More than the polite response of an audience interested in a renowned author and speaker, it felt and sounded like an expression of appreciation, a celebration even, of the simple fact of Wiesel's survival of the Nazi death camps.

After living through the horrors of the Holocaust, he has dedicated his life to the relief of human suffering around the world.

The audience learned that Wiesel still has the courage to believe in the power of good over evil. However, he is personally troubled by the legacy the 20th century will leave behind. "It is a century that has gone from assassination to assassination," he said, beginning with the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary that sparked the first world war, which was followed by so many others-Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Anwar Sadat, Menachim Begin and Itzhak Rabin, to name a few.

"They were, all of them, good people," Wiesel noted.

What do these assassinations of good people teach our children? he asked. "Hitler was not assassinated, Mussolini was not assassinated," he added. "Does it mean that evil has power? Are we condemned to be victims of power?"

Several times he referred to the Holocaust as "entirely preventable." To make his point, he traced some of the events that preceded it, beginning with Kristallnacht in November 1938, "the night of the broken glass" when 750 synagogues and thousands of shops run by Jews in Germany were destroyed.

"How come the doors didn't open then?" he wondered. "How come people didn't say, 'You are my neighbor, come in?' Where were the 'good' people?"

Even more mystifying, he said, was the response from the rest of the world. "The story of Kristallnacht was reported on the front page of The New York Times, and probably The Buffalo News, too," he said.

But nothing was done.

Only months later, he continued, the St. Louis, a ship with more than 1,000 Jewish men, women and children-whose visas for Cuba were suddenly annulled-was turned away from the U.S. and sent back to Germany. "How was this possible in the U.S., in this greatest democracy, a country that is based on the idea that all refugees need a home somewhere?" he asked. "Was there nobody in the White House who could say, 'Okay, we can afford to take these people in?'"

Wiesel described the Munich agreement as one in which Britain and France essentially sacrificed Czechoslovakia to appease Hitler.

With each step forward, he said, Hitler was testing the world's reaction, and when there was none, he proceeded with the "Final Solution."

Wiesel cited other examples of human tragedies, such as those suffered in the former Soviet Union and in South Africa under apartheid.

Closer to home, he mentioned the recent murder of Amherst doctor Barnett Slepian, who had been targeted by anti-abortion activists, calling it an outrage and adding that the community was to be praised for its support for Slepian's family and its peaceful response, such as the 24-hour prayer vigil held last week.

"Be wary of beginnings," he cautioned, for that is where evil starts. "If you don't stop evil, evil grows and then it is too late." Wiesel said he still agrees with the French existentialist, Albert Camus, who said that ultimately there is more in the human being to celebrate than there is to decry.

"In spite of all that has happened, I force myself to be hopeful," he added.