AFTER AUSCHWITZ

(Answer: These absolute statements emphasize

Wiesel’s claim that Auschwitz and the Holocaust in general
changed humanity forever because they showed the depths of
cruelty and dehumanization to which people could sink.)
 (Answer: These words appeal to the audience’s
emotions. He is asking them to imagine seeing and
hearing
horrible events that create emotional responses in
listeners.)
 (Answer: He is expressing the same thought in different
words; both are
statements of extreme anguish. Students may note that
“After Auschwitz” is the title of the speech, and these
sentences are his thesis statement.)
 (Answer: The rhetorical question makes an ethical appeal and
suggests that the answer is so obvious there can be no
disagreement—Auschwitz reminds us that if we are not guided
by moral principles, terrible actions become possible. The
statement in paragraph 18 makes a powerful emotional appeal
about protecting children. The effect of the two together is to
tell the listener this: If you are not motivated by your principles,
then do good for your children.)
ANALYZE TEXT
1. The words are repeated in a slightly different form
in paragraph 13. By repeating his thesis that nothing is
the same after Auschwitz, Wiesel unifies the speech.

2. The parallel sentences that begin the

paragraphs—“I speak to you as a man/I speak as a
Jew”—emphasize the universality of Wiesel’s
experience. The phrases “no name, no hope, no future”
evoke his
desperation as his identity was taken from him.

3. Wiesel uses the image of fire to evoke the horror of

the Holocaust—the deaths of innocents and the burning
of their bodies in crematoria.
4.Wiesel uses this opening line of a prayer that is
said in the Jewish rite of mourning as an effective rhetorical
device. It is a hymn of praise to God that affirms the
mourners’ faith even in the face of loss. Its effect is to
remind the listener of the tragedy that befell the victims
of the Holocaust and to show that the faith of the Jewish
people is not shaken by what happened.

5. Wiesel is calling on his audience to learn from the

past and not turn a blind eye to genocide and other forms
of discrimination that are occurring in the present. When
he says that “we must address ourselves to the present and
the future” and “we must remember Birkenau,” his ethical
appeal is strengthened by his certainty and forcefulness.