我父亲于1985年4月站在白宫，接受来自罗纳德·里根的国会金质奖章，里根是他喜欢和尊敬的总统。随后他请里根取消原定访问比特堡的计划，比特堡是一个德国墓地，安葬着希特勒的武装党卫队成员。“那个地方，总统先生，不是你该去的地方。你该去的地方是与党卫队的受害者在一起。”我父亲没有大喊大叫。他没有质疑里根的心。他当众告诉一个朋友，言语和行为即使不是出于故意，也可能造成痛苦和苦难。
My father stood in the White House to accept the Congressional Gold Medal from Ronald Reagan, a president he liked and respected, in April 1985. Then he asked Reagan to cancel a planned visit to Bitburg, a German cemetery where members of Hitler’s Waffen-SS were buried. “That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS.”My father didn’t shout. He didn’t question Reagan’s heart. He told a friend, in public, that words and actions can cause pain and suffering even if that isn’t the intent.
有时候言语不仅能造成痛苦，还能让人陷入危险。上周，前总统贝拉克·奥巴马在北爱尔兰贝尔法斯特女王大学获得荣誉学位。随后的演讲中，奥巴马谈到犹太人时说，经过千年的迫害，‘他们夺走了他人的土地，而且过分了。而那些人可以理解地说，‘这是不公正，我想要我的土地回来。’”
Sometimes words can do more than cause pain; they can put people in danger. Last week former President Barack Obama was awarded an honorary degree from Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. During a talk that followed, Mr. Obama said of the Jewish people that after millennia of persecution, “they took land off people, and they were excessive. And those people understandably said, ‘This is injustice and I want my land back.’ ”