Elie Wiesel
By: Felecia, Callie, Nicki, Priscilla, and Nick J.
- Born: September 30, 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania.
- Wiesel was Romanian born but his ethnicity is Jewish.
- Spoke Yiddish, German, Hungarian, and Romanian.
- Astounding author of fifty-seven books.
- During World War II, he was a prisoner of Auschwitz, Buna and Buchenwald concentration camps.
Family
- Mothers name was Sarah Feig and his fathers name was Shlomo Wiesel.
- Two older sisters named Hilda and Beatrice, and one younger sister named Tzipora.
- Elie's grandfather spent months in jail for having helped Polish Jews who escape and were starving.
World War II
- In 1940, Romania lost its' town of Sighet to Hungary.
- In 1944, Hungary order his family to be put in one of the two ghettos called Serpent Street.
- May 6th, 1944, Hungarian authorities allowed the German Army to deport the Jewish community from Sighet to Auschwitz- Birkenau.
- Wiesel and his father were placed in a work camp called Buna, which was a sub-camp of Auschwitz III- Monowitz.
- His inmate number was tattooed on his left arm "A-7713".
- He remained with his father for more than eight months and they were forced to work under appalling conditions.
- Wiesel was seperated from his mother and three sisters.
Family After War
- Beatrice and Hilda survived the war and were reunited with Wiesel at a French orphanage.
- Tzipora, his mother and his father did not survive the war.
- Surviving family members migrated to North America.
Night
- For ten years after the war he refused to speak about his experiences.
- Francois Mallriac persuaded him to write about his experience with the Holocaust.
- He wrote a nine-hundred page memoir which was later translated in English as Night.
- "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 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 God himself. Never."
- 1,046 copies over 18 months led to TV interviews and meetings with literacy figures such as Saul Bellow and Oprah.
Education and Awards
- Wiesel studied in Paris at Sorbonne after he left an orphanage in France.
- At Sorbonne Wiesel took interest in journalism.
- Wiesel went on to write many pieces about the Holocaust, and the moral responsibility of all people to fight things such as racism and genocide.
- In 1978 President Jimmy Carter created the President's Commission on the Holocaust, and Wiesel was chairman of the group.
- In 1986 Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize.
- He was also awarded with the Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement.
Night Author and Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel Ponders the Evils | The Oprah Winfrey Show | OWN