A Person Who Has Made A Difference: Elie Wiesel

Introduction by Shir

Throughout history, there have been people who have influenced the way we live. Elie Wiesel is one of these people.

I chose to prepare this research project on Elie Wiesel for several reasons.
To begin with, we studied about him in English class and he interested us, so we wanted to learn more information about him. In other words, we saw that he had a great influence on society and that he is an inspiring person and therefore we chose him for the project. Moreover, when I found out that he was a writer I was curies about him since I like writing and stories too.

There are a number of things that I already know about Elie Wiesel. Firstly, I know that he won a Nobel prize. In addition, I know that he was a known author.

I expect to learn new and interesting things about Elie Wiesel.

First and foremost, I expect to find out more about his achievements during his life. Also, I want to learn how he influenced Jewish society. Finally, I would like to discover the struggles he went through and how he overcame them.

Elie Wiesel has left his mark on the world. I am looking forward to finding out more about him.

Introduction by Talya

Throughput history, there have been people who have influenced the way we live. Elie Wiesel is one of these people.

I chose to prepare this research project on Elie Wiesel for several reasons.
To begin with, our English teacher asked us to choose a person who left his mark on the world and after we studied about him in class, we decided to choose him. That is to say we saw that his life story was interesting, so we wanted to learn more about him. Furthermore, the fact that he is a Holocaust survivor interested me.

There are a number of things that I already know about Elie Wiesel. Firstly, I know that he was a successful author. In addition, I know that he was a Holocaust survivor.

I expect to learn new and interesting things about Elie Wiesel.

First and foremost, I expect to find out how he went through the Holocaust. Also , I want to learn about his personal life. Finally, I would like to discover what his inspiration was to write his books.

Elie Wiesel has left his mark on the world. I am looking forward to finding out more about him.

Biography

Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in the town of Sighet, now part of Romania, to Shlomo and Sarah Wiesel. Elie had three siblings, older sisters Beatrice and Hilda, and younger sister Tzipora. At home, Wiesel’s family spoke Yiddish most of the time, but also German, Hungarian, and Romanian. Wiesel’s father, Shlomo, instilled a strong sense of humanism in his son, encouraging him to learn Hebrew and to read literature, his mother encouraged him to study the Torah. Wiesel has said his father represented reason, while his mother Sarah promoted faith.

Wiesel was 15, when he, with his family, along with the rest of the town’s Jewish population, was placed in one of the two ghettos set up in Sighet. In May 1944, the Hungarian authorities, under German pressure, began to deport the Jewish community to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where up to 90 percent of the people were killed on arrival. Immediately after they were sent to Auschwitz, his mother and his younger sister were murdered. Wiesel and his father were selected to be laborers. Wiesel and his father were later deported to the concentration camp at Buchenwald. Until that transfer, he admitted to Oprah Winfrey, his primary motivation for trying to survive Auschwitz was knowing that his father was still alive: “I knew that if I died, he would die. After they were taken to Buchenwald, his father died before the camp was liberated.

Out of all his relatives, only he and his older sisters Beatrice and Hilda survived. Wiesel was tattooed with inmate number “A-7713” on his left arm. The camp was liberated by the U.S. Third Army on April 11, 1945.

After World War II ended and Wiesel was freed, he joined a transport of 1,000 child survivors of Buchenwald to an orphanage house in France. While he was there, a photo of him was published in the newspaper in an article. One of his sisters recognized him, and that’s how they reunited.

After the war, Wiesel traveled to Paris where he learned French and studied literature, philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne. And when he was 19, he started to work as a journalist, while also teaching Hebrew and working as a choirmaster.

In 1946, after learning of the Irgun’s bombing of the King David Hotel, Wiesel made an unsuccessful attempt to join the underground Zionist movement. In 1948, he translated articles from Hebrew into Yiddish for Irgun periodicals, but never became a member of the organization. In 1949 he traveled to Israel as a correspondent for the French newspaper L’arche. He then was hired as Paris correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, subsequently becoming its roaming international correspondent.

For ten years after the war, Wiesel refused to write about or discuss his experiences during the Holocaust. He began to reconsider his decision after a meeting with the French author François Mauriac, the 1952 Nobel Laureate in Literature who eventually became Wiesel’s close friend. Mauriac was a devout Christian who had fought in the French Resistance during the war. Mauriac persuaded him to begin writing about his harrowing experiences.

In the mid-1950s, Wiesel began to work on a book about his wartime years Wiesel would publish in Yiddish the memoir And the World Would Remain Silent in 1956, the same year that he had a terrible car accident. The book was shortened and published in France as La Nuit, and as Night for English readers in 1960. Night was eventually translated into 30 languages with ten million copies sold in the United States. At one point film director Orson Welles wanted to make it into a feature film, but Wiesel refused, feeling that his memoir would lose its meaning if it were told without the silences in between his words. Oprah Winfrey made it a spotlight selection for her book club in 2006. Night was followed by two novels, Dawn (1961) and Day (1962).

In 1955, Wiesel moved to New York as foreign correspondent for the Israel daily, Yediot Ahronot. In 1969, he married Marion Erster Rose, who was from Austria, who also translated many of his books. They had one son, Shlomo Elisha Wiesel, named after Wiesel’s father.

In the U.S, he went on to write over 40 books, most of them non-fiction Holocaust literature, and novels. As an author, he has been awarded a number of literary prizes and is considered among the most important in describing the Holocaust from a highly personal perspective. As a result, some historians credited Wiesel with giving the term Holocaust its present meaning, although he did not feel that the word adequately described that historical event.

Wiesel and his wife, Marion, started the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity in 1986. He served as chairman of the Presidential Commission on the Holocaust (later renamed the US Holocaust Memorial Council) from 1978 to 1986, spearheading the building of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

The museum gives The Elie Wiesel Award to “internationally prominent individuals whose actions have advanced the Museum’s vision of a world where people confront hatred and promote human dignity”.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for speaking out against violence, repression, and racism. The Norwegian Nobel Committee described Wiesel as “one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression, and racism continue to characterize the world”.

He received many other prizes and honors for his work, including the Congressional Gold Medal in 1985, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and The International Center in New York’s Award of Excellence.  He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996.

In early 2006 Wiesel accompanied Oprah Winfrey as she visited Auschwitz, a visit which was broadcast as part of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Here you can see a part of the show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fMiFlqcnsA

On November 30, 2006, Wiesel received a knighthood in London in recognition of his work toward raising Holocaust education in the United Kingdom.

In June 2009, Wiesel accompanied US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel as they toured Buchenwald. Wiesel was an adviser at the Gatestone Institute. In 2010, Wiesel accepted a five-year appointment as a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Chapman University in Orange County, California. In that role, he made a one-week visit to Chapman annually to meet with students and offer his perspective on subjects ranging from Holocaust history to religion, languages, literature, law and music.

In 2009, Wiesel returned to Hungary for his first visit since the Holocaust. During this visit, Wiesel participated in a conference at the Upper House Chamber of the Hungarian Parliament and made a speech to about 10,000 participants. However, in 2012, he protested against “the whitewashing” of Hungary’s involvement in the Holocaust, and he gave up the Great Cross award he had received from the Hungarian government.

Wiesel often emphasized the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and criticized the Obama administration for pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt East Jerusalem Israeli settlement construction. He stated that “Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in the Scriptures and not a single time in the Koran … It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city …”

Wiesel was a visiting scholar at Yale University, a Distinguished Professor of Judaic Studies at the City College of New York, and since 1976 was Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University where he taught “Literature of Memory.”

Wiesel died on the morning of July 2, 2016, at his home in Manhattan, aged 87.

Utah senator Orrin Hatch paid tribute to Wiesel in a speech on the Senate floor the following week, in which he said that, “With Elie’s passing, we have lost a beacon of humanity and hope. We have lost a hero of human rights and a luminary of Holocaust literature.”

Elie Wiesel’s famous quotation, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. ” has had an influence on us in a number of ways. First of all, when we searched for a quotation we wanted to find one that had a powerful meaning. A quotation that will present Elie’s values in the best way. this one shows how active Elie was and that he wanted to increase awareness and to make to make a change in society.  In addition, indifference is a very strong word. Elie Wiesel uses this word to emphasize how important it is to step up and react when you see that something wrong happens. He encourages us to be more active and to be our best selves.

Moreover, Elie refers here to when he was sent to the concentration camps. He criticizes all of the people that stared at the windows and watched other people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and did nothing. We think that it is very important and not enough people are aware to this fact.

Interview

We chose to interview Chuck Primus.  He is a college professor, a lawyer and a businessman.  He worked at Yale University.

There are several reasons why we chose to interview this person.  First of all, it was very hard to reach a person who knew Elie well so when we found Sharon Portnoff, who worked with Elie, she suggested that we connect with Chuck because he knew a lot more about him and his books. Moreover, he was Elie Wiesel’s close friend since the late 1960s. Because he knows him personally we could get to know new things about him, that we probably couldn’t find on the internet.

Q: When did you meet Elie Wiesel?

A: I met Elie Wiesel in New York City in the late 1960s.  He was already a famous author.  I continued to see him from time to time over the years during my career as a college professor, as a lawyer and as a businessman.

Q: What do you think was the most important thing about Elie Wiesel?

A: The most important thing about Elie Wiesel was his books.

In particular, it is important to read, “Night.”

People differ on what to read after “Night.”  I recommend, “The Jews of Silence.”  When you start that book, you think it is going to be about the Jews of Russia.  But then it has a surprise ending.

Q: Do you know something about Elie Wiesel that not a lot of people know about?

A: It is no secret that Elie Wiesel had a wonderful singing voice.  However, that is something that is probably not so well known about him.  I have not done it myself, but I would not be surprised if someone has posted something on YouTube with Elie Wiesel singing, which would be well worth listening to. That said, I’d also recommend watching/listening to his lectures on YouTube.

Q: Is there anything else that you would like to add?

A: You are very lucky to have Ms.Duanis as your teacher.  People who were Elie Wiesel’s students tell me that he was also an amazing teacher.  For many years, he taught at Boston University and at Yale University.  It was well known that, although he was very famous and very busy, he always made himself available for his students.  After his books, it was through his students that he made his mark on the world.

My impression is that American Jews listened to Elie Wiesel and heard the voice of lost European Jewry, their heritage which was forever cut off.  Obviously, his was not the only voice.  Why then, you may ask, did he become the preeminent person in the United States to speak on behalf of Shoah survivors?  What gave him the stature and moral authority that was recognized pretty much across the entire Jewish spectrum in the United States, as well as among gentiles?  Those are questions that I cannot answer, except perhaps to suggest that you watch/listen to his talks on YouTube.

Elie Wiesel spent a lot of time in the State of Israel, which he loved.  I am happy that you are asking about him in Holon.

Presentation

On January 7 we made a presentation in front of our classmates and teacher on Elie Wiesel.

There were a number of things we wanted to achieve by making our presentation in this way. First of all, we wanted to expose our class to an amazing person that most of the students don’t know much about. In addition, we wanted the students to know all of the challenging things that he had experienced and to show that despite his obstacles in life he succeeded in leaving his mark on the world.

In order to prepare this presentation, we followed a number of steps. Firstly, we sat together and thought what the best way is to tell about Elie Wiesel’s was life story. We finally decided to gather all the most important points in his life, actions, deeds, acts, that we thought that the students must know about. After that we thought of the activity part. We wanted the activity to be enjoyable for the students and that they could review the new things they learnt from our presentation.  We chose to do a word search with questions. When the answers were the words that the students needed to look for in the word search.

The presentation in class was done in the following way.  We started by presenting our presentation that included pictures from his childhood, videos, quotes, dates and an audio section. All of those were in order to interest the students and to gain their attention. In the activity part we gave each couple of students the puzzle word. The first couple that finished the word search won. At the end we gave each one of the students something sweet to make their day better.

Immediately after the presentation, we received feedback from our teacher and peers.
Idan: “I think that the presentation was very great, and I actually could see that they spend a lot of time preparing their presentation. Also, the creative part was very creative.”

Eitani: “From the beginning both of you were very stressed and nervous but during the presentation we could see that you know what you are talking about and you know your presentation by heart. Was very interesting and you shouldn’t have been stressed.”

Noam: “I’d like to say that the presentation was very interesting. And I loved the game that you made. It was very creative.”

Adi: “I like the presentation very much and I didn’t know that he did so many things other than writing books and it was very nice to learn new things about him. I also liked when you added videos because it made it very emotional and I enjoyed. Thank you.”

Ran: “The slides of the presentation were great and didn’t involve many words but a lot of images. They used nice language and I could listen to them while also reading the slides of the presentation and the activity was very good.”

Denis:  “We can see that you put a lot of effort in this presentation and that you knew how to make the connections between the slides, the videos and the timing that you put the videos in the presentation. I enjoyed it!”

Miriam: “You prepared an excellent presentation on Elie Wiesel. The power point was very interesting and the inclusion of his visit in Auschwitz with Oprah Winfrey made the presentation very moving and helped your classmates get to know this remarkable person.”

We learnt several things about Elie Wiesel while doing this section.

For starters, in the presentation we added a video that explains about Elie Wiesel’s first book named Night. Because of that we learned more about his book and that it is based on Elie Wiesel’s life. Furthermore, while watching Elie Wiesel’s interview with Oprah we understood better his experiences in Auschwitz.

Looking back on our presentation, there are several things that could have been done differently.  To begin with, both of us were very stressed by the idea of presenting in front of the class. We think that if both of us had been relaxed we would have done a much better job. Moreover, the videos didn’t open when we clicked on their links, because of that, there was a bit of delay when we needed to try and play the videos. We think that we needed to be more prepared for the chance that the videos wouldn’t work right away.

In conclusion, both of us had a lot of fun doing the presentation. We learned a lot more about Elie Wiesel, and we presented Elie Wiesel’s life in the best way that we could. We hope that the class enjoyed listening to us and learned all about this remarkable person.

Bibliography

-Elie Wiesel research-

http://archives.bu.edu/web/elie-wiesel/research

-Chuck Primus

-Remember Elie Wiesel-

https://eliewieselfoundation.org/elie-wiesel/

-Elie Wiesel Biographical-

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/biographical/

Appendix- slides from the presentation, pictures and more…