Holocaust survivor hopes to inspire

WILKES-BARRE – Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel may have been the featured speaker at Wilkes University’s Outstanding Leaders Forum on Tuesday night, but he said he does not consider himself a leader.

“I’m a teacher, a writer,” the noted author, lecturer and Holocaust survivor told the sold-out crowd of 1,808 at the F.M. Kirby Center. But he does hope to inspire leaders, present and future, with his sharing of wisdom that he’s gained from a lifelong yearning to learn. He said teaching is part of his makeup.

It’s been more than 60 years since Wiesel witnessed and endured the horrors and tribulations of the Holocaust.

It took him 10 years after World War II ended and he was liberated before he put his experiences of life in the concentration camps onto paper. The memoir that would be known worldwide as “Night” was originally written in Yiddish with the original title, “And the World Remained Silent.”

When it was finally published in English, 3,000 copies were printed and it took three years for them to sell out.

“Not only had the world remained silent,” said Paul Browne, the dean of the Sidhu School of Business and Leadership at Wilkes, “it seemed that it wanted to remain unaware.”

But Wiesel does not remain silent, and he’s willing to discuss his experiences any chance he gets in the hope that the atrocities of the past won’t be repeated. He’s an ardent fighter for human rights.

“Night” is required reading for many students worldwide, including some locally.

Matthew Kasper, a 17-year-old senior at Wilkes-Barre’s GAR High School, read the memoir five years ago. He and about 120 other high school students from Northeastern Pennsylvania had a chance to sit down with Wiesel at the Westmoreland Club on Tuesday, three hours before the Kirby Center lecture.

What he and the other students heard, Kaspar guessed, is likely something Wiesel shares on a daily basis.

“He may be repeating the same thing over and over again, but each time he does, it he reaches more people,” Kasper said.

Wiesel, a professor at Boston University, typically favors college settings. The sit-down with high school students at the Westmoreland Club was something he does not do too much.

He said it’s very rare that he holds a forum with high school students, but he felt their questions were poignant and sought meaningful answers.

Some of the students at the forum had not read “Night,” which tells of his experiences in several concentration camps during the Holocaust, in which he lost his father, mother and sister.

Erin Hohol, a junior at Lake-Lehman High School, read the book last year and said she was “emotionally touched by it greatly.” She said it inspired her to learn more about the atrocities of the Holocaust.

“It’s impossible to not seek more information about it,” the 16-year-old from Lehman Township said.

The evening also gave two Coughlin High School students a chance to show their National History Day project to the man who inspired it.

Hunter Bednarczyk, 14, of Bear Creek Township, and Sergey Seintozelskiy, 15, of Wilkes-Barre Township, created an informational display on the life of Wiesel for a class project last year when they attended the Bear Creek Community Charter School. In included a clay sculpture they made depicting a hand reaching out of the Earth, representing Wiesel’s attempts to touch all corners of the world with his helping hand, Seintozelskiy said.

While his lectures and books might be seen by some as a therapeutic way to cope with what happened to him, Wiesel disputes those notions.

“I don’t want to be cured,” Wiesel said. “I want to remember more and more and more.”

He said he reads every book that’s published on the Holocaust and watches every documentary “hoping I will understand. But I don’t.”

Julie Mercadante, a senior at Meyers High School, said she could never imagine going through what Wiesel did, but she was glad he survived and used those experiences to teach others what humans can do to other humans. She said it is even more important to share the wisdom with students.

“If we don’t teach younger generations history, we’ll repeat (it),” Mercadante, 17, said.

Wiesel said if he gets anything across to those who hear him it’s “not to accept indifference.” Indifference, not hate, he said, is the true opposite of love.

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