A History Sandwich

Elie Wiesel uses a clever structure—he brings together both his personal recollections and facts about the atrocities of the 20th century to allow the audience to both pick up the information he's laying down and empathize with the various victims of a century of horror.

Wiesel talks about how fighting indifference is everyone's responsibility and how as human beings we have a responsibility to one another to do better. As proof, he mentions civil wars and world wars, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and suffering from all over the world. He brings together all the evidence he can.

And this evidence is sandwiched between his brief recollections of his own experiences with the consequences of indifference. It's impossible to read/listen to this speech without vividly imagining the horrors of the events he's describing…and that's exactly the effect Wiesel has in mind.

How It Breaks Down

Section 1: Sentences 1-12

A Somber Anniversary

Elie Wiesel began a number of his speeches with a story, and "The Perils of Indifference" is no different. He talks about his liberation from Buchenwald 54 years earlier and why he was—and still is—so grateful to the Americans.

Section 2: Sentences 13-35

Indifference Might Sound Harmless…But It Isn't

According to Wiesel, it might seem both easy and harmless to ignore atrocities, but the effect is anything but banal.

Section 3: Sentences 36-65

Lessons From History

History is full of the consequences of indifference: the Holocaust, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and civil war…to name a few.

Section 4: Sentences 66-73

The Killers, the Victims, the Bystanders

During the Holocaust, people fit into one of three categories: killer, victim, or bystander. As a result, people like Wiesel—the victims—felt alone and abandoned by the rest of the world because few people reached out to help them.

Section 5: Sentences 74-99

They All Knew More Than They Let On

It turns out that the Pentagon had information on what Hitler was doing to Jews over in Europe, and FDR and the Allies chose not to intervene. Even worse than that, U.S. companies continued to do business with Hitler well into World War II. It's hard to explain away that kind of indifference, and it's unacceptable.

Section 6: Sentences 100-125

Pandora's Box

The 20th century was filled with horrors upon horrors. But despite all he'd experienced and all the things he'd seen, Wiesel is still hopeful that things will get better.