Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor, and Nobel laureate

[JANASENA]

 

Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor, and Nobel laureate died at the age of 87. His book on his experience as a holocaust survivor was considered a masterpiece. He has authored over 57 other books. He is widely remembered for his social service, his public condemnation of the Armenian genocide among others.

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Darkest period in history – The Holocaust

Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany systematically killed about six million Jews during his reign of terror. Among the six million Jews killed were one-and-a-half-million children, the number of people killed during the holocaust represented two-thirds of the Jewish population who reside in Europe. But holocaust was more than the six million Jews who were killed, the people killed included Poles, Soviets, homosexuals, communists, Romanians and even the mentally and physically disabled were not spared.

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Elie Wiesel’ s career

 

He served as a Chairman of the Presidential Commission for the Holocaust in the late 80s before he went to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for speaking out against violence, repression and racism. His famous words while accepting the Nobel Prize was, “Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant.”

 

Wiesel was not only a prominent holocaust speaker but also raised his voice against many of the wrongs of the world. As a political activist, he also advocated for many causes, including Israel, the plight of Soviet and Ethiopia Jews, the victims of apartheid in South Africa, Argentina’s Desaparecidos, Bosnian victims of genocide in the former Yugoslavia, Nicaragua’s Miskito Indians, and the Kurds.