Upload
kimbremarie
View
550
Download
4
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Elie Wiesel
Born in Sighet on
September 30,1928
Grew up in small village
in Romania
Was born as an
Orthodox Jew
Parents were Shlomo and Sarah
-Owned grocery store
Older sisters, Hilda and Bea
Younger sister -Tsiporah
1940, Nazis turned Sighet over to Hungary
Hungarian Government ruled that all Jews who could
not prove Hungarian citizenship be transferred to Nazi-
help Poland and then murdered
Wiesel’s friend, Moshe was only one to escape from
Poland
Studied Bible
Jewish books
Learned astrology
1944, German soldiers occupied Sighet
Forced Jews to wear yellow stars
Nazis closed Jewish stores
Raided Houses
Created two ghettos
May, deportations began
Wiesel family was not loaded till early June
Loaded into car filled with eighty people
Mother and younger sister taken to gas chambers
Elie and father were sent to be slave laborers
Survived first Aushwitz then Buna labor camp/8 months
Endured beatings, hunger, roll calls, other torture
Given number A- 7713
January 19, Death march
June 29, his father dies
Sent to Buchenwald
April 6, 1945 guards told prisoners they would no longer be fed
Began evacuating camp
Killing 10,000 prisoners a day
Morning of April 11, underground movement rose and attacked the SS guards
Early evening, first American military unit arrives and liberated the camp
After liberation, Wiesel became sick with intestinal
problems
Spent several days in hospital
While hospitalized, he wrote the outline for a
book describing his experiences during the
Holocaust
Was not ready to publicize his experiences and
promised he would wait ten years before writing
them down in detail
Released from hospital with no family to return
to
Joined a group of 400 orphans being taken to
France
1947 Wiesel, by chance, got in touch with his
sister
1948 he enrolled in Sorbonne University
Later spent a year drawing on the outline he had written in the hospital which he called And theWorld Was Silent
Gave to a publisher who made it into a bookcalled Night.
After Night was published, he wrote a second novel in1961, Dawn.
Night (1958)Dawn (1961)
The accident (1962)The Town Beyond The Wall (1964)
The Gates Of The Forest (1966)The Jews Of Silence (1966)
Legends Of Our Time (1968)A Beggar in Jerusalem (1968) One Generation After (1970)
Souls on Fire (1972)Night Trilogy (1972)
The oath (1973)Ani maamin (1973)
The Madness of God (1974)Messengers of God (1976)
A Jew Today (1978)Four Hasidic Masters (1978)Images from the Bible (1980)
The Trial of God (1979) The Testament (1981)
1969, Wiesel married Marion ErsterRose
A divorced woman from Austria
She helped translate Wiesel’s books
1972, They had a son
Named him after Wiesel’s father, Shlomo Elisha Wiesel
1980, He delivered food to starving Cambodians
1986, He received the Nobel Peace Prize as a messenger to mankind and a human being dedicated to humanity
1972-1978 was a professor
1985, Wiesel was awarded the Congressional Gold Metal of Achievement
In the early 1990s, he lobbied the U.S. government on behalf of victims of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
He received many rewards, approximately 75 honorary doctorates.
1993, spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Bibliography
"Elie Wiesel Bio." American Studies @ The University of Virginia. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.
<http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/holo/eliebio.htm>.
Schoenberg, Shira. "Elie Wiesel." Jewish Virtual Library
Homepage. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.
<http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Wiesel.html>.
"Elie Wiesel Biography, Elie Wiesel Childhood, Life and Timeline." Famous People –
Famous People in History, Famous People List & Biography. Web. 29 Mar. 2011.
<http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/elie-wiesel-13.php>.