The Fall and Rise of Elie Wiesel

Many tales have been told about the rise and fall of various historical figures. The Roman Empire, Kurt Cobain; we’re all familiar with the stories. These groups or people reach the most epic heights of success, only to be cast down into a state of utter destruction. What would happen, however, if the roles were reversed? A story in which someone revived his or herself from the darkest pits of despair and became something great? Such a story does exist; The Story of Elie Wiesel’s life.

Eliezer Wiesel was born to a Jewish family in the town of Sighet, which at the time it was part of Romania, on September 30, 1928. He was a middle child, with two older sisters as well as a younger sister. His father, Shlomo Wiesel, was the owner of a local grocery store, and encouraged his son’s education. His mother, Sarah Wiesel, was firmly rooted in her religion which had an influence on Elie for all of his life. In Elie’s own words, his father represented reason and his mother, faith.

Unfortunately for Elie, in 1944 his town would be taken over by the Nazi forces. He and his family were brutally forced from their homes into ghettos, and eventually shipped to the one of the most infamous concentration camps of WWII; Auschwitz. Upon arriving at the death factory, he and his father were immediately separated from his sisters and mother and sent to a labor camp known as Buna. His mother and youngest sister are presumed to have died in agony in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, before their bodies were tossed with millions of others into the crematorium.

Elie and his father desperately clung to each other for a year, as they were the victimized by some of the most inhumane abuse imaginable. They were beaten, starved and crippled every single day as they were forced to act as slaves in the Nazi labor camp. Elie’s father was not able to survive the torment, and as Elie later described in his book Night, his father’s last word was Elie's name. Elie later described his experiences by saying“We were living in death. Death was all around us, and no one cried when someone died... for fear that they would never stop.”

Upon being liberated from the death camp, Elie was placed in a French orphanage where he was fortunate enough to find two of his sisters who also lived through the atrocity of the Holocaust.

Elie's stolen childhood and horrific challenges left Elie bitter. He questioned the good of society, his religion and the worth of his own life. However, Elie did not succumb to this bitterness. He rose above it and became an award winning author, an activist, a professor and above all else, a voice for people who no longer had one. Studying philosophy gave Eli a new outlook on life, and he made it his personal mission to ensure that no one would ever be in his situation again.

Aboard a ship to Brazil, Elie began his most famous piece of work- the novel Night. At first, no publishers were interested in Elie's story, claiming that no reader would be interested in a story so tragic and grim. However, in 1958 a French publisher accepted the book and it was a success. Elie was urged to find an American publisher, and at first his book barely sold over 1000 copies in over a year.This didn't discourage Elie, thankfully. Now Night sells over 300,000 copies in the United States alone every year and has been translated into 30 different languages.

Elie moved to the United States in 1955, where he was granted citizenship after staying past his visa's limit. Here, he began to work seriously as a writer, with over forty books, both fiction and nonfiction. His outstanding writing was acknowledged with many awards and honors.

One Elie's highest honors came when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, for his activism with issues involving racism, violence and the repression of personal freedoms.

During the mid to late 1990s, Elie was an adamant voice speaking out for the victims of genocide in Yugoslavia. In front of then President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary, Elie gave perhaps his most famous speech, "The Perils of Indifference." In it, he discussed the hardships and slaughter occurring at Kosovo and urged the world to not be indifferent to such suffering, like many had been to his all those years ago.

Today, Elie holds the title of Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Boston University and greatly enjoys teaching. Activism remains an important part of his life. Currently, a great amount of Elie's energy is focused on Darfur and the ethnic cleansing terrorizing the region.

Every single of one of us can stand to learn something from the experiences and teachings of Elie Wiesel. In spite of the monstrous difficulties Elie faced in his life that many of us can only imagine, he never lost sight of the beauty of life and the potential of humanity.

Additional Information

For more information on the life and achievements of Elie Wiesel:

• http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/
• http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/wie0bio-1
• http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-bio.html