Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire

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OMG, that was something! I knew this documentary would be interesting, but it was so powerful and thought-provoking that I found it challenging to participate in the Q&A immediately after: I felt I needed to process everything I had seen before asking any questions.

Wiesel’s “Night” is a classic; it’s part of most high schools’ curricula. It’s one of these rare books that “almost everyone read.” Still, so many things we do not know; at least, I didn’t know. Most importantly, I never saw any footage of Elie Wiesel’s public speaking. And the whole documentary is just that: his own voice. The film director Oren Rudavsky, who spoke with the audience after the screening, said the film was commissioned by the family, but the artistic direction was his, and the family didn’t see the movie until it was finished.

The parts which impressed me most were:

  • The footage of Wiesel talking with Ronald Reagan before receiving the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, when he explains to the President how his planned visit to the German cemetery will be perceived, and what he should do, and how, later, when speaking at the public ceremony where he receives this medal, he repeats the same speech. The way Reagan reacts and responds. (As I said, it’s hard to believe we had such an intelligent and sensible Republican President)
  • His Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, when he says he understands Palestinians but disapproves of their methods
  • His urge to speak up, not to be silent
  • The footage of 13-year-old high schoolers from a New Jersey magnet school, when they discuss “Night” (Rudavsky told us that they made a separate short documentary based on this footage)
  • Said multiple times, both by Wiesel and his former student: suffering is not a badge of honor; suffering is not something that defines you, it’s something that informs you. I can’t stress enough how much I agree with this statement.

I can talk at length about this documentary, but I still won’t be able to convey everything I felt while watching. Five-star rating.

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Published by Hettie D.

My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996. I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future. I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life. As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.

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