Honored Mr. Wiesel

I was asked to write this as an out of class assignment, perhaps this speaks to you positively, as my generation now has the educational imperative to study the Holocaust. However, to reduce my reaction to your Night into a purely academic exercise is an insult to the things you went through, and the way your recount affected me. Night spoke to me, although I cannot possibly understand the things you went through, the need to bear witness to the Kingdom of Night resonated with me.

I was twelve years old, living in New Zealand at the time. There was a meek and awkward child called Lionel in my class, I later learned that he was autistic. He had a strange tendency to cover his mouth when he spoke, and when he did speak, it was in the strangest, most intriguing manner; he opened his mouth and it would sound as if he was sucking the words out of his bowels. We would all laugh at Lionel, throw things at him and then chuckle insanely as he stared dreamily ahead. When I was walking home one day, I saw a group of boys pushing Lionel around, and suddenly one of them struck him across the face with such force that he fell down. Lionel just lay there, silent, it was as if the granite floor itself was smothering him. They all laughed. “F***ing retard” they spat. Like feral dogs they descended on him, clawing, punching, kicking. I kept on my way, and tried to forget what I saw. I did not say a word, I did not lift a finger, I did not help Lionel. After that he was hospitalized for some time with a broken jaw, the boys responsible were ultimately expelled from school. But now I realize what I witnessed; the Dominion of Night and the apathy of me as a bystander. It was what I saw that evening, and my uselessness, as I permitted bigotry to descend and beat an innocent child my own age, that reflected upon me as I read Night.

Reading Night disgusted me, because it wasn’t the mantra of hatred by the Nazi Regime that twisted humanity in The Holocaust. It was the blank stares, and idle “What can I do?”’s that ultimately perpetuated such a desecration of everything it means to be human. Dr. Wiesel, I am not even old enough to remember the aftermath of the Holocaust, after all I am barely old enough to drive. But it was bystanders like me, and the apathy I showed four years ago, that allowed the Holocaust to happen. We have not learned our lesson; The Cambodian Killing Fields, the Rwandan Genocide, Darfur, and so much more. There are millions of Lionel Johnson’s in this world, victims of hate, victims of bigotry, and victims of indifference. Night wasn’t an account of a son and a father’s time at Buchenwald. It was a call to action; to prevent such things from happening again. It was a description of everything that is wrong with our humanity. There is no happy ending in Night, because the happy ending is up to people like me; The useless indifferent faces. But I will no longer stand idly as an Autistic boy gets beaten into the cold granite, I will no longer stand idly as bigotry and hatred spreads. I will no longer be idle, because “Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.” Lionel Johnson needed me, desperately, and I abandoned him. I shall never allow that to happen again.

Sincerely,

Tommy Y., Grade 11