Elie Wiesel

Lore & Background

Elie Wiesel was born in Sighet, Romania, to Sarah Feig and Shlomo Wiesel. He had three siblings: older sisters Beatrice and Hilda, and a younger sister Tzipora. In March 1944, Germany occupied Hungary, and Wiesel, aged 15, was placed with his family in a ghetto in Sighet. In May 1944, they were deported to Auschwitz, where his mother and younger sister were murdered in gas chambers. Wiesel and his father were selected for labor and later transferred to Buchenwald, where his father died before liberation. Wiesel was tattooed with inmate number A-7713. The camp was liberated by the U.S. Third Army on April 11, 1945.

After the war, Wiesel joined a transport of child survivors to France, where he studied literature, philosophy, and psychology at the Sorbonne. He worked as a journalist, writing in French and Yiddish, and later became Paris correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. He authored 57 books, with Night being his most famous work. Wiesel was a professor of humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

Reader's Guide

Elie Wiesel's significance lies in his role as a witness to the Holocaust and his lifelong advocacy for human rights. His memoir Night became a seminal text for understanding the Holocaust, and he used his platform to speak out against atrocities worldwide, including the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, and the War in Darfur. He was a regular speaker on the Holocaust and served on the Presidium of the first March of the Living in 1988, attending again in 1990 and 2005. Wiesel also advocated for Soviet Jews, Ethiopian Jews, and opposed South African apartheid. He was an outspoken supporter of Israel and backed Netanyahu publicly. His legacy includes the Eliezer Wiesel Foundation and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which he helped establish. In 2026, the tenth anniversary of his death was marked by renewed attention to his connection with the March of the Living.

Did You Know?

• Wiesel was tattooed with inmate number A-7713 on his left arm at Auschwitz.
• He served on the Presidium for the first March of the Living in 1988.
• Wiesel's younger sister Tzipora and his mother Sarah were murdered in the Holocaust.
• He was a founding board member of the Human Rights Foundation.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing." — Elie Wiesel "Some writings could sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds." — Elie Wiesel "Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds." — Elie Wiesel "Time does not heal all wounds; there are those that remain painfully open." — Elie Wiesel