{"id":1980587,"date":"2023-07-23T05:30:02","date_gmt":"2023-07-23T09:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/to-stop-the-dead-from-dying\/"},"modified":"2023-07-23T05:34:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-23T09:34:16","slug":"to-stop-the-dead-from-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/to-stop-the-dead-from-dying\/","title":{"rendered":"Preventing Death&#8217;s Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">6<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fto-stop-the-dead-from-dying%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1980587&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Elie \u2064Wiesel: Confronting \u200cthe Silence<\/h2>\n<p>Winston Churchill\u200c called the Holocaust a &#8220;crime without a name.&#8221; \u2062Elie Wiesel, one \u2062of its \u200dmost eloquent\u200d survivors, would spend\u2062 the rest of \u2062his life trying\u200c to find\u200c the \u200cwords\u200d to describe\u200d what for many seemed incomprehensible. That he often succeeded \u2063is a testament to \u2062his greatness. In his new book, <em>Elie Wiesel: Confronting \u2063the\u2062 Silence<\/em>, \u2064Joseph Berger profiles a \u2062man who became not only a\u200d spokesman for Holocaust survivors,\u2064 but the \u2062living\u2062 embodiment of their \u2063calls to &#8220;never forget.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;By\u2063 the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-video-texas-national-guard-to-begin-turn-back-program-at-rio-grande-says-governor\/\" title=\"EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Texas National Guard to Begin 'Turn Back' Program at Rio Grande, Says Governor\">sheer force<\/a> \u2062of his personality \u200cand \u200dhis gift for the haunting phrase, Mr. Wiesel, who had \u2062been liberated from\u2064 Buchenwald as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/shrier-why-girls-become-boys\/\" title=\"Shrier: Why Girls Become Boys\">sixteen-year-<\/a>old\u200b with the indelible tattoo A-7713 on his\u2063 arm, gradually exhumed the Holocaust from the \u2062burial \u200bground of \u200cthe history books.&#8221; &#8211; Joseph Berger<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Wiesel\u2019s works, \u2063particularly his 1960 \u2062memoir, <em>Night<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/president-trump-texas-gov-abbott-to-visit-southern-border-on-june-30th\/\" title=\"President Trump, Texas Gov. Abbott to visit southern border on June 30th\">spread awareness<\/a> about the\u2063 Holocaust \u2063at a moment when much of the world would have rather forgotten a crime \u2062whose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/to-stop-the-dead-from-dying\/\" title=\"Preventing Death's Victory\">barbarity\u2063 remains hard<\/a> to fathom.<\/p>\n<h3>A Little Hasidic Boy from Sighet<\/h3>\n<p>Wiesel was born in the \u2062Carpathian town of\u200d Sighet, then a part of Hungary. On the eve of the Holocaust, 40 percent of \u200cits 10,000 residents were Jewish, many of them Hasidim. The town was deeply cultured, with eight synagogues, an elegant hotel,\u2064 and\u200b a\u2062 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/graham-how-to-blow-up-the-lefts-terrorist-narrative\/\" title=\"GRAHAM: How to Blow Up The Left\u2019s Terrorist Narrative\">publishing house<\/a>. \u2062Like many of Europe\u2019s shtetls, or\u2062 Jewish communities, it\u200b would become a lost world.<\/p>\n<p>As a child, Wiesel displayed a love for both books and \u200dmusic that would remain with him all his life. He was fascinated with \u2064the mystic and the otherworldly. His\u2064 idyllic life \u200bwould\u200c change, however, when on March 19, 1944, Nazi forces occupied Hungary. Reports\u200c reached \u200cSighet warning of what was to \u2062come. On the eve \u200dof\u200d Passover, Nazi forces ordered the town\u2019s synagogues\u200c to\u2064 be closed and soon \u200dthe Jewish community had \u200dto\u2062 surrender their possessions, \u200dlivelihoods, and eventually, their very lives.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I felt like I was living\u2014not learning \u200bbut living\u2014an incandescent \u2064chapter of history; one that \u200dlater generations would study,&#8221; Wiesel would one day write. But that introspection \u2063came later. First came\u2063 surviving.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;My little sister wanted to \u200bbe \u200cbrave,&#8221; he would write. &#8220;And \u200cI wanted to die in \u200cher place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Wiesel witnessed unimaginable horrors.\u2064 He saw his father, whom he revered, \u200cbeaten and humiliated. He saw children\u2014some of them babies\u2014thrown screaming into fires. The Holocaust, he\u2064 would later say, was &#8220;an indictment of\u2062 our present world.&#8221; He would \u2064never \u200cforget, never forgive, the world\u2019s inaction and the barbarism\u2062 that he saw.<\/p>\n<p>Wiesel survived. His father did not.<\/p>\n<p>At war\u2019s end, Wiesel\u2062 found himself in France, housed and fed \u2062as part of a program for those \u2063orphaned by the Holocaust. He resisted suggestions to return to Sighet. &#8220;The \u200dtown,&#8221; he wrote, &#8220;no longer \u200dexisted. \u2064It had followed the Jews into deportation.&#8221; Eventually \u2063he contacted his \u200ctwo surviving sisters. And it wasn\u2019t long\u200c before he began to wrestle with all that he had endured. \u2062Importantly, he initially chose to stay in France.<\/p>\n<p>In Paris, Wiesel studied at the Sorbonne, read Plato and Freud in\u2062 French, attended lectures by philosophers like Jean-Paul \u200cSartre and Martin Buber, and became immersed\u200b in \u2062the caf\u00e9 \u2064life of\u2064 the Latin Quarter. He began \u200cto write. And, \u200cif fleetingly at first, \u2062he became a journalist.<\/p>\n<p>As Berger notes, these years were crucial. Elie \u2063Wiesel was not the only Holocaust survivor. But his years in France, and his lifelong existential struggle, made him view his experiences through a\u2062 different lens.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;I \u200bowe\u2064 France my secular \u2063education, \u2063my language\u2062 and my \u2062career as a writer. \u200cLiberated from Buchenwald, it was \u200cin\u2062 France that I found compassion \u2064and \u2063humanity,&#8221; he \u2062wrote. Wiesel, Berger notes, had \u2062a \u200d&#8221;lifelong\u2062 penchant\u200c to \u200bview the universe in\u200c transcendent\u200d terms, to allow for the \u200cpossibility of\u200d the\u2062 mystical and surreal, to see himself as something of a mystic.&#8221; And &#8220;not surprisingly, more than \u200ca \u2063few people saw \u2063in Wiesel an otherworldly aspect, like\u2064 that of a biblical prophet.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In the \u200bspring of \u200b1954, while on a voyage \u2062to Brazil, Wiesel\u2064 wrote <em>Night<\/em>, \u200bin which he recounted his experiences. &#8220;I wrote \u200bto testify, to stop the dead from dying, \u2062to justify my\u200c own survival,&#8221; he recounted in his memoir. &#8220;I wrote to speak to \u2063those who were gone. As long as I\u200d spoke to \u200cthem,\u2064 they\u200c would live on, at least in my memory.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Wiesel had a difficult time getting the manuscript published.\u2062 One editor turned\u200b him down, telling Wiesel &#8220;no one is\u200d interested in the death \u2064camps anymore.&#8221;\u200c And when it was\u200c finally\u200d put to \u200dprint, the book sold precious few copies.<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s miraculous victory in the 1967 Six-Day War \u2064would prove to be a turning point. A renewed interest in the plight of world Jewry, and Wiesel\u2019s prolific \u2063output, spurred attention. At the time of its\u2062 publication, there were precious few \u200bpublished testimonies and books about the slaughter of six million Jews. <em>Night<\/em>,\u2064 buoyed by Wiesel\u2019s &#8220;deliberately spare style,&#8221; as he \u2062put it, \u2063helped change that. &#8220;Every phrase\u200c was a\u2063 testament,&#8221; \u200bhe said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Night<\/em>, and the modest success \u200cof some of his other\u2063 works, pushed Wiesel to the forefront\u200c of\u200c the world\u2019s \u200cemerging \u2062consciousness about\u200d the Holocaust.\u2064 He became a sought-after lecturer, author, \u2062essayist,\u200b and teacher\u2014the latter a\u2062 title that he prized above all else. The\u2062 world might\u2063 have wanted to \u200cforget, but he wouldn\u2019t let it.<\/p>\n<p>By the time of \u2064his death in 2016, Wiesel \u2063had become a \u2062renowned voice for the voiceless,\u200c calling on the world \u2064not only to remember\u2062 the Holocaust but to prevent future genocides. He was \u200dunafraid \u2062to reproach U.S. presidents and other\u2064 world leaders for their mistakes and failures, and remained an ardent advocate for Israel and the\u200b Jewish people.<\/p>\n<p>Although the book\u2019s \u2063ending is marred by the \u200bauthor\u2019s decision to characterize Wiesel\u2019s friendships with certain pro-Israel \u200dfigures\u200b like Sheldon Adelson as &#8220;missteps,&#8221; it is a\u200b beautifully written, even-handed, and illuminating account of an\u2062 unassuming, but haunted man \u200dfrom a\u200d small shtetl who warned that &#8220;the opposite of love\u200d is not hate,\u2063 it is indifference.&#8221; At a\u2062 time\u2062 of rising anti-Semitism, both the message \u2064and the man are worth\u2062 remembering.<\/p>\n<p><em>Elie \u2064Wiesel: Confronting the Silence<\/em><br \/>  by Joseph Berger<br \/> \u2064Yale University Press, \u200c360 pp.,\u200d $26<\/p>\n<p><em>Sean Durns\u200d is a senior \u2064research analyst for\u2062 the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East \u2063Reporting and Analysis.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Winston Churchill labeled the Holocaust as nameless crime. Elie Wiesel, a survivor, dedicated his life to finding words for the unimaginable. His success in describing it is a testament to his greatness. In his latest book, &#8220;Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence,&#8221; he continues his mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1936,"featured_media":1980588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1980587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1936"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1980587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1980588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1980587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1980587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1980587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}