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MaryAnn Maupin

Professor Dorsey

29 November 2010

Biography

Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel, his family, neighbors, and millions of other Jews, were taken from their

homes to be killed and imprisoned by German Nazis. After arriving to the concentration

camp Burkenau, Elie was immediately split up from his youngest sister and mother;

however he was able to stay with his father. Wiesel was born in Sighet Romania, in 1928

and in 1944 when he was only 15 he was taken to Auschwitz. At the end of the war just a

month shy of liberation Elies father died in January 1945 of dysentery. In April 1945 the

camps were liberated and Elie was free at last.

After the war Wiesel attended Sorbonne in 1948 to study and he began working in

journalism. Wiesel struggled after the war and he stayed silent for ten years about what he

had seen and what he had lived through. Urged by a Catholic writer Francois Mauriac in

1955 Wiesel wrote down a nine hundred-page book that was written in Yiddish the title

being Un Die Welt Hot Geshvign, meaning And the World Kept Silent.

Although his first book didnt sell many copies Wiesel kept writing. He published his

first successful book in 1958 entitled Night. His bookNightis part of many curriculums for

English in high schools and Colleges across the nation. Night has been recognized as

Wiesels best work and is discussed in classrooms around the world.

After Wiesel started writing and became noticed, he became one of the most

powerful advocates for the Holocaust. He has made it his lifes purpose to educate and

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make people aware of the Holocaust and other genocides that have happened and do

happen in the world. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed Elie Wiesel Chairman of

the United States Holocaust Memorial Council; this was an honor for Wiesel. Wiesel later in

his life was awarded Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement in 1985. One year later

Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Wiesel has been a powerful catalyst for

movement towards recognition of the Holocaust and has done many things to educate

people about hate.

Wiesel conducted the establishment of the United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum located in Washington D.C. he and his commission thought the Museum should be

separated into areas of memorial, museum, education, research, commemoration, and

action to prevent recurrence. Through Wiesel and the many others in his commission that

helped make the Museum happen, many have been touched and have been educated about

the inhumane things that have happened to people because of hate.

Wiesel has been a voice for those who were silenced and killed at the concentration

camps and he is a living memory of the horrid past of the Holocaust. Wiesel in an interview

with Oprah explained, First we were deprived of our address, then of our home, then of

our family, then of our name, and then of our life. (Wiesel Oprah Interview) Wiesel was a

survivor of the Holocaust and because of that he feels he must speak and be a voice for

those who lost their family, their dreams, their hopes, and their lives. He has crusaded for

human rights for years and is well known for making a difference by educating people, so

that mistakes of the past will never be that of the future. Wiesel has lived a life that has

allowed him to see the worst of humanity and maybe the best as well. He has seen the

hatred of man but he has also seen the good, the good that cares about preventing the

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Holocaust from reoccurring. Through Wiesels many works and his persistence to ensure

life for all, he has been a true educator of hatred and the effects it has on those involved in it.

He continues today to write and be a voice for those who are unable to speak out against

injustices. Wiesel is a brave man whose words will live far longer than he will and as long

as his words are in writing and viewed he will make a difference.