This is Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel. Elie was born in 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania, which is now a part of Romania.(eliewieselfoundation.org) "Elie" is a Jewish-American professor and political activist. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps. He was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister were killed but his two older sisters survived. Elie and his father were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died shortly before the camp was liberated in April 1945. (cnn.com)
After the war, Elie Wiesel studied in Paris and leter became a journalist. During an interview with a distinguished French writer, Francois Mauriac, he was persuaded to write about his experiences in the death camps. The result was his internationally acclaimed memoir, "Night" which has been translated into more than thirty languages. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed Elie Wiesel as Chairman of the President's Commission on the Holocaust. In 1980, he became the Founding Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He is now President of The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, an organization he and his wife created to fight indifference, intolerance and injustice. Elie Wiesel has received more than 100 honorary degrees from institutions.
About the Author of Night
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.
-Eliezer Weisel (roads.virginia.edu)
Before the Books
By: Y.
Picture Sources: William A. Scott III Collection