Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts Dean Michael Engh, SJ, and Elie Wiesel following Wiesel's Jan. 31 speech.

In an inspiring speech delivered to the LMU community on Jan. 31, Nobel Laureate and author Elie Wiesel stated that education is crucial in preventing the spread of hatred.

More than 3,200 students, faculty, staff members and special guests welcomed Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust who has dedicated his life to global human rights activism, with a standing ovation last Wednesday in Gersten Pavilion. An estimated 1,000 spectators in line outside Gersten could not be accommodated.

In his address, Wiesel commented that historically Jews have been perceived as ‘the other’ and declared hate to be the principal reason. “[Hatred] cannot be treated as a disease, it should be treated preventatively…and the only way to treat effectively a disease like that, is education.”

Wiesel and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz when he was 15 years old. His first book of memoirs, “Night,” which has been translated into more than 30 languages, recounts his experience in the death camp and the atrocities he endured alongside his father.

In preparation for Wiesel’s visit to LMU, copies of the book were made available to students. With more than 40 books published, Wiesel noted that his tales are of despair and serve as a testimony so history does not repeat itself.

“There is no room for hate at Loyola. There should be no room for hate anywhere in the world,” exclaimed Wiesel.

At the beginning of his journalism career, he stated feeling shame for the first time in his life. While working in the south in the 1960s, he felt shame not for being Jewish, but for being white, and could not conceive how segregation laws could be so inhuman.  

Through the Elie Wiesel Foundation, he brings hope and supports the human rights concerns of many peoples including Soviet Jews, Nicaragua’s Miskito Inidans, Argentina’s Desaparecidos, Cambodian refugees, victims of famine and genocide in Africa and especially the Ethiopian-born Israeli youth.

He emphasized that as human beings we are not alone and should think of and speak to one another.

“Hope can generate hope, just as goodness can bring goodness,” said Wiesel. “You have the right to be our own self … your right should be shown to ‘the other’ with respect.”

In his career, he was appointed chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. Wiesel was founding chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and is the founding president of the Paris-based Universal Academy of Cultures. He is also the chairman of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, based in New York. 

Since 1976, Wiesel has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in Humanities at Boston University. In addition to the Nobel Prize, he has received hundreds of honorary degrees from institutions of higher education for his literary and human rights activities.

A video podcast of the Wiesel address is available to members of the LMU community via Manegate.