Elie Wiesel

Though he authored more than 60 books in his lifetime, author and educator Elie Wiesel's 1960 novel Night, which detailed his experiences in two concentration camps during World War II, cemented his reputation as one of the most dedicated advocates for human rights in the 20th century and beyond. Born Eliezer Wiesel on September 30, 1928 in Sighet (now Sighetu Marmartiei), Romania, he was a teenager when Nazi Germany occupied neighboring Hungary. Wiesel, along with his parents and three sisters, were eventually deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. There, his mother and youngest sister were killed, and Wiesel and his father were sent to Buchenwald, where the elder Wiesel died shortly before the camp was liberated in 1945. Wiesel was eventually reunited with his surviving sisters before relocating to Paris, where he studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne and worked as a journalist for Israeli and French newspapers. Wiesel never wrote about or discussed his experiences during the Holocaust, but an interview with the French writer Francois Mauriac inspired him to begin writing his memoir, And the World Remained Silent, which was later revised and translated into English as Night in 1960. The book documented his experiences in the camps and the loss of his family members, as well as his own struggles with survivor's remorse and religious beliefs. Night received scant attention upon its initial release, but slowly built interest through positive reviews, and was eventually translated into more than 30 languages. Wiesel relocated to the United States in 1955, where he worked as a journalist for an Israeli daily; in the mid-1970s, he became the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, a position that he held until his death. During this period, he also wrote more than 60 books of fiction and non-fiction, including two more volumes of memoirs and the novel and play The Trial of God (1979), all of which helped to bring the atrocities of the Holocaust to sharp relief for a wide audience. Wiesel was also an outspoken opponent of international human rights offenses, including apartheid in South Africa and victims of genocide in Bosnia and Armenia. In 1978, Wiesel became the chairman for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, which oversaw the construction of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. His educational duties soon expanded to include the first Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in Humanities and Social Thought at Yale in 1982; three years later, he was award the Congressional Gold Medal, which was followed by the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 and more than 100 honorary degrees from major colleges and universities. After a lifetime committed to promoting and preserving human rights, Wiesel died at his home in Manhattan on July 2, 2016 at the age of 87.