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Elie WieselHope, Despair and Memory
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1986A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Historical Context: Global Conflict of the Late 20th Century
The Nobel Committee awarded Wiesel the Peace Prize at a time of global tension and widespread violence. Formerly national issues of violence and oppression had become global issues by the mid-1980s. Wiesel, for example, mentions South African apartheid, in which a white minority segregated virtually every aspect of society along hierarchical racial lines. In addition, several Arab nations continued to oppose the creation of the state of Israel with violence in various forms. Some of these events feature in the text, including the Neve Shalom Synagogue Massacre, which took place in Istanbul a few months before Wiesel gave his speech; during a Jewish service, several individuals with guns opened fire on devotees. However, Egypt had become the first Arab state to recognize Israel in 1979, and Wiesel’s speech expresses hope that others would follow. He seeks a neutral position in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, condemning Palestinian or Palestinian-inspired terrorist attacks while recognizing the Palestinians’ plight.
The Cold War also continued to percolate in the 1980s, even as it neared its end. In the final lines of his speech, Wiesel refers to the possibility of nuclear war between the United States and the USSR. The re-election of Ronald Reagan, who referred to the USSR as the “Evil Empire,” raised tensions between the two powers. At the time, both had many nuclear weapons ready to launch at each other—an outcome that likely would have caused mass death, sometimes referred to as a “nuclear holocaust.” Tension between the US and USSR was also indirectly responsible for many of the human rights issues Wiesel cites in the speech, as both powers fought proxy wars around the world. The “boat people,” for example, were refugees who left Vietnam after America’s withdrawal from the country—the conclusion of two decades of US efforts to curb the spread of communism in the region. Wiesel mentions such examples to bolster The Argument for Pacifism.
Cultural Context: Holocaust Literature
Wiesel frequently refers to the need for Holocaust survivors to document their experiences in the name of memory. This body of work is sometimes referred to as first-generation Holocaust literature, and it includes writers like Primo Levi, author of If This Is a Man (1946), which focuses on the shame Levi felt for having survived. Aside from Levi’s book and Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl (1947), few other books spoke to the experience of the Holocaust like Wiesel’s own Night. In it, Wiesel’s main question—echoed in this speech—is “why?” One notable work of second-generation Holocaust literature—i.e., literature written by the children of survivors—is Maus by Art Spiegelman. This graphic novel relates the artist’s relationship with his parents as they continue to navigate the aftereffects of the Holocaust.
Although the term “the Holocaust” typically refers to the genocide of the Jewish people specifically, the Nazi’s persecution and mass murder of various other groups—the Roma people, gay men, people with disabilities, Soviet prisoners of war, etc.—have also been documented in literature. In 1946, Tadeusz Borowski’s This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen was first published in Polish. Borowski, who was a political prisoner in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, describes prisoners who collaborated with their Nazi guards to burn other prisoners.
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By Elie Wiesel
