Elie Wiesel: Let Us Never Forget
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Elie Wiesel: Never Forget
Elie Wiesel has written over thirty novels over the course of his life. These novels directly affect society in general and especially impact Judaism. He has contributed not only to his race and religion but to ever human soul who reads his work. Elie Wiesel does this by not allowing any to forget the Halocaust of the Jews.
“Elie Wiesel was born in Signet, Transylvania on September 30, 1928. He grew up the only son of four children, in a close-knit Jewish community.” His given name at birth was Elizer Wiesel and almost immediately, “Elie began religious studies in classical Hebrew nearly as soon as he could speak.” This early religious education helped to develop his faith. “The first years of World War II left Signet relatively untouched,” and then “The secure world of Elie Wiesels childhood ended abruptly with the arrival of the Nazis in Signet in 1944.”
So began the horror of the Holocaust. “The 15 year old boy [Elie Wiesel] was separated from his mother and sister immediately on arrival at Auschwitz. He never saw them again. He managed to remain with his father for the next year as they we were worked almost to death; starved, beaten and shuttled from work camp to work camp on foot or in open cattle cars in the driving snow- without food, proper shoes or clothing. In the last months of the war, Wiesels father succumbed to dysentery, starvation exhaustion and exposure.”
The death of his family and the horror of the camp internments was a devastating experience which began a reformation of Elies religious beliefs. “The Holocaust created a void in the souls of many who survived. Elie Wiesel was one of those people. Before the Holocaust he had been one of the most devout Jewish children.” During the Holocaust, “The town felt that God was with them and would protect them from anything as horrible as what these rumors suggested. They felt safe and secure in their faith.” Once in the camps, “Wiesels faith was not shaken immediately, or even quickly. People around him took the evil as punishment for some unknown crime the Jews as a people had committed before God. They said, ÐI have faith in GodÐ If God wants to see suffer, it is because we deserve it. It is for our good.” As time went on, doubt started to rise. “It was not easy for Wiesel to doubt in God, or he would not have held on to his faith with such tenacity.” However, eventually his faith dwindled; he felt that “God played a cruel game, and it destroyed the importance Wiesel had felt about the Jewish role in Gods world.”
Elie had to re-evaluate his relationship with God and his role in the Jewish religion, not only during his time in the concentration camps, but as well as after his liberation. “After the war, the teenaged Wiesel found asylum in France, he learned for the first time that his two older sisters had survived the war. Wiesel mastered the French language and studied Philosophy at the Sorbonne while supporting as a choirmaster and teacher of Hebrew. He became a professional journalist, writing for newspapers in both France and Israel.”
Elie Wiesel brought with him stories of the horrific things that took place during the tragic war years. “In 1955, at the urging of the Catholic writer Francois Mauriac, he set down his memories in Yiddish, in a 900-page work entitled Un die Welt Not Geshvign (And the World Kept Silent). The book was first published in Buenos Aires, Aregentina. Wiesel compressed the work into a 127-page French adaptation La Nuit (The Night), but several years passed before he was able to find a publisher for the work. Even after Wiesel found publishers for the French and English translations, the book sold few copies.” After writing Night Elie decided to visit the United States where, “In 1956, while he was in New York, Elie Wiesel was struck by a taxi cab. His injuries confined him to a wheelchair for almost a year. Unable to renew the French document that allowed him to travel as a Ðstateless person, Wiesel applied successfully for American citizenship. Once he recovered, he remained in New York and become a feature writer for the Yiddish-language newspaper, the Jewish Daily Forward (Der Forwerts).)
With Wiesels faith in Judaism and God returning