# data[].attributes.body
Born September 30, 1928
in Sighet, Romania.

Grew up in a small village
where his life revolved
around the following:

Family

Religious Study

Community

God

# data[].attributes.body
In 1940, the Wiesels were forced out of
their home and required to go with other
Jewish families to live in a ghetto.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1944, when Elie was 15, he was
deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau
concentration camp.

When they arrived at the camp, he and his father
were warned to lie about their ages. Elie said he
was 18 and his father said he was 40 instead of
50.

They were sent to be slave laborers.

His mother and youngest sister were sent to the
gas chambers.

# data[].attributes.body
Elie and his father
survived first Auschwitz
and then the Buna Werke
labor camp for eight
months.

They endured deplorable,
inhumane conditions,
beatings, excessive work,
starvation, and other torture.

# data[].attributes.body
In the winter of 1945,
Wiesel’s right foot became
badly swollen and a Jewish
doctor, who was also an
inmate, performed surgery
on it. He had no anesthesia.

# data[].attributes.body
Three days after his
surgery, the inmates
were forced to go on a
death march in the
snow.

For ten days they were
forced to run, then
crammed into freight
cars, and sent to the
Buchenwald
concentration camp.

# data[].attributes.body
Of the 20,000
prisoners who left
Buna, only 6,000
survived.

When they arrived to
Buchenwald, Elie’s
father, Shlomo, died of
dysentary, starvation,
and exhaustion after
being beaten by a
German soldier just 3
months before the
camp was liberated.

# data[].attributes.body
After the death of his father, Elie was sent to join the
children’s block of Buchenwald.

At the end of the war, April 6, 1945, the prisoners were told
they would no longer be fed.

They began evacuating the camp killing 10,000 prisoners a day.

# data[].attributes.body
After he was freed from the camp on April
11, Wiesel became sick with intestinal
problems.

After several days in the hospital, Wiesel
wrote an outline for a book describing the
Holocaust.

He wasn’t ready to publicize his experience, but
promised he would in ten years.

# data[].attributes.body
After Elie was released
from the hospital, he had
no family to return to.

He went with 400 other
orphan children to France.

From 1945-1947, he
moved from house to
house found for him by
Children’s Rescue
Society.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1955, Wiesel moved to New York as
foreign correspondent for Yediot Ahronot.

It was around this time that he decided to
stop attending synagogue, except on the
High Holidays, as a protest against what he
concluded was divine injustice.

# data[].attributes.body
Wiesel died on July 2, 2016
at the age of 87.

He is remembered as an
author, teacher, and an
activist who spent his life
speaking out against
persecution and injustice
across the globe.