|
|
|
|
Eliezer Wiesel was born September 30, 1928
in the small town of Sighet in Transylvania.
“He led a life like many Jewish children,” in a close knit community. “Elie’s world revolved around family,
religious study, community and God.”
“He loved the mystical tradition of the Hassidic set of Judaism, to
which his mother belonged. His father
encouraged him to study the modern Hebrew language. At home the family spoke Yiddish and conducted their grocery
business in German, Hungarian, or Romanian.” |
Elie Wiesel |
|
|
|
|
“His secure world ended with arrival of
the Nazis in 1944.” His family,
community and “his innocent faith were destroyed upon the deportation of his
village” to the German concentration and extermination camps in Poland. |
|
|
“At 15, Elie was separated from his mother
and sister immediately upon his arrival in Auschwitz, never to see them again. He remained with his father for the next
year as they were worked almost to death.”
“He survived Auschwitz, Buna, Buchenwald, and Gleiwitz.” “His father died in the last months of the
war.”
|
|
|
After the liberation from Buchenwald in
April 1945 by advancing Allied troops, Elie found asylum in France. While in a French orphanage, “Elie learned
for the first time that his two older sisters had survived the war.” |
|
|
“Wiesel mastered the French language and
studied philosophy” in 1948 at the Sorbonne in Paris. “He became a professional journalist,
writing for newspapers in both France and Israel.” |
|
|
For 10 years, Wiesel observed a
self-imposed vow of silence and wrote nothing of his wartime experience. “He was acquainted with Nobel laureate
Francois Mauriac, who eventually influenced Wiesel to break his silence and
write of his experience.” |
|
|
“In 1955, Wiesel set down his memories in
Yiddish, in a 900-page work Un die welt hot geshvign (And the world kept
silent). He compressed it into a
127-page French adaptation, La Nuit (Night).
Even after he found publishers, the book sold few copies.” |
|
|
“The most powerful and renowned passage in
Holocaust literature, his first book, Night, records the inclusive experience
of the Jews, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which
has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times
sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I
saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames, which
consumed my faith forever. Never
shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of
the desire to live. Never shall I
forget those moments, which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams
to dust. Never shall I forget these things,
even if I am condemned to live as long as God himself. Never.” |
|
|
“In 1956, while in New York covering the
United Nations, Wiesel was struck by a taxicab, which confined him to a wheel
chair for almost a year. Unable to
renew the French document as a “stateless” person, he applied successfully
for American citizenship. He remained
in New York and was a feature writer for the Jewish Daily Forward. He continued to write books in French,
including the semi-auto biographical novels L’Aube (Dawn), Le Jour (The
Accident), and La Ville de la chance (The Town Beyond the Wall).” |
|
|
“Wiesel has concerned himself with the
situation of the Jews and other groups who have suffered persecution and
death because of their religion, race or national origin.” “In 1965, he reported of his travels to
the USSR in The Jews of Silence. In
1968, he wrote A Beggar In Jerusalem, his account of the Six Day War between
Israel and its Arab neighbors. Using
his fame, he has pleaded for justice for oppressed peoples in the Soviet
Union, South Africa, Vietnam, Biafra and Bangladesh.” |
|
|
Wiesel has since authored nearly 40
books.” “He has written plays
including Zalmen (The Madness of God) and Le Proces de Shamgorod (The Trail
of God). Other novels include The Gates
of the Forrest, The Oath, The Testament, and The Fifth Son. His essays and short stories are in the
volumes Legends of Our Time, One Generation After, and A Jew Today.” |
|
|
“In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed
him Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.” “His job as chairman was the planning of
an American memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. Wiesel states in the Report to the
President on the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, that the reason
for creating the museum must include, denying the Nazi’s a posthumous
victory, honoring the last wish of the victims to tell, and protecting the
future of humanity from such evil recurring.
He remained chairman of the Committee until 1986.” |
|
|
“In 1985, he was awarded the Congressional
Medal of Freedom. In 1986, the Nobel
Prize for Peace.” |
|
|
“His memoirs appeared in 1995 as All
Rivers Run to the Sea.” “He has
dedicated the latter part of his life to the witness of the second-generation
and vital requirement that memory and action be carried on after the survivors
have all left us. “…to remain silent
and indifferent is the greatest sin of all…” stands as a summary of Elie
Wiesel’s views on life.” |
|
|
T.G. Gideon 7th Social Studies Rossville Jr. High Holocaust Project Spring 2003 |