Holocaust Survivor And Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel Is Dead At 87
Elie Wiesel, an author and one of the world's most well-known and prominent Holocaust survivors, died at the age of 87 on Saturday at his home in Manhattan, according to The New York Times.
Many people know Elie Wiesel from "Night," his harrowing book detailing his experiences with his father at the Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz and Buchenwald during World War II. He was eventually liberated from Buchenwald by Allied forces; his father, along with most of his relatives, did not survive.
He would later win the Nobel Peace Prize for his ongoing efforts to make sure people couldn't erase the Holocaust from memory, and there's no doubt that his efforts helped the world and its leaders remember.
My goal is to sensitize the desensitized, world leaders first among them.
In its press release from 1986 when Wiesel won the Peace Prize, the Nobel Committee said,
Wiesel is a messenger to mankind; his message is one of peace, atonement and human dignity. His belief that the forces fighting evil in the world can be victorious is a hard-won belief. His message is based on his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps. The message is in the form of a testimony, repeated and deepened through the works of a great author. Wiesel's commitment, which originated in the sufferings of the Jewish people, has been widened to embrace all repressed peoples and races. The Norwegian Nobel Committee believes that Elie Wiesel, with his message and through his practical work in the cause of peace, is a convincing spokesman for the view of mankind and for the unlimited humanitarianism which are at all times necessary for a lasting and just peace.
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
Incredible enough by itself, Wiesel survived the Holocaust, but it was his writings that followed his experience that really spoke to people. He understood that what could happen to Jews during the Holocaust could happen to others again, and so he made sure to use his voice to encourage people to use their voices.
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
In light of the news of Wiesel's death, people from all walks of life started tweeting tributes to the author, frequently including quotes and passages, and conveyed their sorrow at the death of a truly incredible human.
To borrow some fitting words from "Game of Thrones," one of my favorite TV shows, I will conclude by saying "We shall never see his like again."
Rest in peace, Elie Wiesel, you've done everything the world asked and so much more to deserve it.
We all will never forget your words.
Peace is our gift to each other.
Citations: Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz Survivor and Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Dies at 87 (The New York Times), The Nobel Peace Prize for 1986 (Nobelprize.org)
