HURRY DUE TOMORROW TO THE PERSON THAT ANSWERS ALL AND ARE MAINLY RIGHT) Read the speech “After Auschwitz” by Elie Wiesel (below).

Then, reread the lines indicated with each question below. Answer each question, citing text evidence. SUBMIT text entry box.

Lines 1–19: What does Wiesel do to get listeners’ attention at the beginning of his speech? Why might Wiesel have chosen to begin this way?

Lines 4–6: What repetition is in these lines? What is the impact of the repetition?

Lines 25–33: Note the phrase “kingdom of darkness” in line 25. Find a parallel phrase in the next paragraph and describe the impact of both phrases.

Lines 37–39: What meaning does Wiesel’s choice of the word blasphemy convey?

Lines 51–60: What words and phrases convey an ethical appeal? What is the impact of this language on the tone of the speech?

Lines 61–64: What elements of Wiesel’s conclusion make it an effective ending for the speech?
“After Auschwitz, the human condition is not the same, nothing will be the same.” (Wiesel)

Here heaven and earth are on fire.
I speak to you as a man, who 50 years and nine days ago had no name, no hope, no future, and was

known only by his number, A7713[1].A narrow passage with a barbed wire fence on both sides.
I speak as a Jew who has seen what humanity has done to itself by trying to exterminate an entire

people and inflict suffering and humiliation and death on so many others.
In this place of darkness and malediction[2] we can but stand in awe and remember its stateless,

faceless and nameless victims. Close your eyes and look: endless nocturnal processions are converging here, and here it is always night.
Here heaven and earth are on fire.

Close your eyes and listen. Listen to the silent screams of terrified mothers, the prayers of anguished old men and women. Listen to the tears of children, Jewish children, a beautiful little girl among them, with golden hair, whose vulnerable tenderness has never left me. Look and listen as they quietly walk towards dark flames so gigantic that the planet itself seemed in danger.

All these men and women and children came from everywhere, a gathering of exiles drawn by death.

Yitgadal veyitkadash, Shmay Rabba.[3]

In this kingdom of darkness there were many people. People who came from all the occupied lands of

Europe. And then there were the Gypsies and the Poles and the Czechs . . . It is true that not all the victims

were Jews. But all the Jews were victims.

Now, as then, we ask the question of all questions: what was the meaning of what was so routinely

going on in this kingdom of eternal night. What kind of demented mind could have invented this system?

And it worked. The killers killed, the victims died and the world was the world and everything else

was going on, life as usual. In the towns nearby, what happened? In the lands nearby, what happened?

Life was going on where God’s creation was condemned to blasphemy[4] by their killers and their

accomplices.

Yitgadal veyitkadash, Shmay Rabba.

Turning point or watershed,[5] Birkenau[6] produced a mutation[7] on a cosmic scale, affecting man’s

dreams and endeavours. After Auschwitz, the human condition is no longer the same. After Auschwitz,

nothing will ever be the same.

Yitgadal veyitkadash, Shmay Rabba.

As we remember the solitude and the pain of its victims, let us declare this day marks our commitment

to commemorate their death, not to celebrate our own victory over death.

As we reflect upon the past, we must address ourselves to the present and the future. In the name of

all that is sacred in memory, let us stop the bloodshed in Bosnia, Rwanda and Chechnia; the vicious and

ruthless terror attacks against Jews in the Holy Land.[8] Let us reject and oppose more effectively

religious fanaticism and racial hate.

Where else can we say to the world “Remember the morality of the human condition,” if not here?

For the sake of our children, we must remember Birkenau, so that it does not become their future.

Yigal veyitkadash, Shmay Rabba: Weep for Thy children whose death was not mourned then:

weep for them, our Father in heaven, for they were deprived of their right to be buried, for heaven itself

became their cemetery.