Ugh. Despite Wiesel's best wishes, we're no closer to world peace today than we were thirty-plus years ago. (Seriously, humanity? Can we just get our dang act together?)

We've since made a lot of progress on the Apartheid front (that horrendous chapter of world history has thankfully ended) but even specific problems Wiesel brought up as modern crises are still going strong. Terrorist attacks still occur, and it's eerie to hear Wiesel describe an attack on the streets of Paris in light of modern-day attacks. Despite efforts, Israel's still mired in war and conflict. And racism, despite progress, is still alive and well in the United States.

If anything, we're even wearier.

All too often the hard facts of history are ignored: Holocaust-deniers still fill the internet with creepy drivel, people claim that racism didn't exist until the 2010s, and there are creeps who suggest that life back in the imperialism-and-fascism days of the early 20th century was awesome.

That's scary stuff.

By forgetting our mistakes, we doom ourselves to repeat them. By forgetting that racism is still alive and well we forget the urgency we have to stop it. By forgetting the injustices and even atrocities that governments can commit we rob ourselves of the ability to oppose those decisions.

Memory is, ultimately, what lets us fix mistakes. But it's up to us to get the record straight…and to act on the right information.