Excerpt from "Hope, Despair, and Memory"

Imprisoned in a concentration camp during World War II, Elie Wiesel survived to fight against hatred and persecution. His efforts were rewarded by the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Here are some words that connect to his acceptance speech's themes of hope, despair, and memory.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 10 Unit 2's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Where I'm From, Funny in Farsi, Kaffir Boy, Pick One, If You Are What You Eat, Persepolis, poems about parents, Hunger of Memory, Thanksgiving: A Personal History, Time to Assert American Values, Rough Justice, On Civil Disobedience, On Surrender at Bear Paw Mountain, On Women's Right to Vote, Declaration of the Rights of the Child, School's Out for Summer, One Word of Truth, Hope, Despair, and Memory
15 words 190 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. summon
    ask to come
    If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future.
  2. despair
    a state in which all hope is lost or absent
    His mother, his father, his small sister are gone. He is alone. On the verge of despair.
  3. shield
    a protective covering or structure
    He makes a few friends who, like himself, believe that the memory of evil will serve as a shield against evil; that the memory of death will serve as a shield against death.
  4. void
    an empty area or space
    Stripped of possessions, all human ties severed, the prisoners found themselves in a social and cultural void.
  5. resound
    ring or echo with noise
    Even their silence was the same for it resounded with the memory of those who were gone.
  6. repress
    put out of one's consciousness
    Is it not natural for a human being to repress what causes him pain, what causes him shame?
  7. option
    one of a number of things from which only one can be chosen
    For us, forgetting was never an option...
  8. cease
    put an end to a state or an activity
    The Talmud tells us that without the ability to forget, man would soon cease to learn.
  9. reconcile
    make compatible with
    How are we to reconcile our supreme duty towards memory with the need to forget that is essential to life?
  10. compel
    force somebody to do something
    Each one of us felt compelled to bear witness.
  11. propitious
    presenting favorable circumstances
    it would be enough to find the right word and the propitious moment to say it, to shake humanity out of its indifference and keep the torturer from torturing ever again
  12. anemic
    lacking vigor or energy
    We would have to invent a new vocabulary, for our own words were inadequate, anemic.
  13. defy
    elude, especially in a baffling way
    The experience of the camps defies comprehension...
  14. solidarity
    a union of interests or purposes among members of a group
    We may be powerless to open all the jails and free all prisoners, but by declaring our solidarity with one prisoner, we indict all jailers.
  15. obligation
    the social force that binds you to a course of action
    None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness.
Created on Mon Oct 13 14:36:15 EDT 2014 (updated Mon Oct 13 15:03:51 EDT 2014)

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