Hero: Elie Wiesel

One of our features is a hero who we think exemplifies the positive traits of a human being. And one of our heroes is more than just a hero, he is a truly great person. I am honored to nominate Elie Wiesel.

Born in Romania, Wiesel's entire family was murdered by the Nazis. He wrote the famous book Night about this. While the book is incredibly heart-wrenching, it should be required reading for every school child:

Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

And Wiesel made sure that the world did not forget the horrors of the Holocaust. He tried to make it so it did not happen again. He has written many books, with the intent of making sure that humanity does not repeat the same mistakes and that we think about what we are doing. He won the Nobel Peace Prize and met with President Bush to ask that Saddam Hussein be removed from power for his crimes.

He truly is a hero:

Let us remember, let us remember the heroes of Warsaw, the martyrs of Treblinka, the children of Auschwitz. They fought alone, they suffered alone, they lived alone, but they did not die alone, for something in all of us died with them.

Thank you, Mr. Wiesel.

Why I Own a Gun

I was reading a book about the Vichy Regime which ruled France between 1940-1944. The regime was an ally of Hitler and one of its worst crimes was helping in the extermination of the Jews. Below is one of the accounts of someone lucky enough to survive the Holocaust. Remember, one of Hitler's first acts was to take away the guns. So be thankful for your firearms and the right to have them.

In March or April, 1944, we got the dreaded notice that we had been selected for resettlement farther east. The train cars they took us in were actually cattle cars. We entered the cars and sat on our baggage. There was not very much room between us and the roof of the cattle car. Our car had from 80 to 100 people in it so it was quite crowded. We were sifting tight on tight. We had some water and some food but no comfort whatsoever. The cars were sealed. We could not open them from the inside. The w indows were small, open rectangles. Perhaps we could have jumped off the train and run into the countryside, but we did not know ff anyone on the outside would help us. We thought most civilians would probably turn us in. We could not speak the Czech lang uage. It seemed better to go along with the SS and do what they wanted. By that time the war had been going on four or five years. We thought the end might be in sight and we would be liberated.

Our train left the ghetto at six o'clock in the evening. At night as we traveled, we heard gun shots. We did not know why these shots were fired. After the war, I learned the SS troops were on the roofs of the cattle cars shooting past the windows todiscourage people from sticking their heads out. The train was moving at a fairly great speed. We did not know what country we were going through. There was no stopping.

At four o'clock the next afternoon, we arrived in Auschwitz (Ow- Switch) in Poland. When the train stopped, we again thought of trying to escape. But we knew that in Germany most Germans would turn us over to the local authorities for a reward of money or food. We had no way of knowing ff the Poles would be any differe nt. Someone would have to hide us or bring us food. We had no money to pay for our keep. So in the end, to keep our family together, we dropped any plans of attempting to escape.

The doors of the cattle car were yanked opened. The first thing we heard was shouts of, "Out, as soon as you can, out. Your belongings you leave therel" Despite this we grabbed what we could and assembled outside. Before us stood an immense rectangleof land surrounded by electrically-charged barbed wire. This was the Auschwitz death camp.