4111.11•11• ■■ " PEGEIT PLUS A special procirann for Older adults with memory impairments Talking With Wiesel Nobel laureate talks of the Holocaust and human nature. HARRY KIRSBAUM Staff Writer Regent Plus, located in Regent Street of West Bloomfield, is a customized program for older adults with memory or cognitive impairments. We offer the type of care you want for your family member in a safe, secure and comfort- able environment. As the emphasis is on personalized care and attention, Regent Plus has been designed to accommodate only 14 residents. Specialized activities and programs will ensure that everyone will continue to enjoy the highest quality of living possible. we encourage people to bring their own familiar and treasured belonging, including their own furniture. Having the possessions you have lived with for many years helps to make everyone feel more at ease. Our emphasis is on care. Our goal is to maintain each person's dignity. 4 PEGrhIT PLUS at gentozred ofclad cB1004eld 4460 Orchard Lake Road 248-683-1010 RF everyday 20% off everyday 20% off everyday 20% off everyday 21Yeve7daY 20% off Our Store Is Still Filled LOCATED IN THE ORCHARD MALL 6385 ORCHARD LAKE ROAD AT MAPLE WEST BLOOMFIELD 48322 248.855.4488 MONDAY-SATURDAY 10AM - 5:30 PM THURSDAY 10 AM - 8 PM With Great Gifts For You and Your Friends! Items Under S25 Excluded. and gallery Your neighborhood store for twenty years. iltrket Street , lorist We've Moved To Farmington! ti, Call Us For Your Next Special Occasion 5/7 1999 248-426-3330 41‘. - N _ 800-767-9037 i ii 18 lie Wiesel, Holocaust sur- vivor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, author and profes- • sor, will deliver the com- mencement address at Michigan State University today, May 7. Earlier in the week, he spoke with the Jewish News by phone about the Holocaust, human nature and God. Following are excepts from that con- versation: to recover what was theirs, or their fam- ily's or the Jewish people. Not for things to continue as if nothing happened. The question that I ask is, "Why so late? Why so late? Why didn't they think of it in 1945, 6, 7," and so forth. What should happen to unclaimed reparations? I think it should go to Jewish communities all over the world. Will we ever learn from history or is it just in our nature to destroy each other? It's in our nature to learn and then to destroy. The problem is it's What has sparked American interest inhuman to be human, in the Holocaust? Is it and it's human to be because the Jewish presence human. That's the philo- in this country is so strong? sophical enigma that we No, the Jews themselves are confronting. weren't interested for so Was Eichmann human many years. No, I think it's or not? It's human to simply because it takes some learn, and it's human not time for an event to reach the to learn. And ultimately consciousness of a person. It the choice is ours. takes a generation or two. In Ultimately, human beings psychiatry, they call it latency. are free in their souls, in The American slogan is, their minds, in the core `Where were you during the of their being, they are Elie Wiesel war? What did you do?' free. And therefore they What happened there, of are responsible. course, was centered in American If Jews are the Chosen people, is Jewish communities. The young espe- their separateness and persecution more than oth- cially wanted to know part of their being chosen? ers. And slowly, it penetrated the collec- I don't think that persecution is tive awareness of the American nation. something that we wanted, but it was With Schindler's List a few years ago, imposed on us. At-no time did Jews and now Lift is Beautiful, do you see want to be persecuted. And they didn't a cultural shift in the view of the want to be chosen either. I don't think Holocaust? In both movies, we seem that Jews should consider themselves to have won something. to be superior or inferior to any other I am not a movie critic. I believe in people. We are different. words more than I believe in images, How has your concept of God but I belong in the minority in that. changed over the years? Many novels are being written, many That's not on the telephone he films are being made, many plays are We could just talk and talk. laughs). being produced. And, of course, more That's too serious. When I left my and more books appear. town I was very, very religious. I am I favor, of course, testimonies of sur- less now, but I still consider myself to vivors or their children. There must be be a religious person. some personal relation to the subject. So surely it shows the subject has become What do you say to survivors who something which cannot be ignored. still think that God does not exist Are you interested in survivor repa- rations? It's not my field. I was offered, I was even pressured, to have the presi- dency of a fund in Switzerland, but I refused because it's not my field. I'm not a finance expert. I think it's important for the victims after what they've been through? I don't know. I think the survivor has all the right to think so, as do the other survivors who think God does exist. Man's relation to God is so personal, I would never dare to interfere, or to judge. Who am I to judge them? ! 1