Elie Wiesel — Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (1986)

“Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” A Holocaust survivor’s appeal to never stay silent.

Elie Wiesel was deported to Auschwitz as a teenager and survived the camps. He spent the rest of his life bearing witness, most famously in his memoir Night.

When he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, he spoke about memory, about the boy he had been, and about the obligation of everyone who sees injustice to speak up. The Nobel Foundation publishes the full speech free to read, along with a recording.

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