Elie Wiesel
Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (/ˈɛli viːˈzɛl/ EL-ee vee-ZEL or /ˈiːlaɪ ˈviːsəl/ EE-ly VEE-səl;[3][4][5] Yiddish: אליעזר "אלי" װיזל, romanized: Eliezer "Eli" Vizl; 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, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.[6]
Elie Wiesel
Eliezer Wiesel
September 30, 1928
Sighet, Kingdom of Romania
July 2, 2016 (aged 87)
New York City, U.S.
- Author
- professor
- activist
- journalist
- Romania (until 1940)
- Hungary (1940–1944)[1]
- Stateless (1944–1963)[2]
- United States (from 1963)
- The Holocaust
- religion
- philosophy
Night (1960)
- Congressional Gold Medal
1984 - French Legion of Honor – Commander, Grand Officer, Grand Cross
1984, 1990, 2000 - Nobel Peace Prize
1986 - Presidential Medal of Freedom
1992 - Order of the Star of Romania – Grand Officer
2002 - Honorary knighthood
2006
In his political activities Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime. He also advocated for many other causes like the state of Israel and against Hamas and victims of oppression including Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the apartheid in South Africa, the Bosnian genocide, Sudan, the Kurds and the Armenian genocide, Argentina's Desaparecidos or Nicaragua's Miskito people.[7][8]
He was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was involved with Jewish causes and human rights causes and helped establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Wiesel was awarded various prestigious awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.[9][10][11] He was a founding board member of the New York Human Rights Foundation and remained active in it throughout his life.[12][13]
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.[27][28]
Afterwards, Wiesel traveled to Paris where he learned French and studied literature, philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne.[20] He heard lectures by philosopher Martin Buber and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre and he spent his evenings reading works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Franz Kafka, and Thomas Mann.[29]
By the time he was 19, he had begun working as a journalist, writing in French, while also teaching Hebrew and working as a choirmaster.[30] He wrote for Israeli and French newspapers, including Tsien in Kamf (in Yiddish).[29]
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.[31] 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.[32]
Teaching
Wiesel held the position of Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Boston University from 1976,[85] teaching in both its religion and philosophy departments.[86] He became a close friend of the president and chancellor John Silber.[87] The university created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor.[85] From 1972 to 1976 Wiesel was a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York and member of the American Federation of Teachers.[88][89]
In 1982 he served as the first Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in Humanities and Social Thought at Yale University.[86] He also co-instructed Winter Term (January) courses at Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida. From 1997 to 1999 he was Ingeborg Rennert Visiting Professor of Judaic Studies at Barnard College of Columbia University.[90]
Death and aftermath
Wiesel died on the morning of July 2, 2016, at his home in Manhattan, aged 87. After a private funeral service was conducted in honor of him at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, he was buried at the Sharon Gardens Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, on July 3.[48][98][99][100][101]
Utah senator Orrin 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."[102]
In 2018, antisemitic graffiti was found on the house where Wiesel was born.[103]