Elie Wiesel

Born in Sighet on

September 30,1928

Grew up in small village

in Romania

Was born as an

Orthodox Jew

Parents were Shlomo and Sarah

-Owned grocery store

Older sisters, Hilda and Bea

Younger sister -Tsiporah

1940, Nazis turned Sighet over to Hungary

Hungarian Government ruled that all Jews who could

not prove Hungarian citizenship be transferred to Nazi-

help Poland and then murdered

Wiesel’s friend, Moshe was only one to escape from

Poland

Studied Bible

Jewish books

Learned astrology

1944, German soldiers occupied Sighet

Forced Jews to wear yellow stars

Nazis closed Jewish stores

Raided Houses

Created two ghettos

May, deportations began

Wiesel family was not loaded till early June

Loaded into car filled with eighty people

Mother and younger sister taken to gas chambers

Elie and father were sent to be slave laborers

Survived first Aushwitz then Buna labor camp/8 months

Endured beatings, hunger, roll calls, other torture

Given number A- 7713

January 19, Death march

June 29, his father dies

Sent to Buchenwald

April 6, 1945 guards told prisoners they would no longer be fed

Began evacuating camp

Killing 10,000 prisoners a day

Morning of April 11, underground movement rose and attacked the SS guards

Early evening, first American military unit arrives and liberated the camp

After liberation, Wiesel became sick with intestinal

problems

Spent several days in hospital

While hospitalized, he wrote the outline for a

book describing his experiences during the

Holocaust

Was not ready to publicize his experiences and

promised he would wait ten years before writing

them down in detail

Released from hospital with no family to return

to

Joined a group of 400 orphans being taken to

France

1947 Wiesel, by chance, got in touch with his

sister

1948 he enrolled in Sorbonne University

Later spent a year drawing on the outline he had written in the hospital which he called And theWorld Was Silent

Gave to a publisher who made it into a bookcalled Night.

After Night was published, he wrote a second novel in1961, Dawn.

Night (1958)Dawn (1961)

The accident (1962)The Town Beyond The Wall (1964)

The Gates Of The Forest (1966)The Jews Of Silence (1966)

Legends Of Our Time (1968)A Beggar in Jerusalem (1968) One Generation After (1970)

Souls on Fire (1972)Night Trilogy (1972)

The oath (1973)Ani maamin (1973)

The Madness of God (1974)Messengers of God (1976)

A Jew Today (1978)Four Hasidic Masters (1978)Images from the Bible (1980)

The Trial of God (1979) The Testament (1981)

1969, Wiesel married Marion ErsterRose

A divorced woman from Austria

She helped translate Wiesel’s books

1972, They had a son

Named him after Wiesel’s father, Shlomo Elisha Wiesel

1980, He delivered food to starving Cambodians

1986, He received the Nobel Peace Prize as a messenger to mankind and a human being dedicated to humanity

1972-1978 was a professor

1985, Wiesel was awarded the Congressional Gold Metal of Achievement

In the early 1990s, he lobbied the U.S. government on behalf of victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

He received many rewards, approximately 75 honorary doctorates.

1993, spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Bibliography

"Elie Wiesel Bio." American Studies @ The University of Virginia. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.

<http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/holo/eliebio.htm>.

Schoenberg, Shira. "Elie Wiesel." Jewish Virtual Library

Homepage. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.

<http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Wiesel.html>.

"Elie Wiesel Biography, Elie Wiesel Childhood, Life and Timeline." Famous People –

Famous People in History, Famous People List & Biography. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.

<http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/elie-wiesel-13.php>.