Remembering Elie Wiesel
"I have tried to keep memory alive ... I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the centre of the universe."
Excerpt from Elie Wiesel's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo,
10 December 1986
Elie Wiesel addresses the General Assembly during its
Special Session commemorating
the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
The Holocaust and United Nations Outreach Programme mourns the passing of humanitarian, human rights activist and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel on the 2 July 2016. He was only 15 years old when he was deported with his family to the Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945). The Nazis murdered his mother, father and little sister. After the war, Professor Wiesel dedicated his adult life to giving voice to the victims of the Holocaust. His work has touched people of all ages, across the world. Night, Wiesel’s unflinchingly honest account of his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald has been read by millions the world over, is prescribed reading for many school children, and translated into more than thirty languages. In 1961, as a journalist for the Yiddish newspaper, “The Forward”, Elie Wiesel joined other writers in covering the trial in Jerusalem of Nazi leader, Adolf Eichmann, and bringing the events of the Holocaust back into public consciousness.
A Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, author, journalist, teacher and human rights activist, Professor Wiesel argued tirelessly for the need to fight indifference to human rights abuses in whatever form it took. Together with his wife, Marion Wiesel, Professor Wiesel founded The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity to combat intolerance and injustice. In 1998 he was designated as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. Professor Wiesel was a regular presence at the United Nations and the annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. He supported and contributed to the work of the Holocaust and United Nations Outreach Programme. Described by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as one of the world’s “most important witnesses — and one of its most eloquent advocates of tolerance and peace”, Professor Wiesel’s courage, humanity and call for the world to remember the events of the Holocaust through taking action against racism, bigotry and prejudice, will continue to inspire young and old, and the work of the United Nations.
Statement attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General on the passing of Elie Wiesel
Ban 'deeply saddened' by death of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel