Ellie Tischler

Prof. Geiselman

ENG. 1101-537

15 October 2019

Fixing the Tragedy

Elie Weisel’s story started around sixty years ago and is a part of the time forever

remembered as the Holocaust. On April 12, 1999 in Washington D.C. the survivor himself

presented a speech called “The Perils of Indifference”, to the President, the First Lady, and

members of Congress. The purpose of Elie’s speech was to discuss the indifference that happens

all around the world. He goes into deep detail to express his experience to make it sound as real

as it was. Throughout the whole speech he appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos very well.

Logically he stated how many tragedies all over the world have occurred as in wars,

assassinations, mass killings, etc. The emotional and credibility side of it comes from the way he

presented himself while speaking as well as through his use of explanation towards his personal

involvement in the Holocaust. Overall, this speech was so effective from the rhetorical appeals

demonstrated in it.

In Elie’s speech the logical standpoint is very easy to follow. He uses many examples that

are very popular, so it is not difficult to understand where he is going with the information. An

example he uses is “These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity: Two World Wars,

countless civil wars, the senseless chains of assassinations (Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther

King, Sadat, Rabin)”. These examples of tragedy are just the start to the meaning of his essay.

Logos empowers this speech because from the speaker's point of view using your logic can help
you go a long way. In life, you have to learn to reflect your future from the past and learn from

past experiences. Being logical is one way to help.

When listening to the speech the first time, the emotional side did not stick out right

away. As I listened more deeply to the wording it became clear of how agonizing his experience

was. One thing that really stood out was “They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared

nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it”. This statement just shows how

in Auschwitz, people didn’t even know themselves anymore from the terrible treatment. It goes

farther into the inhumane part of the Holocaust of detiorizing innocent people just because of a

different belief. The descriptions of the concentration camps is what makes this speech so

noticeable in showing emotion.

As stated before indifference is what empowers the successes of this speech. Indifference

is a word seeming to not have much meaning, but to Elie Weisel it has justification that goes so

far. Repetition is used in this speech by the use of many examples of indifference. This helps the

audience understand the main point of the speech. It makes the speech persuasive for people to

believe terrors can be avoided if violence became something to want to fix and not be ignored.

Ethos comes about to the audience from Elie providing solutions to the issues that occurred.

“Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment”. From this quote, you can take notice

that people simply are just punishing themselves by having indifference in their life. People need

to accept the fact and make changes. Elie is trying to encourage people to put this in effect.

As a whole, Elie Weisel used a type of language to get his point across firmly. He mostly

is trying to inform the listeners to show how things can be prevented through motivation. By him

explaining his experiences in concentration camps when he was a little boy, gets to the point of

how he accepted the fact that his life has been a journey filled with negatives, but he knows that
and is making a heroic story out of it. Society is something that happens to be different all

around the world, but the meaning of this speech was to influence all society as one. “The Perils

of Indifference” was an influential speech by Elie Weisel illustrating problems with solutions

through different appeals.

Work Cited

Weisel, Elie. “The Perils of Indifference”. 12 April 1999, Washington D.C. Keynote Speech