[SEPTEMBER 30, 1928–]

Romanian-born writer, novelist, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1986, spokesman for humanity, and Holocaust survivor.

Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928, in Sighet, Romania. The town of his birth is located in the region of Northern Transylvania annexed by Hungary in September 1940. The Wiesel family remained relatively untouched by the violence of the Holocaust until the German invasion of March 1944. At that time, the methods that the Germans had developed over three years within Poland were imposed immediately in Hungary. Within weeks, Hungarian Jews were ghettoized, and between May 15 and July 8, 1944, 437,402 of them were sent on 147 trains, primarily to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the death camp. Weisel was but fifteen years old when he deported to Auschwitz. It is through the lens of his religious worldview that Wiesel was later to write of his experience.

Wiesel arrived in Auschwitz with...