up for what is right by showing compassion for a fellow human being than for letting good men do nothing while evil triumphs. The message he passes was how indifference is showing the other man he is nothing. He attempts to grasp the audience by personal experiences and historic failures, we need to learn from and also to grow to be the compassionate human being we all are.
“Understand Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Mission.” The Holocaust Research Project Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2014
Elizer’s personal account of the holocaust does not merely highlight the facts of the holocaust: millions suffered and the event was politically and religiously motivated, but provides an in depth investigation to what a person endured mentally, physically, and emotionally. Beginning as a teenager, Elizer thought highly of God and of his own beliefs, however, that quickly diminished when he was put into a system of sorting and killing people. During the holocaust, Elizer was not the only person to change; almost everyone suffered and changed differently. The stressful and harsh times affected Elizer just as they affected the person working next to him in the factory. Elizer quickly began to question everything “I pinched myself: Was I still alive? Was I awake? How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent?” (Wiesel 32). Although Elizer forms this mentality, he also finds the will to survive, to protect his father, and to not turn into the people that were aro...
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (Elie Wiesel)
After he became a free man, it dawned on him that he had to speak for those who were silenced by this atrocity. He made it his life's mission to inform people of his story not for pity, but for prevention, “.that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides with this. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” Elie made the best of a bad situation.
When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant.” (Moore) While living in brutal conditions, Wiesel did everything he could for himself and others. He prayed almost four times a day for the ending of the holocaust. Fighting through starvation, Wiesel was never selfish and continuously worked to help other Jews escape. While helping others, Wiesel was still a young man with hope to escape himself and tell his stories to the world.
“I am obsessed with silence because of the silence of the world. I do not understand why the world was silent when we needed its outcry. I always come back to that problem. Where were the humanists, the leaders, the liberals, the spokesmen for mankind? The victims needed them. If they had spoken up, the slaughtered would not have succeeded in his task.” - Elie Wiesel
Eliezer Wiesel loses his faith in god, family and humanity through the experiences he has from the Nazi concentration camp.
In April, 1945, Elie Wiesel was liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp after struggling with hunger, beatings, losing his entire family, and narrowly escaping death himself. He at first remained silent about his experiences, because it was too hard to relive them. However, eventually he spoke up, knowing it was his duty not to let the world forget the tragedies resulting from their silence. He wrote Night, a memoir of his and his family’s experience, and began using his freedom to spread the word about what had happened and hopefully prevent it from happening again. In 1999, he was invited to speak at the Millennium Lectures, in front of the president, first lady, and other important governmental figures,. In his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, he uses rhetoric devices to get emotional responses and to connect with the audience. He wants to create awareness of the dangers of indifference and show how there needs to be change. His speech eloquently calls out the government for their lack of response during the Holocaust, and warns against continued disregard for the struggles of others. He sees indifference as being the ally of the enemy, and without compassion there is no hope for the
Mr. Wiesel had intended this book to describe a period of time in his life that had been dark and sorrowful. This novel is based on a survivor of the greatest Holocaust in history, Eliezer Wiesel and his journey of being a Jew in 1944. The journey had started in Sighet, Transylvania, where Elie spent his childhood. During the Second World War, Germans came to Elie and his family’s home town. They brought with them unnecessary evil and despair to mankind. Shortly after young Elie and thousands of other Jews were forced from their habitats and torn from their rights of being human. They were sent to different concentration camps. Elie and his family were sent to Auschwitz, a concentration and extermination camp. It would be the last time Elie sees his mother and little sister, Tzipora. The first sights of Auschwitz were terrifying. There were big flames coming from the burning of bodies and the crematoriums. The Jews had no idea of what to expect. They were not told what was about to happen to them. During the concentration camp, there was endless death and torture. The Jews were starved and were treated worse than cattle. The prisoners began to question their faith in God, wondering why God himself would
As the second cold war came to an end, the real truth about the Jewish Holocaust...
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
I thought angrily. How do You compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to You their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Master of the Universe, in the face of all this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do go on troubling these poor people’s wounded minds, their ailing bodies? … Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. … But look at these men whom You have betrayed, allowing them to be tortured, slaughtered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? The pray before You! They praise Your name! … I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man.” (Wiesel
Dwork, Deborah, and R. J. Van Pelt. Holocaust: a History. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.