Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel was born into a multilingual Hasidic Jewish family in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains. From a young age, he was encouraged to study Hebrew, religion, and literature. In 1944, 15-year-old Wiesel was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp along with his family and the rest of his town’s Jewish population. His mother and younger sister, Tzipora, were killed upon their arrival. After Wiesel and his father were transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp, his father died, but Wiesel himself survived until the U.S. Army liberated the camp in April, 1945. After World War II, he spent time in France, studying at the Sorbonne and writing for French and Israeli publications. However, it wasn’t until 10 years later, on the encouragement of close friend and Nobel laureate François Mauriac, that he began writing about his Holocaust experiences, first publishing Night in 1955. Around this time, he moved to the United States, married a woman named Marion Rose, and wrote extensively—he penned a total of 57 books, including novels, nonfiction, and memoirs. He taught in the philosophy and religion departments at Boston University and held visiting appointments at numerous other institutions. Throughout his life, he campaigned for human rights around the world, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He was also involved with establishing the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.