A Holocaust Survivor Speaks

SHS students travel to WTAMU to hear Elie Wiesel

 

Rowdy voices disturb the still, hot air on the bus. The air conditioner lets out a negligible stream of cool that does little to lessen the heat. Although it is September 6, the heat makes it feel like August. A haphazard group of Satanta High School Students are prepared for a long trip; many have brought sack lunches, their homework and mp3 players.

            The teenagers are not on their way to an athletic event, but rather to a convocation for incoming freshmen at West Texas A & M University. The reason for the trip: to listen to the words of Holocaust survivor, author, activist, humanitarian and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.

            Hours later, the students were seated in the chilled First United Bank Center in Canyon, Texas, on neatly arranged rows of benches. Below them, the freshman class at WTAMU was grouped together. In front of the class of 2011, a man with mad, grey hair stood at a podium on stage. His image was projected onto a screen above him.

            He spoke with an accent; his words were sometimes hard to understand. It forced one to process what he was saying before the meaning sinks in. There was always a pause after he delivered a bit of humor before the crowd laughed.

The man was younger than many of the students in the audience when he and his family were deported to Auschwitz, a striking contrast to the new lives the college freshmen are just beginning. He spoke of how he envied those seated before him, for they will soon be discovering the novels that he loved. He spoke of his love of education.

Also a humanitarian, the aging gentleman described his own personal reason for his activism. “Everything that I have done has been against humiliation,” Wiesel said, “Ignorance is a form of humiliation.” When someone cannot read, cannot comprehend, they are humiliated, he explained. Wiesel compared an education to a humanitarian act against humiliation.

           

After he finished speaking, the Satanta students rose from their seats and left the auditorium. Though they arrived home late, they were expected at school early the next morning. They are expected to continue their education. With Wiesel’s words, that education takes on a whole new meaning.