A Boston University fraternity is challenging community members to increase their awareness on national and global tragedies using one of the most widely read books to come out of the Holocaust.
To commemorate Yom HaShoah — Holocaust Remembrance Day — this past Monday, members of the Beta Upsilon chapter of Sigma Alpha Mu, a historically Jewish fraternity, are asking hundreds of BU community members to read Night, the 1958 memoir by Holocaust survivor and BU professor Elie Wiesel about his experiences surviving the Holocaust, before the end of the semester.
The fraternity began its efforts last night in the George Sherman Union’s Metcalf Hall, where community members read excerpts of the book to approximately 30 people, who were provided with free copies.
Sigma Alpha Mu members said they hope their initiative will make BU more aware of present political and social injustices occurring in the country and around the world.
“Night should be read by every college student and educated person, because to be familiar with Night is to be familiar with the greatest tragedy, the Holocaust,” said Steven Katz, director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies.
Fraternity members encouraged the audience to share their copies of the book with others after they finish, whom they will then track through email.
Excerpt readers included Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore, Marsh Chapel dean Robert Hill and Student Union President Brooke Feldman.
“You can learn a lot from the Holocaust,” said Sigma Alpha Mu member and event organizer Larry Tobin. “It is our responsibility to prevent future atrocities and gain tolerance.”
Some fraternity members said the reading was also a way to remember the victims of Monday’s shootings at Virginia Tech, in which professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, was shot and killed while blocking the gunman from entering his class so his students could escape.
“Part of today’s event is that we express concern for events of hatred and senseless violence,” said CAS junior Andrew Kahn, one of the readers. “[Librescu] tried to barricade the doors while students tried to save themselves, so we should remember him today as well as the others who lost their lives.”
Sigma Alpha Mu still has dozens of free copies of Night for interested students, Tobin said.
“We cannot begin to do other things [in] Darfur and Sudan until and unless we acknowledge all wrongs, tragedies and evils of the past and are ready to face them with honesty, because the perils are parallel to the present,” Hill said.