"The Perils of Indifference," by Elie Wiesel: List 2

As part of a Millennium Lecture series at the White House in 1999, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel defined indifference (etext found here) to an audience he knew had the power to recognize and prevent its dangers.

This list covers vocabulary from the ninth paragraph through the end of the speech.
10 words 178 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. abandon
    leave someone who needs or counts on you; leave in the lurch
    We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one.
  2. elicit
    call forth, as an emotion, feeling, or response
    Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response.
  3. benefit
    be advantageous for
    And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.
  4. plight
    a situation from which extrication is difficult
    The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory.
  5. deny
    refuse to recognize or acknowledge
    And in denying their humanity we betray our own.
  6. consolation
    the comfort you feel when soothed in times of disappointment
    And our only miserable consolation was that we believed that Auschwitz and Treblinka were closely guarded secrets; that the leaders of the free world did not know what was going on behind those black gates and barbed wire; that they had no knowledge of the war against the Jews that Hitler's armies and their accomplices waged as part of the war against the Allies.
  7. insensitive
    not noticing or caring about the feelings or needs of others
    Are we less insensitive to the plight of victims of ethnic cleansing and other forms of injustices in places near and far?
  8. intervention
    care provided to improve a situation
    Is today's justified intervention in Kosovo, led by you, Mr. President, a lasting warning that never again will the deportation, the terrorization of children and their parents be allowed anywhere in the world?
    The chosen definition is connected to the humane perspective of Elie Wiesel. But since he is addressing the President, he is also connecting to a more political definition: "a policy of meddling in the affairs of other countries."
  9. famine
    a severe shortage of food resulting in starvation and death
    Every minute one of them dies of disease, violence, famine.
  10. profound
    of the greatest intensity; complete
    And together we walk towards the new millennium, carried by profound fear and extraordinary hope.
    The adjective also means "showing intellectual penetration or emotional depth" and "far-reaching and thoroughgoing in effect." All the definitions fit: the fear is intense because it is brought on by the knowledge of all the horrors, pains, and injustices in the world that we cannot afford to be indifferent to.
Created on Tue Jun 03 11:49:51 EDT 2025 (updated Tue Jun 03 11:58:17 EDT 2025)

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