Eliezer Wiesel was born inSighet (now Sighetu Marmației),Maramureș, in theCarpathian Mountains ofRomania.[14] His parents were Sarah Feig and Shlomo Wiesel. At home, Wiesel's family spokeYiddish most of the time, but also German,Hungarian, andRomanian.[15][16] Wiesel's mother, Sarah, was the daughter of Dodye Feig, aVizhnitzHasid and farmer from the nearby village ofBocskó. Dodye was active and trusted within the community.
Wiesel's father, Shlomo, instilled a strong sense ofhumanism in his son, encouraging him to learnHebrew and to read literature, whereas his mother encouraged him to study theTorah. Wiesel said his father represented reason, while his mother Sarah promoted faith.[17] Wiesel was instructed that his genealogy traced back toRabbi Schlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi), and was a descendant of RabbiYeshayahu ben Abraham Horovitz ha-Levi.[18]
Wiesel had three siblings—older sisters Beatrice and Hilda, and 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 toMontreal, Quebec, Canada. Tzipora, Shlomo, and Sarah did not survive the Holocaust.
Imprisonment and orphaning during the Holocaust
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.[19]
In March 1944, Germanyoccupied Hungary, thus extending theHolocaust intoNorthern Transylvania as well.[b] 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 todeport the Jewish community to theAuschwitz concentration camp, where up to 90 percent of the people were murdered on arrival.[20]
Immediately after they were sent to Auschwitz, his mother and his younger sister were murdered in the gas chambers.[20] Wiesel and his father were selected to perform labor so long as they remained able-bodied, after which they were to be murdered in the gas chambers. Wiesel and his father were later deported to the concentration camp atBuchenwald. Until that transfer, he admitted toOprah Winfrey, his primary motivation for trying to survive Auschwitz was knowing that his father was still alive: "I knew that if I died, he would die."[21] After they were taken to Buchenwald, his father died before the camp was liberated.[20] InNight,[22] Wiesel recalled the shame he felt when he heard his father being beaten and was unable to help.[20][23]
TheMarch 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 theHolocaust, make a two-mile trek fromAuschwitz to the former extermination site ofBirkenau. Students learn about the experience through live testimony from survivors. Wiesel participated in the first March of the Living in 1988, during its founding year. Wiesel also attended in 1990, and 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 .[27][28][29][30]
On the 1990 March of the Living, Elie Wiesel addressed the participants at Auschwitz about his concerns about antisemitism. He stated, "We were convinced thatantisemitism 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.[31] 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.[32]
in 2017, Wiesel's son, Elisha participated in theMarch of the Living in memory of his father, honoring his legacy.[33] Since his father's passing, 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.[34]
"Forever will I see the children who no longer have the strength to cry. Forever will I see the elderly who no longer have the strength to help them. Forever will I see the mothers and the fathers, the grandfathers and grandmothers, the little schoolchildren…their teachers…the righteous and the pious…. From where do we take the tears to cry over them? Who has the strength to cry for them?"
— Elie Wiesel, Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations, Page 5
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 toEcouis, France, where theŒuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) had established a rehabilitation center. Wiesel joined a smaller group of 90 to 100 boys from Orthodox homes who wantedkosher facilities and a higher level of religious observance; they were cared for in a home inAmbloy under the directorship ofJudith Hemmendinger. This home was later moved toTaverny and operated until 1947.[36][37]
By the time he was 19, he had begun working as a journalist, writing in French, while also teachingHebrew and working as a choirmaster.[39] He wrote for Israeli and French newspapers, includingTsien in Kamf (inYiddish).[38]
In 1946, after learning of theIrgun'sbombing 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.[40] In 1949, he traveled to Israel as a correspondent for the French newspaperL'arche. He then was hired as Paris correspondent for the Israeli newspaperYedioth Ahronoth, subsequently becoming its roaming international correspondent.[41]
Excerpt fromNight
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.
For ten years after the war, Wiesel refused to write about or discuss his experiences during the Holocaust. He began to reconsider his decision after a meeting with the French authorFrançois Mauriac, the 1952Nobel Laureate in Literature who eventually became Wiesel's close friend. Mauriac was a devout Christian who had fought in theFrench Resistance during the war. He compared Wiesel to "Lazarus rising from the dead", and saw from Wiesel's tormented eyes, "the death of God in the soul of a child".[42][43] Mauriac persuaded him to begin writing about his harrowing experiences.[38]
Wiesel first wrote the 900-page memoirUn di velt hot geshvign (And the World Remained Silent) inYiddish, which was published in abridged form inBuenos Aires.[44] Wiesel rewrote a shortened version of the manuscript in French,La Nuit, in 1955. It was translated into English asNight in 1960.[45] The book sold few copies after its initial publication, but still attracted interest from reviewers, leading to television interviews with Wiesel and meetings with writers such asSaul Bellow.
As its profile rose,Night was eventually translated into 30 languages with ten million copies sold in the United States. At one point film directorOrson Welles wanted to make it into a feature film, but Wiesel refused, feeling that his memoir would lose its meaning if it were told without the silences in between his words.[46]Oprah Winfrey made it a spotlight selection for her book club in 2006.[20]
United States
In 1955, Wiesel moved to New York as foreign correspondent for the Israel daily,Yediot Ahronot.[41] In 1969, he married Austrian Marion Erster Rose, who also translated many of his books.[41] They had one son,Shlomo Elisha Wiesel, named after Wiesel's father.[41][47]
Wiesel in 1987
In the U.S., he eventually wrote over 40 books, most of them non-fictionHolocaust literature, and novels. As an author, he was awarded a number of literary prizes and is considered among the most important in describing the Holocaust from a highly personal perspective.[41] As a result, some historians credited Wiesel with giving the termHolocaust its present meaning, although he did not feel that the word adequately described that historical event.[48] In 1975, he co-founded the magazineMoment with writerLeonard Fein.
The 1979 book and playThe Trial of God are said to have been based on his real-life Auschwitz experience of witnessing three Jews who, close to death, conduct atrial against God, under the accusation that He has been oppressive towards the Jewish people.[49]
Wiesel also played a role in the initial success ofThe Painted Bird byJerzy Kosinski by endorsing it before it became known the book was fiction and, in the sense that it was presented as all Kosinski's true experience, ahoax.[50][51]
Wiesel published two volumes of memoirs. The first,All Rivers Run to the Sea, was published in 1994 and covered his life up to the year 1969. The second, titledAnd the Sea is Never Full and published in 1999, covered the years from 1969 to 1999.[52]
The Holocaust Memorial Museum gives the Elie Wiesel Award to "internationally prominent individuals whose actions have advanced the Museum's vision of a world where people confronthatred, preventgenocide, and promote humandignity".[56] The Foundation had invested its endowment in money managerBernard L. Madoff's investmentPonzi scheme, costing the Foundation $15 million and Wiesel and his wife much of their own personal savings.[57][58]
Support for Israeli government policy
In 1982, at the request of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Wiesel agreed to resign from his position as chairman of aplanned international conference on the Holocaust and theArmenian genocide. Wiesel then worked with the Foreign Ministry in its attempts to get the conference either canceled or to remove all discussion of the Armenian genocide from it, and to those ends he provided the Foreign Ministry with internal documents on the conference's planning and lobbied fellow academics to not attend the conference.[59]
During his lifetime, Wiesel had deflected questions on the topic of the Israeli settlements, claiming to abstain from commenting on Israel's internal debates.[60] According toHussein Ibish, despite this position, Wiesel had gone on record as supporting the idea of expandingJewish settlements into the Palestinian territories conquered by Israel during the 6 Day War; such settlements are considered illegal by the international community.[61]
Awards and other activism
Wiesel was awarded theNobel Peace Prize in 1986 for speaking out against violence, repression, and racism. TheNorwegian Nobel Committee described Wiesel as "one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression, and racism continue to characterize the world" and called him a "messenger to mankind". It also stressed that Wiesel's commitment originated in the sufferings of the Jewish people but that he expanded it to embrace all repressed peoples and races.[9][10][11]
In his acceptance speech he delivered a message "of peace, atonement, and human dignity". He explained his feelings: "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant."[62]
Wiesel co-foundedMoment magazine withLeonard Fein in 1975. They founded the magazine to provide a voice for American Jews.[65] He was also a member of the International Advisory Board ofNGO Monitor.[66]
Wiesel, a supporter of immigrant's rights, popularized the slogan "No human being is illegal". stating "you who are so-called illegal aliens should know that no human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?"[69]
In April 1999, Wiesel delivered the speech "The Perils of Indifference" in Washington D.C., criticizing the people and countries who chose to be indifferent while the Holocaust was happening.[70] He defined indifference as being neutral between two sides, which, in this case, amounts to overlooking the victims of the Holocaust. Throughout the speech, he expressed the view that a little bit of attention, either positive or negative, is better than no attention at all.
In 2003, he discovered and publicized the fact that at least 280,000Romanian andUkrainian Jews, along with other groups, were massacred in Romanian-rundeath camps.[71]
In 2005, he gave a speech at the opening ceremony of the new building ofYad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust History Museum:
I know what people say – it is so easy. Those that were there won't agree with that statement. The statement is: it was man's inhumanity to man. NO! It was man's inhumanity to Jews! Jews were not killed because they were human beings. In the eyes of the killers they were not human beings! They were Jews![72]
In early 2006, Wiesel accompanied Oprah Winfrey as she visitedAuschwitz, a visit which was broadcast as part ofThe Oprah Winfrey Show. The trip was organized byInternational March of the Living's Vice Chair,David Machlis.[73][74] On November 30, 2006, Wiesel received aknighthood in London in recognition of his work toward raising Holocaust education in the United Kingdom.[75]
In September 2006, he appeared before theUN Security Council with actorGeorge Clooney to call attention to the humanitarian crisis inDarfur. When Wiesel died, Clooney wrote, "We had a champion who carried our pain, our guilt, and our responsibility on his shoulders for generations."[76]
In 2007, Wiesel was awarded theDayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award.[77] That same year, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity issued a letter condemningArmenian genocide denial, a letter that was signed by 53 Nobel laureates including Wiesel. Wiesel repeatedly called Turkey's 90-year-old campaign to downplay its actions during theArmenian genocide a double killing.[78]
PresidentGeorge W. Bush, joined by theDalai Lama and Wiesel, October 17, 2007, to the ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., for the presentation of theCongressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama
In June 2009, Wiesel accompanied US PresidentBarack Obama and German ChancellorAngela Merkel as they toured theBuchenwald concentration camp.[80] Wiesel was an adviser at theGatestone Institute.[81] In 2010, Wiesel accepted a five-year appointment as a Distinguished Presidential Fellow atChapman University inOrange County, California. In that role, he made a one-week visit to Chapman annually to meet with students and offer his perspective on subjects ranging from Holocaust history to religion, languages, literature, law and music.[82]
In July 2009, Wiesel announced his support to the minorityTamils in Sri Lanka. He said that, "Wherever minorities are being persecuted, we must raise our voices to protest ... The Tamil people are being disenfranchised and victimized by the Sri Lanka authorities. This injustice must stop. The Tamil people must be allowed to live in peace and flourish in their homeland."[83][84][85]
In 2009, Wiesel returned to Hungary for his first visit since the Holocaust. During this visit, Wiesel participated in a conference at the Upper House Chamber of theHungarian Parliament, met Prime MinisterGordon Bajnai and PresidentLászló Sólyom, and made a speech to the approximately 10,000 participants of an anti-racist gathering held inFaith Hall.[86][87] However, in 2012, he protested against "the whitewashing" ofHungary's involvement in the Holocaust, and he gave up the Great Cross award he had received from the Hungarian government.[88]
Wiesel was active in trying to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons, stating that, "The words and actions of the leadership of Iran leave no doubt as to their intentions".[89] He also condemnedHamas for the "use of children as human shields" during the2014 Israel–Gaza conflict by running an ad in several large newspapers.[90]The Times refused to run the advertisement, saying, "The opinion being expressed is too strong, and too forcefully made, and will cause concern amongst a significant number ofTimes readers."[91][92]
Wiesel often emphasized the Jewish connection toJerusalem, and criticized theObama administration for pressuring Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu to halt East JerusalemIsraeli settlement construction.[93][94] He stated that "Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture—and not a single time in the Koran ... It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city".[95][96]
Wiesel was attacked in a San Francisco hotel by 22-year-oldHolocaust denier Eric Hunt in February 2007, but was not injured. Hunt was arrested the following month and charged with multiple offenses.[105][106]
In February 2012, a member ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints performed aposthumous baptism forSimon Wiesenthal's parents without proper authorization.[108] After his own name was submitted for proxy baptism, Wiesel spoke out against the unauthorized practice of posthumously baptizing Jews and asked presidential candidate and Latter-day SaintMitt Romney to denounce it. Romney's campaign declined to comment, directing such questions to church officials.[109]
Utah senatorOrrin Hatch paid tribute to Wiesel in a speech on the Senate floor the following week, in which he said that "With Elie's passing, we have lost a beacon of humanity and hope. We have lost a hero of human rights and a luminary of Holocaust literature."[114]
In 2018, antisemitic graffiti was found on the house where Wiesel was born.[115]
Marion Wiesel died on February 2, 2025, at the age of 94.[116]
Awards and honors
Prix de l'Université de la Langue Française (Prix Rivarol) forThe Town Beyond the Wall, 1963.[117]
^Wiesel, Elie; Franciosi, Robert (2002).Elie Wiesel: Conversations. University Press of Mississippi. p. 81.ISBN9781578065035.Interviewer: Why after the war did you not go on to Palestine from France? Wiesel: I had no certificate. In 1946 when the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel, I decided I would like to join the underground. Very naively I went to the Jewish Agency in Paris. I got no further than the janitor who asked: "What do you want?" I said, "I would like to join the underground." He threw me out. About 1948 I was a journalist and helped one of the Yiddish underground papers with articles, but I was never a member of the underground.
^abcdefg"Elie Wiesel".JewishVirtualLibrary.org.Archived from the original on December 27, 2016. RetrievedJuly 6, 2014.
^Fine, Ellen S.Legacy of Night: The Literary Universe of Elie Wiesel, State Univ. of New York Press (1982) p. 28
^Wiesel, Elie (2000).And the Sea Is Never Full: Memoirs, 1969–. Random House Digital, Inc.ISBN978-0-8052-1029-3.Some of the questions: God? 'I'm an agnostic.' A strange agnostic, fascinated by mysticism.
Berenbaum, Michael.The Vision of the Void: Theological Reflections on the Works of Elie Wiesel. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1979.ISBN0-8195-6189-4
Rota, Olivier.Choisir le français pour exprimer l'indicible. Elie Wiesel, inMythe et mondialisation. L'exil dans les littératures francophones, Actes du colloque organisé dans le cadre du projet bilatéral franco-roumain « Mythes et stratégies de la francophonie en Europe, en Roumanie et dans les Balkans », programme Brâcuşi des 8–9 septembre 2005, Editura Universităţii Suceava, 2006, pp. 47–55. Re-published in Sens, dec. 2007, pp. 659–668.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related toElie Wiesel.
"Free At Last: Elie Wiesel, Plainclothes Nuns, and Breakthroughs – Or Witnessing a Witness of History", pp. 19–21 in 'Spirit of America, Vol. 39: Simple Gifts', La Crosse, WI: DigiCOPY, 2017, Essay by David Joseph Marcou about his meeting Mr. Wiesel and being official Viterbo U. Photographer for Elie Wiesel Day at Viterbo U., 9–26–06, in Book by DJ Marcou on Missouri J-School Library Web-page of David Joseph Marcou's works[1]
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