Elie Wiesel (1928–2016)

Obituary of Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in Sighet, then Hungary, (now Romania) to Jewish parents. He spent his childhood and adolescence engrossed in studying the Torah and the other sacred texts of the Jewish tradition. When his studies were cut short by the war, he drifted from his religious roots. Only after the war, was he gradually able relearn the alphabet of life and faith. While Wiesel’s access and understanding of God and the Jewish tradition were shaken by the events of Auschwitz and the evil it represents, this source of identity never faded — not even during the "kingdom of night," as he called the death camps.
Postwar France became his second home, and Wiesel quickly adopted the language. Up until the end of his life, he wrote his central works in French. Among his body of work are more than a dozen novels, books on biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic traditions, autobiographical writings, and countless articles and essays. His work largely revolves around the importance of memory for the present day and future generations.Wiesel's best-known and most important novel was also his first. More than a novel, Night stands as a testimony of the harrowing experiences Wiesel experienced during his deportation from Sighet and time in the camps. Night quickly became one of the most essential documents of Holocaust remembrance worldwide and its importance to Wiesel’s own work cannot be overstated. His later writings revolve around Night, as if in concentric circles. His writings on the Jewish tradition, the question of God in the face of suffering, and themes of human dignity, hatred, and peace are all fed by the memory of his experiences in the Holocaust, the culmination of inhumanity. In Wiesel’s novels and dramas, the main characters seek ways to continue living with the memory of persecution and death, to build a good life from and with their memories. In his writings on Jewish tradition, Wiesel tries to connect to the old traditions "across the abyss of fire and tears." His essays, in particular, are documents of human dignity that exist contrary to the suffering in his past. In writing on modern-day issues such as racism, the violation of human rights, war, hunger, expulsion, and flight, the Auschwitz survivor interprets the present as a reflection of the past.His written commitment to social justice went hand in hand with his concrete actions against injustice: protesting apartheid in South Africa, standing against anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, fighting against the extermination of indigenous populations in South America, working to solve hunger problems in Africa, and vehemently advocating against wars in Cambodia, Serbia, and other parts of the world. In 1986, Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his actions in the name of peace, reconciliation, and human dignity. His goal was a humane future in which all people are respected, regardless of origin, religion, skin color, or social affiliation:

"It's true, we have no power against death; but as long as we help a man, a woman, a child, live an hour longer in safety and dignity, we affirm the human right to life."