Following the example of Elie Wiesel

elie 

September 30th is Elie Wiesel’s birthday. Dear Mr. Wiesel is one of my heros – this caring man endured so very much, but has responded in kindness, compassion, and calls us all to be peacemakers. I find in him an example to follow.

The following text is copied from this link:
http://www.peacemakersguide.org/peace/Peacemakers/Elie-Wiesel.htm

Elie Wiesel
1928 – to present
He did not bring warring parties to the peace table;
nor did he lead a nonviolent revolution. Why, then,
was Elie Wiesel chosen for the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize?
Elie Wiesel was fifteen when he boarded a death train
to Auschwitz. Wiesel takes us through that living hell
vividly in his book, Night. But he does not leave us
there. His gift to humanity is a living hope – a hope
burned to ashes in the crematorium and yet, like the
legendary phoenix, rising to new life. Wiesel stands
witness to a power of transformation, within the grasp
of the human spirit, which lives beyond the reach of
even the most artful devices of evil. Wiesel felt it
his duty, as a survivor, to reject evil’s greatest
weapon: despair. His message to us, the living, is
that indifference is the worst sin of all.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent
injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail
to protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a
single human being, man can save the world. We may be
powerless to open all the jails and free all the
prisoners, but by declaring our solidarity with one
prisoner, we indict all jailers. None of us is in a
position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to
denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War
leaves no victors, only victims…”

“Mankind needs peace more than ever, for our entire
planet, threatened by nuclear war, is in danger of
total destruction. A destruction only man can provoke,
only man can prevent. Mankind must remember that peace
is not God’s gift to his creatures; it is our gift to
each other.”

from Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1986