Night
by Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel Biography:
Eliezer "Ellie" Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928, in Sighet, Transylvania, a small town in what is now Romania. He was born into a Jewish family, his father and mother being Shlomo and Sarah Wiesel, along with two older sisters and one younger sister. As he was growing up, his life revolved around family, religious study, community, and God. Wiesel followed his religious beliefs and studies intently, pursuing to study religion at a nearby yeshiva, which is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on traditional religious texts. He had also the spiritual beliefs from his mother and grandfather, as well as his father's influence on Judaism. He also talked frequently with Moshe, a caretaker in a nearby synagogue who spoke to Wiesel about the Messiah and such. Wiesel had an ordinary and privileged life as a child, at least until his life turned upside down.
It was the year of 1944 when Elie’s life was changed forever and the Holocaust, which took the lives of more than 6 million Jews, started to affect him and his family. German Nazis occupied the town where Elie and his family resided, Sighet, and forced the Jews to wear yellows stars to signify they were Jewish. The Nazis raided houses, closed stores, and enforced new and unfair laws upon the Jews in Sighet. Later on, he and his family, along with the other Jews that lived in Bulgaria, Hungary, or Romania, were relocated to labor and death camps in Poland. When he was fifteen, he and his entire family were sent to extermination camps in Auschwitz, where his parents and his younger sister perished as part of the Holocaust. Eventually, after living in the inhumane conditions of the concentration camps, he was freed in 1945 from Buchenwald, along with his two older sisters who survived with him. As Elie grew up towards his middle life, he studied and became a journalist for French and Israeli publications. He was later encouraged by a friend, Francois Mauriac, to write about his experiences and tragedies that happened in the camps, which later came to be be known as "Night" by English readers. It served as a memoir for the unfortunate tragedy of the Holocaust, and was followed by two other books. He continued to write and publish many other books, and eventually became an international activist, an orator against injustices around the world, and has gained many awards for his works and deeds. Elie Wiesel's historical impact was an influential and large on because he became a public figure for peace and justice, speaking out against injustices and unfair treatments between people, and he wrote several works to share his experiences in injustice and leave behind memoirs and classics for all people to read and understand.
While Elie Wiesel was an active public speaker against injustice, he also had many other achievements and a passion for teaching. In the mid-1970s, he was a professor teaching Judaic studies at the City University of New York, as well as a serving as a visiting scholar at Yale. In 1978, he became a professor of Humanities at Boston University, and began to head the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council for six years in that same year. He was honored with the Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement award in 1985, and started, with the help of his wife, his own organization called the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which explored hatred problems and ethnic conflicts. All in all, Elie Wiesel was an excellent role model for justice as well as peace for people, and gained many awards and achievements in doing so.
Sources:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Wiesel.html
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-bio.html
http://www.biography.com/people/elie-wiesel-9530714
Eliezer "Ellie" Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928, in Sighet, Transylvania, a small town in what is now Romania. He was born into a Jewish family, his father and mother being Shlomo and Sarah Wiesel, along with two older sisters and one younger sister. As he was growing up, his life revolved around family, religious study, community, and God. Wiesel followed his religious beliefs and studies intently, pursuing to study religion at a nearby yeshiva, which is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on traditional religious texts. He had also the spiritual beliefs from his mother and grandfather, as well as his father's influence on Judaism. He also talked frequently with Moshe, a caretaker in a nearby synagogue who spoke to Wiesel about the Messiah and such. Wiesel had an ordinary and privileged life as a child, at least until his life turned upside down.
It was the year of 1944 when Elie’s life was changed forever and the Holocaust, which took the lives of more than 6 million Jews, started to affect him and his family. German Nazis occupied the town where Elie and his family resided, Sighet, and forced the Jews to wear yellows stars to signify they were Jewish. The Nazis raided houses, closed stores, and enforced new and unfair laws upon the Jews in Sighet. Later on, he and his family, along with the other Jews that lived in Bulgaria, Hungary, or Romania, were relocated to labor and death camps in Poland. When he was fifteen, he and his entire family were sent to extermination camps in Auschwitz, where his parents and his younger sister perished as part of the Holocaust. Eventually, after living in the inhumane conditions of the concentration camps, he was freed in 1945 from Buchenwald, along with his two older sisters who survived with him. As Elie grew up towards his middle life, he studied and became a journalist for French and Israeli publications. He was later encouraged by a friend, Francois Mauriac, to write about his experiences and tragedies that happened in the camps, which later came to be be known as "Night" by English readers. It served as a memoir for the unfortunate tragedy of the Holocaust, and was followed by two other books. He continued to write and publish many other books, and eventually became an international activist, an orator against injustices around the world, and has gained many awards for his works and deeds. Elie Wiesel's historical impact was an influential and large on because he became a public figure for peace and justice, speaking out against injustices and unfair treatments between people, and he wrote several works to share his experiences in injustice and leave behind memoirs and classics for all people to read and understand.
While Elie Wiesel was an active public speaker against injustice, he also had many other achievements and a passion for teaching. In the mid-1970s, he was a professor teaching Judaic studies at the City University of New York, as well as a serving as a visiting scholar at Yale. In 1978, he became a professor of Humanities at Boston University, and began to head the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council for six years in that same year. He was honored with the Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement award in 1985, and started, with the help of his wife, his own organization called the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, which explored hatred problems and ethnic conflicts. All in all, Elie Wiesel was an excellent role model for justice as well as peace for people, and gained many awards and achievements in doing so.
Sources:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Wiesel.html
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-bio.html
http://www.biography.com/people/elie-wiesel-9530714