Hope, Despair and Memory: What's Up With the Title?

    Hope, Despair and Memory: What's Up With the Title?

      "Hope, Despair and Memory"

      Like many (read: pretty much all) speeches, it was only named after the fact. Beforehand it was just called Elie Wiesel's Nobel Lecture.

      Yeah. That doesn't have much of a ring to it.

      And we think it's aptly named. Hope, despair, and memory are what Wiesel's all about: they make up the three central pillars of the speech. But "memory" is the true star of the show, and Wiesel outlines just how vital the act of remembering, and the sharing of memories, is to preventing unnecessary and unconscionable repetitions of the past.