68
Friday, September 27, 1985 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
COMMENT
This drawing of life in Auschwitz
was done by David Olere, who was
imprisoned in that camp.
The Whole World
Has Become Jewish
Auschwitz and Hiroshima
are the deadly connection.
BY ELIE WIESEL
Contributing Editor
Auschwitz and Hiroshima:
two names which inspire ter-
ror. One evokes the end of
humanity, the other, the final
Apocalypse of the planet.
Both reveal the curse which,
40 years later, weighs on our
generation: it moves forward
with a constant sense of an-
guish. Humankind knows, we
all are there to remind it, that
the impossible is unfortu-
nately possible. People set
evil free, and henceforth seem
unable to restrain it. Ausch-
witz and Hiroshima: when
one overtakes the other, it
will be the end of the human
adventure in history.
However, one must neither
compare nor confuse them.
Hiroshima was a cruel, even
inhuman, decision, but it was
part of a global military
strategy; it was intrinsically
linked to the war in the
Pacific.
Auschwitz was conceived
as an operation which had its
own justification. Indeed, the
death camps had been erected
during the war, but their
functioning was independent
of it. One can even say with
certainty that, in strictly
military terms, Auschwitz
was harmful to the Nazi war
effort. The millions of soldiers
who worked in concentration
camps would have been more
useful on the front. The trains
that brought Jewish convoys
from all corners of occupied
Europe would have better
served the Wehrmacht by
transporting troops. In his
perverse, nefarious philo-
sophy, the "Final Solution"
had a higher priority for
Hitler than his army.
As a symbol, Auschwitz
implicates the past while
Hiroshima announces the
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