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Reflections on Night from Mayor Michael Sullivan
Mayor Michael Sullivan’s address from One-Book
Holyoke’s Kick-off event on March 6, 2007, at the
Lynch Middle School.
I want to express my appreciation for members of One-Book
Holyoke from the City of Holyoke for bringing the experience
of reading to a common forum and for opening a dialogue
of profound importance by choosing Elie Wiesel’s Night
as this year’s featured book.
This book has the power of personal experience; it is told
by a person of character, of conviction and of incredible
resolve.
Wiesel’s experiences are sometimes hard to fathom
as we worry about the cold or which fast food restaurant
to stop at for our next meal. Whether at Buchenwald or Auschwitz,
it was sometimes faith, opportunity or a melding of both
that allowed him to survive when so many others were slaughtered.
The atrocities he faced and witnessed were by any measure
unspeakable, yet he found his voice by writing.
It makes us uncomfortable that man was responsible for
this misery, this horror that young Wiesel bore witness
to, a man not appreciably different than you and me. That
man was responsible for inhumane action against human beings.
There were so many that could have helped, but did nothing.
Christians turned their backs and somehow justified the
actions. Friends and neighbors who seemingly changed overnight.
It seems inconceivable. And there were those who will today
claim it never happened, or it was greatly exaggerated.
Why? Because for some it is easier to say it is just a story.]
But it is not fiction, although it is a tale of horror.
Elie Wiesel continues to be a voice for peace. Recently,
I believe in California, he was attacked. One cannot deny
his courage – today or in the 1940s.
Just twenty years ago, Elie Wiesel was rightfully awarded
the Nobel Prize for Peace. He spoke in that address about
his passion for his religion, his commitment to Israel and
his abhorrence of anti-Semitism as well as apartheid.
But he also spoke about how he felt that violence and hate
would never bring peace, that he was dismayed that, “Both
the Jewish people and the Palestinian people have lost too
many sons and daughters and have shed too much blood.”
He went on to say that our lives no longer belong to ourselves;
they belong to those who need us desperately.
He said this as someone who had, “emerged from the
Kingdom of Night.” He spoke of some of the places
in the world that were witnessing the inhumanity of man
some twenty years ago: Chile, Ethiopia and Poland.
Today he would add Darfur, Rwanda, and other places of
sorrow.
We need to take up a call to do what is right and let those
who struggle know that they are not alone.
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