It’s never good form to speak ill of the dead, especially when the dead is a Nobel laureate whose words, more than anyone else’s, gave the generations a witness to the worst evil in human history. But for all of its power and all the immeasurable good it has done through the years, Wiesel’s witness was an imperfect one. Wiesel dedicated his incomparable literary and rhetorical skills, along with his undeniable ethos, not just to making sure the world never forgot the Holocaust for its own horrors, but also to guaranteeing that the world would remember those horrors with purpose. It’s not exactly clear who coined the phrase “Never Again,” but if you had to put a face to the phrase, that face would most likely be Wiesel’s. For Wiesel, “Never Again” meant never again anywhere, whether it be Bosnia, Rwanda, or Darfur. And that’s why Wiesel’s legacy with regards to the Roma is so confounding, if not troubling.
Noah Roderick 