The man to whom the world owes his knowledge of the disaster. The man who was one of the first to publish data on the oppression of the Jewish people by the Nazis. Eli Wiesel is the author of the novel "Night", which revealed to the world the truth about the crimes of the Nazis. Having survived all the horrors of Auschwitz, he exposed not only his executioners, but the whole world, silently indifferent and passing by.
Being a famous writer, he received the Nobel Prize. She was handed over not for her contribution to literature, but as a fighter for peace, and he remained so until the last days of his life - a ray of light and a model of humanity that never loses faith in good.
Wizel Eli. Biography
Eli Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Northern Transylvania, in the city of Sighet, in a religious Jewish family. Received a traditional religious education. As he himself said, childhood and youth "stayed in the Talmud." He studied Hebrew daily. His parents, Sarah and Shlomo Wiesel, taught him to love the Jews wholeheartedly. And he followed this all his life.
In 1941, the city in which the Wiesel family lived was annexed to Hungary. Starting from this time, the Nazis killed Jews who remained ignorant of what their fate would be. In 1943, the Nazis occupied Hungary.
In Sighet, Eli’s hometown, rumors of a Jewish uprising in the Warsaw ghetto were heard. They lamented that there was little left and it was necessary to be patient. So Wiesel Eli himself writes - the books “The Gates of the Forest” and “Night” tell a lot about this period of his life.
But in 1944, the Nazis began to carry out their monstrous plan. Only in Hungary in 1944 more than 800,000 Jews were exterminated. Those who remained were deported to Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland. Upon arrival at the camp, he and his father were separated from his mother and three sisters.
His mother Sarah and the younger sister of Zipora did not survive in custody. Wizel Eli and his father went to Monowitz labor camp . Eight months in prison, Wiesel managed to stay with his father, despite the fact that they were endlessly transferred from one sector to another.
Death march
In the winter of 1944, Auschwitz was evacuated as Soviet troops advanced. The prisoners were driven on foot to Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany. From starvation and cold, from the exhaustion and cruelty of the escorts, many died. The camp was liberated on April 11, 1945. Eli's father did not live until the liberation of the camp for a week, without enduring exhaustion and beatings. At that moment, Wiesel's faith shook. But with renewed vigor she returned to him later.
On the third day of freedom, Wiesel Wright received severe poisoning, for two weeks he was in the hospital between life and death. When he got up, he wanted to look at himself and went to the mirror. As Wiesel writes, he has not seen his face since he entered the camp. From the depths of the mirror the dead man looked at him. Then Eli found in one of the shelters in Paris his sisters - Hilda and Beatrice.
Carier start
In 1948 he entered the Sorbonne - the University of Paris. He studied psychology, philosophy, literature. After graduation, he worked as a journalist and soon went to India, where he spent one year. In 1955 he moved to the United States and in 1963 received citizenship.
Wiesel began his literary career in Yiddish, later published in Hebrew. Then he wrote in French and, in recent years, in English. “And the world was silent” - the first book that was published by Eli Wiesel in Argentina in Yiddish in 1956. After 2 years, it was translated into French and published under the title “Night”.
Jews of silence
The book brought worldwide fame. The world heard him. It was impossible not to hear. Wizel Eli, whose books exposed the horrors of the Nazis and those who indifferently remained silent and walked by, has preserved the memory of the Holocaust for life. One of the first he began to call on the world community to help Soviet Jews, to ease their fate behind the Iron Curtain.
In 1965, Wiesel arrived in the Soviet Union, wanting to personally see the plight of the Jewish people. He meets with community representatives. Inspired by what he heard and saw in the Union, Eli Wiesel wrote the book “Jews of Silence”. An exciting book about the life of Soviet Jews. The title of the book has a double meaning.
Starting to read the work, you think that the book is about people who are silent about their fate. But by the end of the reading, you realize that these words are primarily addressed to Jews living in free countries, for their passivity and doing nothing in the face of other people's suffering. Wiesel is not silent - he gives lectures, writes articles, calls on international organizations to protest against the policies of the Soviet Union.
Wiesel's work
In the late 1950s, Eli turned to literary activity. A significant part of the works written by Eli Wiesel are devoted to the terrible and unforgettable Holocaust of the Jewish people. The heroes of his novels, their problems and destinies are exclusively Jewish.
He perceives life through the prism of Kabbalah and the Talmud. Many books have been written about the extermination of Jews by the Nazis, about the meaninglessness of their atrocities, about the impossibility of interpreting these events from a religious point of view. In his messages, he talks about the inadmissibility of violence and neglect of human rights, discrimination and indifference.
He devotes many of his lectures and articles to refugees, people deprived of faith, name and homeland. People on the verge of being. Eli Wiesel has made a great contribution to the affairs of immigrants and refugees. Public and political organizations pay attention to the problems of these people. Wiesel instills in desperate hope for a better fate, for human participation and trust.
Eli Wiesel. Author's books
- The Night, 1958
- The Gates of the Forest, 1966.
- "Dawn", 1960.
- The Day, 1961.
- "The Jews of Silence", 1966.
- The Jerusalem Beggar, 1968
- Hasidic Fun, 1971
- “The Oath in Kolviyak”, 1973.
- Zalman, or Divine Madness, 1968.
- The Fifth Son, 1983.
- “In the Twilight Away,” 1987.
Social work
Wiesel Wielley, as a professor of Jewish studies, taught at Georgetown, Boston, and Yale. He traveled a lot around the world and gave lectures, spoke at conferences. He led an active social activity.
- 1980-1986 - Chairman of the Los Angeles Disaster Museum.
- 1985 - awarded the medal of the US Congress.
- 1986 - Nobel laureate.
- 2006 - awarded the title of Honorary Knight.
On July 2, 2016, in New York, Eli Wiesel died - a humanist and enlightener who devoted his whole life to the struggle for human rights. He tried to convey to all of humanity the value of freedom. Defended from lawlessness those who have neither knowledge nor the ability to defend their rights.