Elie Wiesel (1928–2016)
Author of Night, with the Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech
About the Author
Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel was born in Sighet, Romania on September 30, 1928. In 1944, he and his family were deported along with other Jews to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. His mother and his younger sister died there. He loaded stones onto railway cars in a labor camp called Buna before being sent to show more Buchenwald, where his father died. He was liberated by the United States Third Army on April 11, 1945. After the war ended, he learned that his two older sisters had also survived. He was placed on a train of 400 orphans that was headed to France, where he was assigned to a home in Normandy under the care of a Jewish organization. He was educated at the Sorbonne and supported himself as a tutor, a Hebrew teacher and a translator. He started writing for the French newspaper L'Arche. In 1948, L'Arche sent him to Israel to report on that newly founded state. He also became the Paris correspondent for the daily Yediot Ahronot. In this capacity, he interviewed the novelist Francois Mauriac, who urged him to write about his war experiences. The result was La Nuit (Night). After the publication of Night, Wiesel became a writer, literary critic, and journalist. His other books include Dawn, The Accident, The Gates of the Forest, The Jews of Silence: A Personal Report on Soviet Jewry, and Twilight. He received a numerous awards and honors for his literary work including the William and Janice Epstein Fiction Award in 1965, the Jewish Heritage Award in 1966, the Prix Medicis in 1969, and the Prix Livre-International in 1980. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for his work in combating human cruelty and in advocating justice. He had a leading role in the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D. C. He died on July 2, 2016 at the age of 87. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Elie Wiesel
The Trial of God: (as it was held on February 25, 1649, in Shamgorod) (1979) — Author — 413 copies, 7 reviews
Sages and Dreamers: Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic Portraits and Legends (1991) 322 copies, 3 reviews
A Passover Haggadah: As Commented Upon by Elie Wiesel and Illustrated by Mark Podwal (1993) 279 copies, 1 review
Wise Men and Their Tales: Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic Masters (2003) — Author — 171 copies, 1 review
Filled with Fire and Light: Portraits and Legends from the Bible, Talmud, and Hasidic World (1994) 40 copies, 2 reviews
Mijn liefde voor de profeten: portretten en verhalen uit bijbel en midrasj (1986) — Author — 18 copies, 1 review
Telling the Tale : A Tribute to Elie Wiesel on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday - Essays, Reflections, and Poems (1993) 11 copies
Elie Wiesel Reading from His Works; The Gates of Forest; Night; The Song of the Dead; The Jews of Silence. (1988) 2 copies
A voice for humanity 1 copy
Elie Wiesel: Memoirs 1 copy
“An evening guest” 1 copy
From Holocaust To Rebirth 1 copy
Two Images, One Destiny 1 copy
Auschwitz and Treblinka: So much violence, so much indifference — Author — 1 copy
Will Soviet Jewry survive? 1 copy
Esau and Jacob 1 copy
Wiesel Eli 1 copy
Our Jewish Solitude 1 copy
Home Before Dark 1 copy
A Song for Hope 1 copy
The Accident {video} 1 copy
Associated Works
The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition (1947) — Introduction, some editions — 9,230 copies, 127 reviews
A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy (2007) — Foreword — 792 copies, 42 reviews
Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from the New York Times (2001) — Contributor — 479 copies, 5 reviews
Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II (0001) — Foreword, some editions — 127 copies, 1 review
The Righteous Among the Nations: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust (2007) — Foreword, some editions — 96 copies, 1 review
With Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Memories of the War Years in Hungary (1979) — Foreword, some editions — 81 copies, 1 review
Speeches of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Orations Deserving of a Wider Audience (2018) — Narrator, some editions — 74 copies, 1 review
Tikvah: Children's Book Creators Reflect on Human Rights (2001) — Introduction — 66 copies, 1 review
The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944 (1995) — Foreword, some editions — 63 copies
Here I Am: Contemporary Jewish Stories from Around the World (1998) — Contributor — 57 copies, 1 review
Great Tours and Detours: The Sophisticated Traveler Series (1985) — Contributor — 35 copies, 1 review
The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, Volume I (2001) — Foreword — 26 copies
The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, Volume III (2001) — Foreword — 24 copies
The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, Volume II (2001) — Foreword — 22 copies
Preventing Genocide: Practical Steps Toward Early Detection and Effective Action (2008) — Foreword — 14 copies
A consuming fire: Encounters with Elie Wiesel and the Holocaust (1979) — Introduction, some editions — 14 copies
The Iaşi Pogrom, June–July 1941: A Photo Documentary from the Holocaust in Romania (2015) — Preface, some editions — 13 copies, 1 review
Charlie Rose with Elie Wiesel; Amy Tan (November 9, 1995) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Wiesel, Elie
- Legal name
- Wiesel, Eliezer
- Other names
- A-7713
WIESEL, Élie
WIESEL, Elie
WIESEL, Eliezer - Birthdate
- 1928-09-30
- Date of death
- 2016-07-02
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Paris
- Occupations
- journalist
writer
professor
novelist
author
memoirist (show all 8)
Holocaust survivor
translator - Organizations
- American Academy of Arts and Letters( [1996])
Boston University
United States Holocaust Memorial Council
Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity - Awards and honors
- Nobel Peace Prize (1986)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (1992)
Congressional Gold Medal (1984)
Medal of Liberty (1986)
Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award (2007)
Norman Mailer Prize (2011) (show all 8)
National Humanities Medal (2009)
Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement (2012) - Relationships
- Wiesel, Marion (wife)
Bloch, Sam E. (colleague) - Short biography
- Elie Wiesel was born to a Jewish family in the small town of Sighet in northern Transylvania, then part of Hungary, now Romania. He was still a teenager when he was taken from his home and deported to the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz and then to Buchenwald. His memoirs of that experience are unforgettably recorded in NIGHT, which became a worldwide bestseller. Elie Wiesel was Andrew Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and founding chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
- Nationality
- Romania (birth)
- Birthplace
- Sighet, Maramureş County, Romania
Sighet, Romania - Places of residence
- Hungary
Auschwitz, Poland
Buchenwald, Germany
Paris, France
Israel
New York, New York, USA (show all 7)
Sighet, Romania (birth) - Place of death
- Manhattan, New York, USA
- Burial location
- Sharon Gardens Cemetery, Valhalla, New York, USA
- Map Location
- Romania
Members
Reviews
Night is an account of 15-year old Eli Wiesel's imprisonment in Auschwitz in 1944, followed by a death march and eventual liberation. Wiesel's mother and sisters are exterminated by the Nazis, while he is left to scrap for survival with his ailing father. It is a personal account describing his evolving religious belief and desperation to stay with a father who needs his protection. The focus is not on how the concentration camps are run, but on emotive scenes of the young and old being show more eliminated, bullying within the camp hierarchy, and the prisoners' raw fight for survival.
If this were the first and only Holocaust memoir I had read, I would have rated it highly. But I read Night just after Primo Levi's memoirs, and it pales in comparison. Published around ten years after Levi's If This Is a Man, I expected more. But what truly irks me is dishonesty. Night came about after many iterations: first the original 860-page Yiddish, then a 260-page abridgement, third a 180-page French translation, and finally 115-page English translation of the French. Critics say what's lost in translation is a change in emphasis from a Yiddish account for Jewish readers attacking Germans to a French translation aimed at Christians more critical of God than the Nazi regime. To me the message and impact of such a work should be universal. We're talking about humanity here, not propaganda: there should be no need to edit for readership, and it's disappointing this has likely happened here.
Levi describes events and characters as they are, while Wiesel dwells on his personal journey in an evocative fashion designed primarily, if not exclusively, to shock. The pace of Wiesel's narrative is fast, detail somewhat lacking, the dialogue likely fictional. Wiesel himself has admitted Night incorporates fictional elements. In my opinion, invest some more time to tackle If This Is a Man, or another recommended Holocaust memoir, and return to Night for a more emotional journey, or to complete an Oprah Book Club challenge. show less
If this were the first and only Holocaust memoir I had read, I would have rated it highly. But I read Night just after Primo Levi's memoirs, and it pales in comparison. Published around ten years after Levi's If This Is a Man, I expected more. But what truly irks me is dishonesty. Night came about after many iterations: first the original 860-page Yiddish, then a 260-page abridgement, third a 180-page French translation, and finally 115-page English translation of the French. Critics say what's lost in translation is a change in emphasis from a Yiddish account for Jewish readers attacking Germans to a French translation aimed at Christians more critical of God than the Nazi regime. To me the message and impact of such a work should be universal. We're talking about humanity here, not propaganda: there should be no need to edit for readership, and it's disappointing this has likely happened here.
Levi describes events and characters as they are, while Wiesel dwells on his personal journey in an evocative fashion designed primarily, if not exclusively, to shock. The pace of Wiesel's narrative is fast, detail somewhat lacking, the dialogue likely fictional. Wiesel himself has admitted Night incorporates fictional elements. In my opinion, invest some more time to tackle If This Is a Man, or another recommended Holocaust memoir, and return to Night for a more emotional journey, or to complete an Oprah Book Club challenge. show less
Every page of this book is a punch in the face. What happened to him was the worst and he didn't try to hide it or sweeten it. He allowed us to see what happens inside the mind of someone in such extreme situation, the noble and the shameful. I keep with me his frustration, his pain, his doubts, his disappointment.
A terrifying window into the heart of the Holocaust, this was undoubtedly one of the best of its kind. From a first person perspective, Elie Wiesel unabashedly outlines every horrific detail about his life in the concentration camps and beyond. It's a heavy book, as of course it must be. You won't want to believe it's true, but at the same time you feel you have to read it, to keep the memory of the depths humankind can sink to alive.
The other factor of this book that interested me was show more Wiesel's musings on religion, the way he practiced, lost, cursed, regained, and questioned his faith in God. It became an integral part of his story, and I had always wondered how any person in his situation could possibly keep from considering atheism.
All in all, this book will make you sick, sad, and furious, but it is also a kind of fierce call to action, not so much to do something now, but to never forget and ensure it never happens again. show less
The other factor of this book that interested me was show more Wiesel's musings on religion, the way he practiced, lost, cursed, regained, and questioned his faith in God. It became an integral part of his story, and I had always wondered how any person in his situation could possibly keep from considering atheism.
All in all, this book will make you sick, sad, and furious, but it is also a kind of fierce call to action, not so much to do something now, but to never forget and ensure it never happens again. show less
Night by Elie Wiesel
Eliezer was 15 years old when he, his sister and his parents were taken prisoner by the Nazis and deported from their home in Sighet, Transylvania, for the crime of being Jewish. Upon arrival to the concentration camp of Auschwitz, Eliezer and his father were separated from Eliezer’s mother and sister, never to see them again. To survive the most inhumane conditions imaginable and to avoid immediate death, Eliezer and his father desperately tried to keep up their strength, thereby show more demonstrating to the Nazis their usefulness in their ability to work. Each day brought new horrors, torture, starvation, exposure, exhaustion, and illness. Constantly, death hovered over them and the other prisoners. Their challenge: how to avoid the physical and emotional damage that hastened that almost certain death.
The author does a stunning job of presenting the difficult subject of the Holocaust. He follows a father and son as they move from a religiously-observant life in Transylvania to the agonizingly slow and painful experience of deportation and imprisonment in a series of concentration camps. To make this story more acceptable, the author makes it neither long nor frightfully graphic. It presents in clear detail the movements and emotions of one young man caught in an unreal world and how he suffers in his attempt to survive. What causes the greatest sadness and horror to the reader is the slow realization of the degree to which man can inflict physical and emotional pain on another human being with little or no remorse. It is a difficult lesson but one which needs to be taught, understood, and remembered by all people. Elie Wiesel begins this terrible education with Night. show less
The author does a stunning job of presenting the difficult subject of the Holocaust. He follows a father and son as they move from a religiously-observant life in Transylvania to the agonizingly slow and painful experience of deportation and imprisonment in a series of concentration camps. To make this story more acceptable, the author makes it neither long nor frightfully graphic. It presents in clear detail the movements and emotions of one young man caught in an unreal world and how he suffers in his attempt to survive. What causes the greatest sadness and horror to the reader is the slow realization of the degree to which man can inflict physical and emotional pain on another human being with little or no remorse. It is a difficult lesson but one which needs to be taught, understood, and remembered by all people. Elie Wiesel begins this terrible education with Night. show less
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Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 130
- Also by
- 39
- Members
- 50,003
- Popularity
- #303
- Rating
- 4.2
- Reviews
- 848
- ISBNs
- 771
- Languages
- 27
- Favorited
- 72
