Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel (1928-2016)
Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace
Prize winner
Elie Wiesel’s life is a powerful
reminder that when good men do nothing, evil will triumph.
Wiesel survived three concentration
camps during World War II, and spent his life fighting to sustain our memory of
the Holocaust and to champion the causes of peace as he understood them. He was
not inclined to be bashful about provoking strong feelings.
I saw and heard Wiesel in the mid-1960s
when I was a college freshman at Lehigh University. At that time, early in his
career, he was relentlessly taking the story of the Holocaust to venues all
over the world. I recall that he said many German concentration camp guards
were well educated, and my livid memory is his explanation that SS troopers who
were intellectually committed to the Nazi cause were the most reliable
instruments of the Final Solution.
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| Elie Wiesel, second row from bottom , seventh from left next to post |
His 1996 film, “Elie Wiesel Goes Home,”
is close to unbearably candid about the pathos of his life. The documentary
follows his return to his birthplace in Sighet, Romania, and his conversations with
other survivors about the fates of their families and friends when Germans sent
all the Jews in the village to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944.
Wiesel never stopped remembering the
horror of the camps. He never stopped looking at the number “A-7713” tattooed
on his left arm. He helped me to understand why it’s important that we never
forget.
Elie Wiesel, requiescat in pace.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.
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