Elie Wiesel

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Holocaust survivor, writer, professor, and political activist born in Romania who later became a U.S. citizen. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 and wrote 57 books, mainly in French and English. His most famous work, *Night*, recounts his time as a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

As an activist, Wiesel frequently spoke about the Holocaust and championed justice for many causes worldwide. These included Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, South African apartheid, the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides, the Darfur conflict, Kurdish independence, the Armenian genocide, Argentina's disappeared, Nicaragua's Miskito people, Sri Lankan Tamils, and the Cambodian genocide. He was a strong supporter of Israel, publicly backing Benjamin Netanyahu—including his 2015 congressional speech on Iran—and signing ads that praised Jewish settlers. He stated that Jerusalem "belongs to the Jewish people" and opposed territorial compromise there, while also hosting direct talks to advance Israeli–Palestinian peace.

Wiesel taught humanities at Boston University, which later established the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was a founding board member of the Human Rights Foundation and remained active in it for life. He also helped lead the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which opened in 1993.

**Early life**

Eliezer Wiesel was born in Sighet (now Sighetu Marmației), Romania, in the Carpathian Mountains. His parents were Sarah Feig and Shlomo Wiesel. At home, the family spoke Yiddish, along with German, Hungarian, and Romanian. His mother was the daughter of Dodye Feig, a Vizhnitz Hasid and farmer from the nearby village of Bocskó, who was active and trusted in the community. His father instilled a strong sense of humanism, encouraging Eliezer to learn Hebrew and read literature, while his mother urged him to study the Torah. Wiesel said his father represented reason and his mother faith. He was told his lineage traced back to Rabbi Schlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi) and Rabbi Yeshayahu ben Abraham Horovitz ha-Levi.

Wiesel had three siblings: older sisters Beatrice and Hilda, and a younger sister, Tzipora. Beatrice and Hilda survived the war and reunited with Wiesel at a French orphanage, later emigrating to North America (Beatrice to Montreal). Tzipora, Shlomo, and Sarah were murdered in the Holocaust.

**Imprisonment during the Holocaust**

In March 1944, Germany occupied Hungary, extending the Holocaust into Northern Transylvania. Wiesel, then 15, was placed with his family and the town's other Jews in one of two ghettos in Sighet. In May 1944, Hungarian authorities, under German pressure, began deporting the Jewish community to Auschwitz, where up to 90 percent were killed on arrival. His mother and younger sister were murdered in the gas chambers immediately. Wiesel and his father were selected for labor, to be killed only when no longer able-bodied. They were later sent to Buchenwald. Wiesel admitted to Oprah Winfrey that his main reason for surviving Auschwitz was knowing his father was alive: "I knew that if I died, he would die." At Buchenwald, his father died before liberation. In *Night*, Wiesel recalled the shame of hearing his father beaten and being unable to help. He was tattooed with inmate number A-7713 on his left arm. The camp was liberated by the U.S. Third Army on April 11, 1945, just as prisoners were being prepared for evacuation.

**March of the Living**

The March of the Living is an annual educational program that has brought over 300,000 participants to Poland to visit Holocaust sites and walk from Auschwitz to Birkenau, learning through survivor testimony. Wiesel served on the Presidium for the first March in 1988 and attended in 1990 and again in 2005, the 60th anniversary of WWII's end. In 2005, he addressed over 18,000 people, the largest crowd in the program's history. During the 1990 March, Wiesel spoke at Auschwitz about his concerns over antisemitism, saying, "We were convinced that antisemitism perished here. Antisemitism did not perish here; its victims perished here." He began telling a story about a young girl but paused and left the stage, unable to continue. A witness described even "the world's most eloquent witness to the Holocaust" as unable to convey the girl's fate. In 2017, Wiesel's son, Elisha, participated in the March.