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Elie Wiesel, a Romanian-born American author, political activist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, survived the Holocaust and moved to the United States in 1955. His most popular book, Night, became a New York Times bestseller in 2006. Wiesel’s family was deported to Auschwitz, where his mother and sister died. He later moved to France and began his writing career as a journalist. He moved to the United States in 1955 and became a nationalized citizen in 1963. Wiesel has spoken out against the oppression of Jews and other ethnic groups and founded the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.
Elie Wiesel is an American author, political activist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Born in Romania, he moved to the United States in 1955 after surviving the Holocaust and living in France for ten years. Wiesel’s most popular book, Night, became a New York Times bestseller in early 2006 after Oprah Winfrey selected it for her book club.
Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet, Romania to Shlomo and Sarah Wiesel. Shlomo was an Orthodox Jew who supported his family through his grocery store business, was active in the community, and encouraged Elie to study literature and modern Hebrew. He was also briefly imprisoned for helping Jews flee Poland at the start of World War II. Sarah Wiesel came from a Hasidic Jewish family and inspired religious fervor in her son. Elie was an only child, but had three sisters named Hilda, Bea and Tzipora.
Tragedy struck Elie Wiesel and his family on April 19, 1944, four years after Romania ceded Sighet to Hungary. All of the city’s Jews were deported to Auschwitz, where Shlomo and Elie were separated from their family. Sarah and Tzipora are believed to have died while at the camp. Elie stayed with her father during a series of trips between labor camps and witnessed her death in January 1945 in Buchenwald, just months before American forces liberated the camp.
In the wake of the Holocaust, Wiesel entered an orphanage in France, where he was reunited with Hilda and Bea. He began a philosophy course at the Sorbonne and supported himself by teaching Hebrew and working as a translator and choirmaster. Wiesel began his writing career as a journalist, working for Israeli and French newspapers, but would not write about his own experiences of the Holocaust for ten years. In 1955, Elie Wiesel published Un di velt hot geshvign (And the World Remained Silent), the first incarnation of Night, in Buenos Aires. Wiesel’s French translation was published in 1958 and the English version first appeared in 1960.
Wiesel moved to the United States in 1955 when he was stationed in New York as a foreign correspondent for an Israeli newspaper. He became a nationalized citizen in 1963 and shortly thereafter began to develop his career as an author, professor and political activist. Wiesel has spoken out against the oppression of Jews and other ethnic groups around the world, advocating awareness and intervention. Together with his wife Marion, he founded the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. He was also influential in opening the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and was awarded the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.
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