Elie Wiesel

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Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, which is based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the Holocaust.

As a political activist, Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime, advocating for justice in numerous causes around the globe, including that of Soviet Jews and Ethiopian Jews, South African apartheid, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, the War in Darfur, the Kurdish independence movement, the Armenian genocide, Argentina's Desaparecidos, Nicaragua's Miskito people, the Sri Lankan Tamils, and the Cambodian genocide. He was also an outspoken advocate for Israel and frequently weighed in to support the country during escalations of the Arab–Israeli conflict and throughout the Iran–Israel proxy conflict. He backed Netanyahu publicly, including his controversial 2015 Congress speech on Iran, and signed ads praising Jewish settlers in Silwan. He claimed Jerusalem "belongs to the Jewish people" and opposed territorial compromise there. He also hosted direct talks to facilitate the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.

Wiesel was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He received a number of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He was a founding board member of the Human Rights Foundation and remained active in it throughout his life. Wiesel was one of the main figures who spearheaded the establishment of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993.

Early life

thumb|right|The house in which Wiesel was born in Sighet

Eliezer Wiesel was born in Sighet (now Sighetu Marmației), Maramureș, in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. His parents were Sarah Feig and Shlomo Wiesel. At home, the family spoke mainly Yiddish in addition to German, Hungarian, and Romanian. Wiesel's mother, Sarah, was the daughter of Dodye Feig, a Vizhnitz Hasid and farmer from the nearby village of Bocskó. Dodye was active and trusted within the community.

Wiesel's father, Shlomo, instilled a strong sense of humanism in his son, encouraging him to learn Hebrew and to read literature, whereas his mother encouraged him to study the Torah. Wiesel said his father represented reason, while his mother Sarah promoted faith. Wiesel was instructed that his genealogy traced back to Rabbi Schlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi), and was a descendant of Rabbi Yeshayahu ben Abraham Horovitz ha-Levi.

Wiesel had three siblings. His older sisters were Beatrice and Hilda, and a younger sister Tzipora. Beatrice and Hilda survived the war, and were reunited with Wiesel at a French orphanage. They eventually emigrated to North America, with Beatrice moving to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Tzipora, Shlomo, and Sarah were murdered in the Holocaust.

Imprisonment during the Holocaust

thumb|right|[[Buchenwald concentration camp, photo taken April 16, 1945, five days after liberation of the camp. Wiesel is in the second row from the bottom, seventh from the left, next to the bunk post.]]

In March 1944, Germany occupied Hungary, thus extending the Holocaust into Northern Transylvania as well. Wiesel was 15, and he, with his family, along with the rest of the town's Jewish population, was placed in one of the two confinement ghettos set up in Máramarossziget (Sighet), the town where he had been born and raised. In May 1944, the Hungarian authorities, under German pressure, began to deport the Jewish community to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where up to 90 percent of the people were murdered on arrival. After they were taken to Buchenwald, his father died before the camp was liberated. Wiesel recalled the shame he felt when he heard his father being beaten and was unable to help.

Wiesel was tattooed with inmate number "A-7713" on his left arm. The camp was liberated by the U.S. Third Army on April 11, 1945, when they were just prepared to be evacuated from Buchenwald.

March of the Living

The March of the Living is an annual educational program that has brought over 300,000 participants from around the world to Poland, where they visit historical sites of the Holocaust, make a two-mile trek from Auschwitz to the former extermination site of Birkenau. Students learn about the experience through live testimony from survivors. Wiesel served on the Presidium for the first March of the Living in 1988, during its founding year. Wiesel attended the March of the Living in 1990, and again in 2005, during the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. Wiesel addressed over 18,000 in attendance. It was the biggest event in the program's history .

On the 1990 March of the Living, Elie Wiesel addressed the participants at Auschwitz about his concerns about antisemitism. He stated, "We were convinced that antisemitism perished here. Antisemitism did not perish here; its victims perished here." He started to share a story of a young girl, paused, and left the stage. The footage stated Wiesel was simply unable to continue the story. The corroborating article from Eli Rubenstein, who was in attendance that day described that even "the world's most eloquent witness to the Holocaust," was not able to convey the story that led to the fate of this young girl.

In 2017, Wiesel's son, Elisha participated in the March of the Living in memory of his father, honoring his legacy. Since his father's death, he has spoken at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Auschwitz, and has begun working on his late father's foundation, the Elie Wiesel Foundation.

Wiesel is included in the publication Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations. Along with his picture from when he was imprisoned at Buchenwald, he was quoted from the 1990 March of the Living:

Post-war career as a writer

France

After World War II ended and Wiesel was freed, he joined a transport of 1,000 child survivors of Buchenwald to Ecouis, France, where the Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) had established a rehabilitation center. Wiesel joined a smaller group of 90 to 100 boys from Orthodox homes who wanted kosher facilities and a higher level of religious observance; they were cared for in a home in Ambloy under the directorship of Judith Hemmendinger. This home was later moved to Taverny and operated until 1947.

Afterwards, Wiesel traveled to Paris where he learned French and studied literature, philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne. He wrote for Israeli and French newspapers, including Tsien in Kamf (in Yiddish).

In 1946, after learning of the Irgun's bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, Wiesel made an unsuccessful attempt to join the underground Zionist movement. In 1948, he translated articles from Hebrew into Yiddish for Irgun periodicals, but never became a member of the organization. In 1949, he traveled to Israel as a correspondent for the French newspaper L'arche. He then was hired as Paris correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, subsequently becoming its roaming international correspondent.