This is crazy. I realize that Elie doesn't stand on the same side of the political isle as many of us. But it is completely wrong to denigrate a man who has done a great deal to bring Holocaust awareness to the forefront. This man survived the Auschwitz and the Buchenwald death camps and is recognized by all Jews as one of the most important figures in prosecuting the nazis responsible for the atrocities.
Who are you to judge a man who has survived such hell? I think this kind of thread really stinks and it belittles the memories and hopes of countless Jewish martyrs. It is obvious that the only intention of this post is to express hatred and not to rebuke Elie. While I agree that he is wrong to place any trust in Obama, it is wrong to denigrate him and his great acheivement (He has written nearly 60 books in his career).
Here are some facts which demonstrate his achievement:
Wiesel was born in Sighet,[4] Transylvania (now Sighetu Marmaţiei), Maramureş, Kingdom of Romania,[4] in the Carpathian Mountains. His parents were Sarah Feig and Chlomo Wiesel. In the home, Wiesel's family spoke Yiddish most of the time, but also Romanian, Hungarian and German.[5][6] Elie's mother, Sarah, was the daughter of Dodye Feig, a celebrated Vizhnitz Hasid and farmer from a nearby village. Dodye was active and trusted within the community, and in the early years of his life had spent a few months in jail for having helped Polish Jews who escaped and were hungry.
Elie's father, Chlomo, instilled a strong sense of humanism in his son, encouraging him to learn Hebrew and to read literature, whereas his mother encouraged him to study the Torah. Wiesel has said his father represented reason, and his mother Sarah promoted faith.[7]
Wiesel had three siblings – older sisters Hilda and Beatrice, and younger sister Tzipora. Beatrice and Hilda survived the war and were reunited with Wiesel at a French orphanage. They eventually emigrated to North America, with Beatrice moving to Montreal, Canada. Tzipora, Chlomo and Sarah did not survive the Holocaust.
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In 1940, Romania lost the town of Sighet following the Second Vienna Award. In 1944, Wiesel, his family and the rest of the town were placed in one of the two ghettos in Sighet. Wiesel 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.[8][9]
Wiesel was separated from his mother and sisters Hilda, Beatrice, and Tzipora. Wiesel's mother and sister Tzipora were presumably killed in the gas chambers upon arrival. Wiesel and his father were sent to the attached work camp Buna, a subcamp 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 among 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 was beaten[10] by a Nazi as he was suffering from dysentery, starvation, and exhaustion. He was also beaten by other inmates for his food. He was later sent to the crematorium, only weeks before the camp was liberated by the U. S. Third Army on April 11.[11]
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After World War II, Wiesel taught Hebrew and worked as a choirmaster before becoming a professional journalist. He learned French, which became the language he used most frequently in writing.[12] He wrote for Israeli and French newspapers, including Tsien in Kamf (in Yiddish).
In 1948, Wiesel became involved with the Irgun, translating articles from Hebrew to Yiddish for its periodicals, and in 1949 travelled 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.[13]
For ten years after the war, Wiesel refused to write about or discuss his experiences during the Holocaust. Like many survivors, Wiesel could not find the words to describe his experiences. However, a meeting with François Mauriac, the 1952 Nobel Laureate in Literature, who eventually became Wiesel's close friend, persuaded him to write about his experiences.
Wiesel first wrote the 900-page memoir Un di velt hot geshvign (And the World Remained Silent) in Yiddish, which was published in abridged form in Buenos Aires.[14] Wiesel rewrote a shortened version of the manuscript in French, and it was published as the 127-page La Nuit, and later translated into English as Night. Even with Mauriac's support, Wiesel had trouble finding a publisher for his book, and initially it sold few copies.[15]
In 1960, Arthur Wang of Hill & Wang agreed to pay a $100 pro-forma advance, and published it in the US in September that year as Night. The book agent was Georges Borchardt, then just starting his career. Borchardt remains Wiesel's literary agent today.
The book sold just 1,046 copies over the next 18 months, but attracted interest from reviewers, leading to television interviews with Wiesel and meetings with literary figures such as Saul Bellow. "The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies," Wiesel said in an interview. "And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print." The 1979 book and play The Trial of God are said to have been based on Wiesel's real-life Auschwitz experience of witnessing three Jews who, close to death, conduct a trial against God, under the accusation that He has been oppressive of the Jewish people.
Night has been translated into 30 languages. By 1997, the book was selling 300,000 copies annually in the United States alone. By March 2006, about six million copies were sold in the United States. On January 16, 2006, Oprah Winfrey chose the work for her book club. One million extra paperback and 150,000 hardcover copies were printed carrying the "Oprah's Book Club" logo, with a new translation by Wiesel's wife, Marion, and a new preface by Wiesel. On February 13, 2006, Night was no. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list for paperback non-fiction.[citation needed]
If anyone here has gone through what this man has gone through let them speak up now...
Sometimes I am ashamed of some of the stuff posted here...
Topic: Uber-Judenrat Nellie the Weasel (ysv) Writing Book With BHO (Read 1691 times)