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Elie Wiesel - Messenger to Mankind


For 10 years, he remained silent about his experiences in the Holocaust. His vow of silence was broken after he moved to the United States in 1956 and published his first book, "Night," in 1958. Elie Wiesel's relocation to America was the beginning of his pursuit of a role as an international activist (Schleier). .
             Elie Wiesel pursued a role as an international activist so that he could use his power to promote the remembrance of the Holocaust. One of the main goals that Wiesel tried to achieve through his position was to effectively fight against silence. He viewed silence as the worst thing, and described it as being worse than mere hate. Wiesel's efforts in breaking the silence pertaining to the Holocaust caused him to be known as the voice of the 6 million people killed in it (Kanfer). Elie Wiesel's efforts to avert indifference towards the Holocaust eventually led him to the discovery of an important tool: memory. For Wiesel, memory provided a way of preventing the past from fading. He believed that memory could be used to revive fragments of existence and to rescue lost beings. Wiesel found the concept of memory so vital, that he used it as the main theme for all 30-odd of his books. The books were a way for him to make sure that the Holocaust was never forgotten and offered a method of stopping the "dead from dying" (Books of the Times). Elie Wiesel's work in using memory to connect the present to the past resulted in him winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 and in him being appointed to serve as the chairman of the president's commission on the Holocaust by Jimmy Carter (Chmiel). .
             The need to share his experiences by writing books and to broaden his audience also gave Elie Wiesel incentive to become an activist. Wiesel's role as a writer was derived from his role as a witness. As a witness, Elie Wiesel felt that he was duty-bound to justify his life as a survivor and that not transmitting his experiences would be the equivalent of betraying them (Walker).


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