INIHATID na sa huling hantungan nitong nakaraang Linggo si Elie Wiesel sa isang private service sa Manhattan.

Nagsama-sama ang kanyang pamilya at mga kaibigan para gunitain ang tibay at galing ng Nobel Peace Prize winner at kinilala bilang isa sa mga last firsthand witnesses sa Nazi’s Atrocities.

“This is really the double tragedy of it, not only the loss of someone who was so rare and unusual but the fact that those ranks are thinning out,” sabi ni Rabbi Perry Berkowitz, presidente ng American Jewish Heritage Organization at dating assistant ni Wiesel, sa service sa Fifth Avenue Synagogue. “At the same time anti-Semitism, Holocaust revisionism keeps rising. The fear is that when there are no more survivors left, will the world learn the lesson because those voices will be silenced.”

Milyun-milyon ang nakaalam ukol sa Holocaust sa tulong ni Wiesel, na nagsimulang maglimbag ng mga aklat noong 1950, panahon na wala pang masyadong lumalabas na detalye tungkol sa mga kalupitan ng Nazi. Ibinahagi niya ang nakakapanlumong istorya ng kanyang pagkakakulong sa Auschwitz bilang teenager sa kanyang classic memoir na Night, isa sa most widely read at discussed books noong 20th century.

Humigit-kumulang 70 taon na ang nakalipas nang mangyari ang Holocaust at iilang manunulat na lamang ang naiwan mula sa nasabing panahon. Isa pa si Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor ng Hungary, Imre Kertes, na pumanaw na rin ngayong taon. Tulad ni Wiesel, siya ay 87. Nangangamba si Berkowitz at ang iba pa na tuluyan nang makakalimutan ang mga aral mula sa Holocaust, pero ang iba naman ay naniniwala na magpapatuloy ang mga alaala na pinaghirapang ipagunita ni Wiesel. Sinabi ni Abraham Foxman, dating national director of the Anti-Defamation League, sa service na si Wiesel ay sumulat ng dose-dosenang libro. Batid ni Sara Bloomfield, director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum sa Washington, D.C., na si Wiesel ang dahilan ng pagkakaroon ng mga organisasyon na tulad ng kinabibilangan niya.

“’Night’ really put Elie Wiesel’s personal memories into our personal consciousness and it ended up spawning a global remembrance movement that is very vital today,” sabi niya sa isang interview ng Associated Press.

“He carried a message universally, he carried the Jewish pain, the message of Jewish tragedy to the world but he took it way beyond,” sabi ni Foxman. “He stood up for the people in Rwanda, he stood up for the Yugoslavians, he stood up for the Cambodians,” ani Foxman, na kilala si Wiesel sa loob ng nakalipas na mga dekada.

Noong Linggo, binahagi ng mga nakikiramay ang kanilang personal na paggunita kay Wiesel. Ginunita ni Ronald Lauder, presidente ng World Jewish Congress, ang pagbisita sa Auschwitz kasama si Wiesel noong 1980s at namangha na hindi pagkamuhi ang tugon nito sa pangyayari, kundi “great sadness.”

“And he said to me what I think was one of the most important statements: ‘The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference, it was indifference that brought anti-Semitism to Germany and it was indifference that brought the Holocaust,’” paliwanag ni Lauder.

Ginunita ni Foxman na ilang buwan pa lamang ang nakararaan ay magkasama sila ni Wiesel na nagbalik-tanaw, sa Yaddish, at nag-usap tungkol sa philosophy.

“We talked about forgiveness, we talked about God. He was struggling with it,” sabi ni Foxman. “Well now he’s a little closer. Now he can challenge the Almighty much closer and maybe he’ll get some answers, which he asked, but never got the answers to.”