His youth marked by the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps that claimed his parents and a sister, Elie Wiesel continues his life's campaign on behalf of the oppressed. Last month, in remarks to an Ithaca College Commencement gathering of some 10,000, Wiesel urged people to "sensitize" themselves to the plights of others, lashed out at racism, and cautioned about not learning lessons of the past.
Wiesel recalled that his May 19 address at the College's 101st Commencement came 52 years to the day that the people of his childhood home in Romania "arrived in a very dark place" and that it was the last time he saw most of them.
A key to a peaceful world, said Wiesel, lies in the ability to be sensitive to the suffering of others. "What do you think your teachers or mine have tried to do when they taught you Shakespeare or Plato or mathematics or physics or health, especially health? They tried to sensitize you . . . to other people's pain and to other people's concern and to other people's fear. Not to be sensitive to them would mean not only a tragedy to them, but for yourselves.
"In 1945, the worst tragedy . . . that shakes us up to this day was when a few hundred children . . . who had survived camps, fighting, hunger, and humiliation, refused to live-they allowed themselves to slide into death," Wiesel continued. "They had enough strength to survive the war but not to live in a normal world, which had, according to them, betrayed them. That is one important lesson . . . never allow anyone to feel abandoned -- anyone, be that person or that group of a different color, a different creed, a different ethnic origin. Never allow anyone, I repeat and I emphasize, to feel that he or she has been neglected, abandoned by their fellow human beings."
Wiesel drew applause from the throng with his condemnation of racism. "What we can do is to say or to scream if need be that separation is a calamity, [that] only unity is grace. What we can do and say is that racism is so stupid; it is so ugly. It is not only unfair and not only unjust, it is stupid to believe that a person because of his or her color is different."
Wiesel says that while he speaks often of the past, it is not out of his being possessed by it. "The past cannot vanish nor do I want it to vanish, but the past is a scenery, it is the context, and from within that context and built on it I try to see the future. For one thing, as a teacher, as a writer, and as a former student and a friend, I don't want my past to become your future."
The Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, Wiesel has used his talents as an author, teacher, and storyteller to enlighten and inform his audiences worldwide. He and his wife, Marion, founded the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, whose mission is to advance the cause of human rights and peace by creating a forum for the discussion of urgent ethical issues confronting humanity. Naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1963, Wiesel was recognized in 1986 with the highest of honors, the Nobel Peace Prize. His latest memoir, All Rivers Run into the Sea, was published in the United States last fall to critical acclaim.
Also
offering Commencement remarks to the 1,362 graduates and their
guests were board of trustees chairman Herman E. Muller Jr. '51,
senior class president Michelle Fraser, and College president
James J. Whalen. Muller saluted Whalen for his 21 years of leadership
at the College, and cited the recent announcement by the Park
Foundation of a gift of $10 million to the College in honor of
Whalen's "long and distinguished career" (see sidebar,
page 1).
Fraser
spoke of how Ithaca College has prepared graduates to enter the
working world. "The transition from college to the real world
is not an easy one, but we cannot stay here in this safe haven
forever," Fraser said. "We must leave and make room
for those who will come after us. It is a risk, but it is one
that is worth taking. Without risk takers we would not be where
we are today."
Fraser also took the time to reflect on the college experience. "Over the past four years we have lived and learned in this small town called Ithaca," she said. "At times it seemed like the four years would never end. Now it seems like they went too fast. As we celebrate Commencement, we need to take everything we have learned here and use it out there. The four years we have spent here have laid the foundation for the rest of our lives."
In his remarks, Whalen spoke of the pace of change in today's world as perhaps the graduates' biggest challenge. "Change is a constant in the human experience, but what separates your generation from your predecessors' is the incredible acceleration of change that permeates every dimension of your life," Whalen said. "As you embrace a lifetime of rapid change, it will be more important than ever to preserve the continuity of your traditions and to seek equilibrium in your lives. Your generation must preserve what is wise and humane in our society, past and present, while building ever more vital traditions for years to come.
"Knowledge is indeed the key to the information society, but in your future the locks will always be changing," Whalen continued. "You will constantly be challenged to maintain the mastery of your field as you are inundated with unprecedented amounts of information and new technologies. Tools that will be common in the workplace of your career have not yet been invented. The dizzying pace of around-the-clock global markets may alter the rules of commerce in ways that business schools do not yet teach. Technological or scientific advances that have not yet occurred may change the standards of your professions, and you may be the one who will rewrite those standards. The adaptability and determination it will take just to remain current in your occupation will be greater than has been demanded of any prior generation."
Whalen congratulated graduates for the determination they have already shown and urged them to build upon it. "Of course all of you know that today is just the beginning," Whalen said. "As you head off for graduate school or your first job, or to look for that first job, you know that you will need that strong sense of determination all the more. It is a quality that must remain with you throughout your life, one you must exercise frequently to keep it strong. It is a very old-fashioned virtue that will serve you well in a modern age.
"At Ithaca," he said," in learning how to teach music, to be a physical therapist, accountant, or filmmaker, you have all learned how to learn . . . and that may be the most important lesson of all."
Whalen reminded graduates that Ithaca, now, is a part of each of them. "In all the months and years since those first days of your freshman year, you have grown closer to each other and to many of the members of this special campus community," he said. "Today, as you leave Ithaca, you will take that community with you, because it has become a part of you. And in a sense, you will never truly leave, because you have become a part of Ithaca."
