Wiesel and his father Shlomo were also selected for forced labor. His two older sisters, Beatrice and Hilda, were selected for forced labor and survived the war. When the family arrived, Wiesel’s mother Sarah and younger sister Tzipora were selected for death and murdered in the gas chambers. The Wiesel family was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which served as both a concentration camp and a killing center. Among the first to be deported were the Jews of Sighet, including Wiesel, his parents, and his three sisters. Between May 15 and July 9, 1944, Hungarian officials in cooperation with German authorities deported nearly 440,000 Jews primarily to Auschwitz, where most were killed. In March 1944, Nazi Germany occupied its ally Hungary. Elie Wiesel’s Imprisonment during the Holocaust The Nobel Committee awarded him the peace prize "for being a messenger to mankind: his message is one of peace, atonement and dignity."Įlie Wiesel died on July 2, 2016, at the age of 87.
His own experience of genocide drove him to speak out on behalf of oppressed people throughout the world. He was a driving force behind the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Wiesel advocated tirelessly for remembering about and learning from the Holocaust. During the 1982 – 83 academic year, Wiesel was the first Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in the Humanities and Social Thought at Yale University. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, where he also held the title of University Professor. He was Distinguished Professor of Judaic Studies at the City University of New York (1972–1976). Only he and two of his three sisters survived the Holocaust.Īfter World War II, Wiesel became a journalist, prolific author, professor, and human rights activist. In 1944, he and his family were deported to Auschwitz. Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928, in Sighet, Transylvania ( Romania, from 1940–1945 part of Hungary). In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
His first book, Night, recounts his suffering as a teenager at Auschwitz and has become a classic of Holocaust literature. Excerpt from Night by Elie Wiesel 1 Who was Elie Wiesel?Įlie Wiesel (1928 – 2016) was one of the most famous survivors of the Holocaust and a world-renowned author and champion of human rights. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
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