The Perils of Indifference: Resources

Shortly after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, Elie Wiesel and his wife, Marion, established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, dedicated to fighting indifference and injustice all around the world. You can keep up with all the amazing stuff they're doing on Twitter.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has an entire section of their website dedicated to preventing genocide, and it also includes a section on how to respond if genocide does occur. In other words, a how-to guide to avoid being indifferent to what's happening around the world.

In the speech, Wiesel mentions a group of Christians who worked hard to protect victims of the Holocaust, and this website has lots of information on who they were and what was involved in saving so many people.

The German ship, with 937 Jewish refugees on board, was turned away after spending days in the harbor in Cuba. While none of the passengers returned to Germany, 254 died when the Nazis took control of Western Europe.

Never fear—in this 1998 article, both GM and Ford insist they bear "little or no responsibility" for anything. Reassuring, right?

"It is not because I cannot explain that you won't understand. It is because you won't understand that I can't explain." And it gets even more profound and moving from there.

It isn't hard to figure out why Elie Wiesel is so passionate about fighting indifference when you watch this BBC documentary.

Yeah, it's Hollywood, so you'll have to expect some fiction, but this film chronicles the genocide of almost 1 million people in 100 days and how one person refused to be indifferent to it.

This film, about a protest in Northern Ireland that goes horribly wrong, shows just how bad The Troubles were.

Apartheid in South Africa lasted for decades, and this documentary talks about the history of apartheid, as well as resistance to it, and efforts to rebuild after it was over.

Wiesel returned to Auschwitz with Oprah for an incredibly moving journey back in time. Grab a tissue or two—or an entire box—and prepare for a profound 45 minutes.

After Wiesel gave the speech, he—along with Bill and Hillary Clinton—facilitated a discussion on indifference and fighting it in a new century. The video is a little long, but it's definitely worth the watch.

No, your eyes do not deceive you. It's an entire book—592 pages—detailing how IBM technology throughout the 1930s and 1940s helped the Nazis identify and locate Jews in Europe. We suggest not reading this before bedtime.

Elie Wiesel, age 16, is in the second row, seventh from the left. The photograph was taken after the Americans liberated the camp in April 1945.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has tons of archived photos like this one, which shows the damage to a Jewish shop after Kristallnacht, in November 1938.

In this photograph, the St. Louis waits in the harbor in Havana, Cuba, before it was eventually forced away.