ELIE WIESEL
G'day folks,
Welcome to a very interesting and distinguished man who is a professor, author, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Eliezer Wiesel is a Jewish American professor, writer and
political activist. He was born in Sighet, Transylvania, Maramures, and Kingdom
of Romania on 30th September 1928. In 1986, recognizing his struggle for peace,
atonement and human dignity Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded him The Nobel
Peace Prize. He is also famous for his arguably most powerful and renowned book
in Holocaust literature, “Night” which is inspired by his personal experience
as a prisoner in Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald.
Since Elie
Wiesel’s early age his father implanted in him a sense of humanism. Wiesel
recalls that his father always taught him reasoning, his mother on the other
hand represented faith. Growing up in a tiny village, his only affection was
his family, religious study and community. His father always encouraged him to
study the Modern Hebrew language and concentrate on his literature.
In 1944 Nazis
invaded Sighet and destroyed the once secure childhood world of Wiesel. All the
Jewish families were placed in camps. Wiesel and his
father were separated from his mother and sisters. They were forced to work
almost to death and were shuffled between different camps mostly bare footed
without food or proper clothing in driving snow. He lost his father on January
29th 1945 only months before the US army rescued him from the camps.
After the war Wiesel, reunited with his two
surviving sisters, settled in France. There he taught Hebrew and mastered the
French language. He also studied philosophy at the Sorbonne. He became
professional journalist and wrote for newspapers both in France and Israel. In
1955, after ten years of utter silence about his experience in the camps and
war in general, Wiesel met Francois Mauriac, a Nobel Prize awarded French
author who later became his close friend for life. Mauriac is credited to have
encouraged Wiesel to write about his experiences. “La Nuit” was the result of
this persuasion which was later translated in English Language as “Night”.
Wiesel had to struggle several years to find a publisher for his book and even
when he did only few copies were sold initially. However, as yet, Night has
been translated in more than 30 languages and by 1997 the book was selling over
300,000 copies annually in the US alone.
In 1956, Wiesel visited New York for his
report on United Nations. During his visit, he was struck by a cab driver and
was confined to a wheelchair for nearly a year. He applied for the renewal of
his French permit which had allowed him to travel, upon denial of his request
he successfully applied for US citizenship.
He started his
career in US as feature writer for The Jewish Daily Forward. Wiesel used his
international fame earned by his publications, to win justice for oppressed
people and societies in different parts of the world. In 1978 he was appointed
Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council by President Jimmy
Carter.
1985 brought
him a Congressional Medal of Freedom, followed by the Nobel Prize of Peace in
1986. Wiesel has given many guest appearances and lectures in a number of
universities all over the world. Despite his growing popularity as a
humanitarian, Wiesel has not discarded his passion for fiction and continues
working on his books and semi auto-biographical novels.
Clancy's comment: What can I say?
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