Interviewing Elie Wiesel

Author: MichaelA /



Interviewing Eliezer ‘Elie’ Wiesel, a living holocaust survivor from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, and understanding the misery he went through.

Can you tell us about yourself?

Elie said he is a Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of over 40 books, the best known of which is Night, a memoir that describes his experiences during the Holocaust and his imprisonment in several concentration camps. Mr. Wiesel established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity soon after he was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize for Peace. The Foundation's mission, rooted in the memory of the Holocaust, is to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice through international dialogue and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding and equality.

Can you tell us about your time during World War II?

In 1944 Elie, his family and the rest of the town were placed in one of the two ghettos in Sighet. Elie and his family lived in the larger of the two, on Serpent Street. On May 16, 1944, the Hungarian authorities allowed the German army to deport the Jewish community in Sighet to Auschwitz Birkenau. While at Auschwitz, his inmate number, "A-7713", was tattooed onto his left arm. Wiesel was separated from his mother and sister Tzipora, who are presumed to have died at Auschwitz. Wiesel and his father were sent to the attached work camp Buna-Werke, a sub camp of Auschwitz III Monowitz. He managed to remain with his father for over eight months as they were forced to work under appalling conditions and shuffled between three concentration camps in the closing days of the war. On January 29, 1945, just a few weeks after the two were marched to Buchenwald; Wiesel's father died from dysentery, starvation, and exhaustion, and was later sent to the crematorium, only months before the camp was liberated by the American Third Army on April 11. His total time spent in concentration camps was less than eleven months..

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

is this real information?

Anonymous said...

yes.

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