With a sense of personalized urgency, 68-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel placed the responsibility of keeping memories of the Holocaust alive on the students sitting in a capacity-filled Spaulding Auditorium last night.
"What will I do when the last survivors are gone -- something I'm sure all survivors think about," Wiesel asked, emphasizing the fact that the Holocaust occurred about 50 years ago and the number of remaining survivors is declining.
Wiesel said it is "our task to serve as the custodians of memory."
Memory, he said, serves as a cathartic release for Holocaust survivors but also serves as the best hope to insure that history will not repeat itself.
"Six million men, women and children perished in the tempest of fire and fury," Wiesel said. "Did God weep or is it possible that God wept and humanity was not moved? If it wasn't moved, then will it be moved now?"
He also warned against revisionist attempts to discredit the memories of Holocaust survivors.
Throughout his speech titles "The Assault on Memory," Wiesel made numerous references to Holocaust revisionists or "deniers" who challenge the existence of the Holocaust.
"They are rich and well-organized and their aim is to destroy Jewish memory," he said. "It is our duty to maintain it."
But Wiesel was strong in denying the validity of their claims and took personal offense at their attempts to discredit the truthfulness of his own writings, which are based on his memories.
"I will never grant them the dignity of a debate," he said.
Citing his visits to Cambodia and Bosnia, Wiesel disavowed any comparisons between these instances of attempted ethnic cleansing and the Holocaust.
"There are no Auschwitzes -- nothing ever was like it and nothing ever will be," said Wiesel, a survivor of both Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps. "It can be compared only to itself."
"This is a unique event in recorded history, universal in its applications and implications," he said.
Wiesel praised the efforts of teachers and professors whose efforts to keep the memory alive have kindled a "fascination" with studying the Holocaust.
"If the ashes of the Holocaust are still so warm in our hearts and minds, just imagine if you can, what the flames must have been like."
Wiesel also discussed his trip a few ago to Buchenwald, a camp that Russians later used to imprison Nazi war criminals.
"Many died there and now they are building a memorial honoring Nazi victims of Russians," he said. "How can one not be worried about the future of memory?"
The speech was the keynote address of the International Conference on the Holocaust titled "Lessons and Legacies III: Memory, Memorialization and Denial." It was sponsored by the College and the Holocaust Education Foundation.
Opening remarks were delivered by Theodore Weiss, president of the Holocaust Education Foundation, and College President James Freedman.
In a press conference before the speech Wiesel acknowledged that fictionalization of the Holocaust in the form of movies is damaging to the memories of the survivors and those teaching about the Holocaust.
"I would never criticize literature, but I do not like films that trivialize the subject," he said. "I am a firm believer in documentaries."
Wiesel, who has written more than 30 books, said, "I write always for young people -- I try to celebrate learning."
Wiesel received a standing ovation in Spaulding Auditorium after his speech. The College also broadcasted his speech to a capacity-filled Loews Auditorium and to about 25 people in 105 Dartmouth Hall.
Wiesel is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and is this year's Class of 1930 Fellow.
