Elie Wiesel

Eliezer Wiesel (born September 30, 1928) is a Holocaust survivor, a world-renowned author, and a political activist. He is the author of over forty books, the most famous of which serve as a testimony to his experiences during the Holocaust. In 1986, Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Commission called Wiesel a "messenger to mankind", noting that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps", as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace", Wiesel has delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity. Wiesel lives in the United States and teaches at Boston University.

Early life and Experiences During The Holocaust

Buchenwald, 1945. Wiesel is second row, seventh from the left

Wiesel was born in Sighet (now Sighetu Marmaţiei), Romania, to Shlomo and Sarah, Orthodox Jews of Hungarian descent who owned a grocery store. He had three sisters. Elie was devoutly religious as a child and he spent much of his young life studying religious texts. Wiesel was particularly interested in the traditions and folklore of Hassidic Judaism, but he also studied secular topics.

The town of Sighet became part of German ally Hungary in 1940, and in 1944 the Nazis deported the Jewish community in Sighet to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Wiesel was separated from his mother and younger sister, who were murdered at Auschwitz. Elie and his father were sent to the attached work camp Auschwitz III Monowitz. He managed to remain with his father for a year as they were forced to work under appalling conditions and shuffled between concentration camps in the closing days of the war. In January 1945, as the two were being marched to Buchenwald when Wiesel's father died of dysentery, starvation, exhaustion and exposure.

After the War

After the war, Wiesel was placed in a French orphanage where he learned the French language and accidently found an older sister who had also survived the war. In 1948, Wiesel began studying philosophy at the Sorbonne. He taught Hebrew and worked as a choirmaster before becoming a professional journalist. As a journalist he wrote for Israeli and French newspapers, including the French newspaper, L'arche. However, for ten years after the war, Wiesel refused to write about or discuss his experiences during the Holocaust. Like many survivors, Wiesel couldn't find the words to describe his experiences. However, a meeting with François Mauriac, the 1952 Nobel laureate in Literature, who eventually became Wiesel's close friend, persuaded him to write about his Holocaust experiences.

Wiesel recounts his meeting with Mauriac as follows:

I was a young journalist in Paris. I wanted to meet the Prime Minister of France for my paper. He was, then, a Jew called Mendès-France. But he didn't offer to see me. I had heard that the French author François Mauriac... was his guru... So I would go to Mauriac, the writer, and I would ask him to introduce me to Mendès-France.

Mauriac was an old man then, but when I came to Mauriac, he agreed to see me. We met and we had a painful discussion. The problem was that he was in love with Jesus. He was the most decent person I ever met in that field -- as a writer, as a Catholic writer. Honest, sense of integrity, and he was in love with Jesus. He spoke only of Jesus.

Whatever I would ask -- Jesus. Finally, I said, "What about Mendès-France?" He said that Mendès-France, like Jesus, was suffering. That's not what I wanted to hear. I wanted, at one point, to speak about Mendès-France and I would say to Mauriac, can you introduce me? When he said Jesus again I couldn't take it, and for the only time in my life I was discourteous, which I regret to this day. I said, "Mr. Mauriac,"... "ten years or so ago, I have seen children, hundreds of Jewish children, who suffered more than Jesus did on his cross and we do not speak about it." I felt all of a sudden so embarrassed. I closed my notebook and went to the elevator. He ran after me. He pulled me back; he sat down in his chair, and I in mine, and he began weeping. I have rarely seen an old man weep like that, and I felt like such an idiot. I felt like a criminal. This man didn't deserve that. He was really a pure man, a member of the Resistance. I didn't know what to do. We stayed there like that, he weeping and I closed in my own remorse. And then, at the end, without saying anything, he simply said, "You know, maybe you should talk about it."

He took me to the elevator and embraced me. And that year, the tenth year, I began writing my narrative... That made me not publish, but write.

Wiesel wrote a 900-page book on his experiences in Yiddish. The work was originally published in Buenos Aires. Wiesel compressed and rewrote that book in French, and it was published as the 127-page novel La Nuit, published in English as Night. Even with Mauriac's support Wiesel had great difficulty finding publishers for his work and even when his books were published they sold very poorly.

Life in the United States

In 1956, while in New York for his newspaper, Wiesel was struck by a taxi and as a result, confined to a wheelchair for over a year. Wiesel had been classified a stateless person so he applied for and received American citizenship. In the United States, Wiesel wrote for a Yiddish language newspaper and also wrote books in French. Wiesel used the attention he received from his writing to draw attention to the plight of oppressed peoples around the world.

He served as chairman for the Presidential Commission on the Holocaust (later renamed U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council) from 1978 to 1986 spearheading the building of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Wiesel is particularly fond of teaching and holds the position of Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Boston University.

Wiesel has also encouraged other survivors to tell their stories about the Holocaust. Among the writers he has encouraged is Jerzy Kosinski, whose novel The Painted Bird has caused some controversy.

Wiesel has now authored over 40 works of fiction and non-fiction, winning numerous literary prizes. He received the Congressional Medal of Freedom in 1985 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He published his memoirs in 1995.

In 1997, he received the Guardian of Zion Award.

Criticism

Wiesel is an ardent Zionist and a strong supporter of the State of Israel. This support has drawn criticism from leftists like Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry who claims that Wiesel has made a quiet fortune off the Holocaust. Finkelstein asserts that Wiesel's standard lecture fee is "$25,000, plus limousine" and claims the phrase "There's no business like Shoah-business" was "literally coined for him". [1] (http://dir.salon.com/books/int/2000/08/30/finkelstein/index.html)

Finkelstein also criticizes Wiesel's stance on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, claiming Wiesel "shed[s] tears on cue" for President Clinton while ignoring the plight of the Palestinians--indeed, Wiesel defends the Israelis, saying "Whatever Israel has done is the only thing that Israel could have done" and insisting Israeli soldiers feel "great pain and anguish" in their work. [2] (http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=10)

Bibliography

Some of Elie Wiesel's more famous works include:

• Night
• The Oath
• Souls on Fire
• One Generation After
• A Beggar in Jerusalem
• Trial of God

External Links

• 1986 Nobel Peace Prize (http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1986/index.html)
• Academy of Acheivement: Elie Wiesel (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/wie0pro-1) (Profile, biography and interview)
• Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity (http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/)

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