Night

Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in a small town in Romania called Sighetu Marmatiei. He was the third of four children, and he was the only son in the family. In Spring of 1944, when Elie was 15, Germans occupied his town. He and his family moved to one of the 2 ghettos in the town, before they were both liquidated and all of the Jews in Sighet were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. At the selection ramp of Birkenau, Elie was seperated from his mother and sisters, which was the last time he saw his mom and younger sister, Tzipora. Elie lied about his age, saying he was 18, so that he could avoid being exterminated. After being at Auschwitz I for some time, Elie and his father were transferred to Monowitz, where he worked as a slave labourer. When the Germans evacuated Auschwitz-Birkenau in early 1945, Elie and his father marched on foot for miles before being transported to Buchenwald camp in Germany, which was where Elie’s father died. Elie was liberated from Buchenwald on April 11, 1945. he reunited with his 2 older sisters, Beatrice and Hilda, in a French orphanage. He studied in Paris and became a journalist. He wrote his memoir Night before moving to the US in the 1950’s. He was appointed as the first Chair of President’s Commission on the Holocaust in 1976. Elie initiated the Days of Remembrance, which is the United States’ annual commemoration of the Holocaust. In addition, Elie spoke out for Soviet Jews, victims of apartheid, victims of famine in Africa and victims of genocide in Cambodia, Bosnia and Darfur. He became a professor at Boston University where he and his wife established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Elie went on the win the Nobel Peace Prize 1986. He died on July 2, 2016