Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBEwas a Romanian-born American Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. He was the author of 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth30 September 1928
CountryUnited States of America
self solitude despair
Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone.
thought-provoking stories love-story
God made (human beings) because he loves stories.
thought-provoking killers problem
If the victims are my problem, the killers are yours.
thought-provoking may matter
One can do without solutions. Only the questions matter. We may share them or turn away from them.
men forever levels
Perhaps some day someone will explain how, on the level of man, Auschwitz was possible; but on the level of God, it will forever remain the most disturbing of mysteries.
eye men thought-provoking
I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone - terribly alone in a world without God and without (hu)man(ity).
god silence quality
I rarely speak about God. To God, yes. I protest against Him. I shout at Him. But to open a discourse about the qualities of God, about the problems that God imposes, theodicy, no. And yet He is there, in silence, in filigree.
christian people sincere
The sincere Christian knows that what died in Auschwitz was not the Jewish people but Christianity.
morning stars children
The night was gone. The morning star was shining in the sky. I too had become a completely different person. The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames. There remained only a shape that looked like me. A dark flame had entered into my soul and devoured it.
holocaust victim jew
It is true that not all the victims were Jews, but all the Jews were victims
dream thinking night
Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming.
life helping-others stories
The only way for us to help ourselves is to help others and to listen to each other's stories.
strong risk firsts
First we must understand that there can be no life without risk - and when our center is strong, everything else is secondary, even the risks.
loyalty mistake israel
My loyalty to my people, to our people, and to Israel comes first and prevents me from saying anything critical of Israel outside Israel… As a Jew I see my role as a melitz yosher, a defender of Israel: I defend even her mistakes… I must identify with whatever Israel does – even with her errors.