An acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize 

By: Elie Wiesel

No one may speak for the dead.

No one may interpret their mutilated  dreams and visions

It pleases me because I may say that this honor belongs to all the survivors and their children, and through us to the Jewish people with whose destiny I always identify.

Of course since I'm a Jew profoundly rooted in my peoples memory and tradition my first response is to Jewish fears, Jewish needs, Jewish cries. For I belong to a traumatized generation one that I experienced the abandonment and solicitude of our people.

This is the way I tell the young Jewish boy wondering what I have done with this years.

It is his name that I speak to you and that I express to you my deepest gratitude.