Eliezer Wiesel was born September 30, 1928, in Sighet, a small village, in Hungary (now Romania). Elie (short for Eliezer) had two older sisters, Hilda and Bea, and one younger sister, Tzipora. His parents, Shlomo and Sarah, were Orthodox Jews who owned a grocery store. Elie grew up speaking Yiddish at home, Hungarian, Romanian, and German outside. Elie’s mother’s family was part of the Hasidic sect of Judaism. He devoted his early years to religious studies. He learned classical Hebrew at school, which his father encouraged him to study further. His childhood was a very happy one.
        The Jews in Sighet believed they would be safe from the persecution. Many other Jews were already suffering in Germany and Poland. However, in 1944, Elie and all the other Jews in town were deported to concentration camps in Poland. Elie and his father became separated from his younger sister and mother at Aushwitz. There, his mother and sister were killed in the gas chambers. At the age of fifteen, Elie never saw them again. Elie and his father were moved from concentration camps at Buna, Gleiwitz, and Bushenwald within the period of one year. He became separated from his father at their last stop, Bushenwald, where his father died of dysentery, starvation, exposure, and exhaustion. The United States Third Army liberated Elie, from Buchenwald on April 1945. He was sixteen.
         After the war, he learned that his two older sisters had survived. He then settled in France, where he lived in a French orphanage for a few years. In 1948, he began to study literature, psychology, and philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris. He became a journalist, writing for the French newspaper L’Arche and the Israeli Yediot Ahronot. In 1955, he decided to write a 900-page volume about his Holocaust experiences. After two years, the book appeared compressed, 127-page French version called La Nuit (Night). In 1956 he was sent to New York to cover the United Nations, seven years later he was naturalized. In 1969, Elie married Marion Erster Rose, a survivor of the German Concentration camps.
         He taught at City College of New York and at Boston University, where he was named Andrew Mellon, Professor of Humanities. He has received honorary doctorates from dozens of universities, and is Commander of the French Legion of Honor. In 1978 Elie was appointed Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council by President Jimmy Carter. Wiesel has been honored with the Congressional Medal of Achievement he received from President Ronald Reagan in 1984. In 1986 he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Currently, Elie Wiesel lives in New York City with his wife and son Elisha.
         His statement, “…to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all…” stands as a summary of his views on life and is a major driving force of his work.