Latest news with #Wiesel
Newsweek
02-07-2025
- General
- Newsweek
Let the World Listen to Elie Wiesel
On July 2, the world will mark nine years since the passing of Professor Elie Wiesel. But this date should not be one of quiet remembrance—it should be a day of action and moral clarity. Because if Elie Wiesel were alive today, he would be anything but quiet. You may know him as the author of Night, but Professor Wiesel gave us much more than books. As a Holocaust survivor, a Nobel laureate, a relentless defender of the Jewish people, and a fierce, lifelong supporter of Israel, he gave us a blueprint for what it means to speak truth when the world prefers silence. By word and deed, he would confront rising antisemitism. He would call attention to the violent bigotry directed at Jews around the world—and the ideology that undergirds it. He did not, and would not tolerate the way anti-Israel hostility is increasingly used to dehumanize, distort, and deny Jewish identity and history. How can I be sure of what he would do today? Because he wrote and spoke about all of it in his lifetime. We still have his voice; now, it is time we use it. The late Holocaust author Elie Wiesel speaking during a meeting of Israel-bond volunteers. The late Holocaust author Elie Wiesel speaking during a meeting of Israel-bond chair of the newly established Elie Wiesel Archive and Legacy Council at The Florida Holocaust Museum, I have the profound honor of helping to steward one of the most significant collections of Wiesel's personal writings and artifacts anywhere in the world. However, our mission is not simply to preserve these materials. We must activate them to ensure Professor Wiesel's moral and intellectual legacy is not just remembered, but lived. That is why we are launching a new global tradition. Every year on July 2, we will celebrate Listening to Elie Wiesel; A Global Day of Reflection & Action. In addition to its advocacy and education work, The Florida Holocaust Museum will share resources and host programs to make this observance widely accessible in the coming years: communities, classrooms, allies, and institutions of every kind. We call on people to observe the day by engaging with Elie Wiesel's words, just as his loved ones do on his yahrzeit, the anniversary of his death in the Jewish calendar, which fell on June 21st and 22nd this year. At a time when Holocaust distortion and antisemitism surge side by side, we must anchor ourselves in Professor Wiesel's voice: unflinching, urgent, and clear. He reminded us that "not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims." He warned us not to equate the Holocaust with other tragedies, not out of indifference to others' suffering, but out of respect for historical truth. While he spoke out on other human rights issues, Wiesel was first and foremost a fierce advocate for his fellow Jews. He never allowed the Holocaust to be universalized or turned against Jews and would be appalled to see that happening now. He was also a steadfast supporter of Israel—not always uncritical, but unwavering in his belief that the Jewish state had the right to exist, to defend itself, and to thrive. He spoke always out of love for it, and in defense of Jewish dignity there and everywhere. Today, we see institutions from universities to Holocaust memorials defaced with slogans that erase or justify Jewish suffering. We see Holocaust distortion and inversion spreading online, weaponizing Jewish trauma against Jews themselves. And we see the silence that Professor Wiesel warned about—the silence of the bystander, the polite equivocation, the intellectualized apathy. In this moment, we need more than education. We need moral courage. And Wiesel gave us the language for both. So, on July 2, read Night, Open Heart, or any of his books or essays. Watch one of his lectures at the Elie Wiesel Archive at the 92nd Street Y, or the Elie Wiesel Memorial Lecture series at Boston University. Explore his life and works at The Florida Holocaust Museum's upcoming Wiesel Collection, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, or the Elie Wiesel Digital Archive at Gratz College. Listen to his Nobel Prize address. Let his voice break through the noise of apathy and propaganda, reminding us all of our capacity for good. As he said in Open Heart: "I speak from experience that even in darkness, it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. There it is: I still believe in man in spite of man." On July 2, we invite the world to sit with Professor Wiesel not in mourning but in mobilization. Join us in allowing his conviction to strengthen our resolve. To understand that if we are truly listening, we cannot remain the same. Elie Wiesel may not have lived to see the latest devastating wave of antisemitism, but he did prepare us to confront it. Let July 2 be the day the world listens—and acts. When we let his words serve as our guide, he lives on through all of us. Michael A. Igel is the chair of The Florida Holocaust Museum's Elie Wiesel Archive and Legacy Council. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
New doc tells story of Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel
An Elie Wiesel documentary presents a compelling portrait of a Holocaust survivor who bore witness. Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire, the new documentary portrait of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Holocaust survivor, and Jewish writer who devoted his life to sharing the story of what millions of his fellow victims couldn't, received the Yad Vashem Award and was just shown at the Docaviv Festival. The documentary opens with a telling quote from Wiesel: 'Whoever listens to a witness, becomes a witness.' That encapsulates his life's mission: He wanted to create a world of witnesses, and he did so by bringing the story of the tragedy of the Holocaust to millions. But living a life filled with this sense of mission took a toll on him, personally, and on those around him, as this candid and very compelling documentary by Oren Rudavsky shows. The film came about because the director's friend, author and Holocaust film historian Annette Insdorf, who was close to the Wiesel family, had been getting requests from filmmakers who wanted to tell Wiesel's story since he died in 2016. But she felt that Rudavsky and his late partner, Menachem Daum, who collaborated on such documentaries as Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust, would be a good fit for a Wiesel film. 'The process of making a film is partially by choice, partially by chance, and partially whether you can raise the money to make it,' Rudavsky said. He decided to make the film despite all the obstacles. 'I think a figure like Elie Wiesel is somebody whose message of tolerance and speaking up in times of crisis is very relevant today,' he said. 'His kind, prophetic, messianic way he spoke is very… well, timely is the wrong word because he's timeless, I think.' Rudavsky admitted that it was a challenge to create a film portrait of a man who was so revered by many. His mother had studied with Wiesel at Boston University, and his parents had Wiesel's books. As he read over Wiesel's works, such as Night, an autobiographical novel about his Holocaust experiences, and watched many of Wiesel's speeches, he said, 'It was daunting – absolutely!' But after he gained the trust of Wiesel's widow, Marion, who recently passed away, and his son, Elisha, who told him their stories and were honest about how difficult it could be to be close to Wiesel and to be in his shadow, he began to formulate a structure for the film. THE DOCUMENTARY uses rare photographs and clips, as well as interviews with his family members and short animations to tell the story of Wiesel's happy childhood in the heart of a close-knit Jewish community he was born into in 1928 in Sighet, a village which was alternately part of Romania and Hungary. He was encouraged by his parents to study both Torah and literature, and he spoke multiple languages. 'As in a dusty mirror, I look at my childhood and wonder if it really was mine,' Wiesel says in the film. He shares his vivid memories of how his family was put in a ghetto under Nazi rule and then deported to Auschwitz when he was 14. His mother instructed him not to stay with her and his three sisters but to go to the men's camp with his father. The father and son were able to stay together through the concentration camp, a death march, and Buchenwald, where his father eventually died, and Wiesel recalls his anguish at being helpless as his father passed away. Taken to a Jewish children's home in France following the war, he realized that the Holocaust experience would always be a key part of who he was. 'Whether we want it or not, we are still living in the era of the Holocaust. The language is still the language of the Holocaust. The fears are linked to it. The perspectives, unfortunately, are tied to it,' he said in a speech years later. His parents and younger sister were killed in the war, but he was reunited with his older sisters afterward, and one of them is interviewed in the film. For about 10 years, he did not talk or speak about the war, studying at the Sorbonne and working as a journalist. Eventually, in response to encouragement from the author Francois Mauriac, he wrote a long book on the war in Yiddish, The World Was Silent, which he then shortened and translated into French, changing its title to Night. The documentary dramatizes, through its animations, some of the most horrific moments from the book. 'Why do I write?' Wiesel says to an interviewer. 'What else could I do? I write to bear witness.' He went on to write many more books, including novels, autobiographies, and memoirs, and his fame grew. But the movie details how he remained isolated from others, resolving not to become close to anyone until he met Marion, a translator, whom he married. WHILE HE traveled the world speaking about his life and his writings, he had a special moment in the spotlight in 1985 when he opposed then-president Ronald Reagan's visit to a military cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, that contained graves of SS officers. While Reagan seemed not to have known about the presence of the SS graves when he was first invited there, Reagan compounded the faux pas by saying that these SS members were victims of the Nazis 'just as surely as' those who were killed in the death camps. The planning of the Bitburg visit coincided with the moment when Wiesel was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by Reagan. In a small meeting, which was caught on tape and is included in the documentary, and in a public speech when accepting the medal, Wiesel very respectfully – but very directly – challenged the president, imploring him not to lay a wreath on the graves of those who murdered his family and millions of others. 'This medal is not mine alone. It belongs to all those who remember what SS killers have done to their victims… While I feel responsible for the living, I feel equally responsible to the dead. Their memory dwells in my memory. Forty years ago, a young man woke up and found himself an orphan in an orphaned world. 'What have I learned in those 40 years? I learned the perils of language and those of silence. I learned that in extreme situations, when human lives and dignity are at stake, neutrality is a sin. It helps the killers, not the victims. But I've also learned that suffering confers no privileges. It all depends on what one does with it,' he said. He went on to say, 'I, too, wish to truly attain reconciliation with the German people. I do not believe in collective guilt nor in collective responsibility. Only the killers were guilty; their sons and daughters are not, and I believe, Mr. President, that we can and we must work together with them and with all people, and we must work to bring peace and understanding to a tormented world that, as you know, is still awaiting redemption.' Rudavsky said he was impressed by 'that speech, which I consider as one of his top few speeches. His eloquence, the whole circumstance considering where we are now with our politics… the way he spoke so gently and persuasively to President Reagan...' The film goes on to show Wiesel's speech at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in 1986 and other important moments, such as his visit to Auschwitz with Oprah Winfrey, who featured him on her show. 'He always saw himself as a teacher,' said Rudavsky, and one of the highlights of the film is a scene in which a class of African-American high school students in the US discuss Night, completely engaged by it. As he worked to finance the film, Rudavsky said he was grateful to a number of his producing partners, among them the Claims Conference, Jewish Story Partners, the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, the Public Broadcasting Service's American Masters, and Patti Askwith Kenner. The film has been shown at and will be shown at Jewish film festivals in America, and Rudvasky is hopeful for a limited theatrical release of the film in the fall in the US. Eventually, it will be shown on the PBS American Masters series. It has won Audience awards at several US film festivals and will likely turn up on one of Israel's documentary channels. Asked at a recent screening – and virtually all screenings – what Wiesel would say about what's happening in the world today, Rudavsky said, 'I can't speak for Elie, but he would be crying for those who are suffering.'
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
We must always remember the Holocaust and not make it a political issue
When I was 6 years old, I learned that I am the son of two Holocaust survivors. It was the first time I noticed a KL in blue ink on each of my parents' wrists. On the inside of my mom's forearm was the letter A followed by the number 27327. My parents explained to me that they were both survivors of the Holocaust and that almost everybody in their immediate and extended families were murdered because they, like us, were Jewish. That was my first encounter with antisemitism! Unfortunately, it would not be my last, however. Partly because of the continuing presence of bigotry and hatred toward certain groups, I have spent over 50 years teaching students and adults about the Holocaust and how it relates to issues of today. And I have been honored to be a part of the larger conversation about remembering what happened and preventing it from ever happening again. My wife, Joan, and I were fortunate to live in Washington, D.C., in 1980 when the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was created. A council was established to oversee the mission of the museum, which is 'to promote the memory of the Holocaust, to advance knowledge about it, and inspire action to prevent genocide and to promote human dignity.' The museum encourages its visitors to reflect upon the moral and spiritual questions raised by the events of the Holocaust, as well as their own responsibilities, living in a democracy rich with people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs and lived experiences. The council consists of 68 members — 55 chosen by the president of the United States, five members from the Senate and five members from the House of Representatives, and three members from the Cabinet. They serve five-year terms. The Committee of Conscious was established by the council and plays a crucial role in fulfilling this mission by alerting a national conscious, influencing policy makers and stimulating worldwide action to halt genocide and related crimes against humanity. I was also honored and privileged, in the mid 1980s, to be selected to serve on the Second-Generation Advisory Committee to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Nobel Peace Prize winner, Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel. Over the years, I have known and worked with many of the council members. There are members from both major U.S. political parties, and vacant seats are filled by the sitting U.S. president. But one thing they all have had in common is that they all believed in fulfilling the mission of the museum. More: Rabbi: 'I am deeply offended' by the Legislature's resolution proclaiming 'Christ is King' The museum was dedicated on April 22, 1993. On that date, I was sitting four rows back from where President Bill Clinton and Wiesel were standing on the podium giving remarks. One of the last things that Wiesel said, because of the genocide that was taking place in Bosnia, was: 'Mr. President, I cannot not tell you something. I have been in the former Yugoslavia last fall. I cannot sleep since for what I have seen. As a Jew, I am saying that we must do something to stop the bloodshed in that country!' At that time, there was no partisanship on the council. Until recently that was the case. And then on April 30, 2025, President Donald Trump fired at least eight of President Joe Biden's appointees to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's board of trustees, with no cause. After that firing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal made the following statement: 'By turning Holocaust remembrance into a political loyalty test, you are doing precisely what the museum warns against — using institutional power to punish dissent, erase opposing views, and recast history through the lens of political expediency. In short, you are politicizing an institution created to guard against the political abuses that led to the Holocaust in the first place.' I could not agree with Sen. Blumenthal more. Holocaust remembrance and education should never be politicized. While the president has the right to appoint and fire members of various institutions, what Trump did was unprecedented. His act was petty, reprehensible and vindictive. Forgive me if I missed it, but I would like to know why those Republican senators and representatives who represent me in the state of Oklahoma have not spoken out about this repugnant situation. These are not only my feelings; I've heard from many Jewish leaders, survivors and children of survivors who feel the same way. We recently had our annual Yom HaShoah program here in Oklahoma City commemorating the Holocaust, as did most Jewish communities across the country. It was a very powerful program teaching about the importance of remembrance. Our community helped fulfil the mission of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. As Wiesel stated: 'Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.' We must never stay silent in the face of injustice. We must always speak out! "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." ―The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Michael Korenblit is co-founder of the Respect Diversity Foundation. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Delegation should speak out against museum trustees' firings | Opinion
Boston Globe
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Marion Wiesel, translator, strategist, and wife of Elie Wiesel, dies at 94
Wiesel's Nobel Peace Prize and his numerous encounters with world leaders still lay decades away. Friends, relatives, and writers all attributed the moral stature he achieved partly to the quiet influence of Marion. Advertisement 'In the alignment of stars that helped make Wiesel the international icon he became, his marriage to Marion was among the most significant,' Joseph Berger wrote in 'Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence' (2023), a biography. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Enter Email Sign Up By nature, Elie Wiesel was a reader of literature, a chess player, and an observer of Jewish rituals. Into his early 40s, he led the intense but unworldly life of a passionate intellectual. For days he might not sleep. He often forgot to eat meals. He abstained from alcohol. He took trips abroad without notice and could not be reached. Marion Wiesel, too, was a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. Following their marriage, she changed the rhythm of Elie Wiesel's days and expanded his sense of possibility — without altering his moral temper. Her most obvious impact on his career was through translation. He was an eloquent, powerful speaker of English, but he cherished his command of French, which dated from his days as a young refugee. Marion Wiesel shared her husband's cosmopolitan knowledge of European culture and fluency in several languages. She quickly began translating his writing from French to English, ultimately working on 14 of his books. None was more important than her 2006 translation of 'Night.' In his biography, Berger, a former reporter for The New York Times, reported that of the 10 million copies that the memoir had sold, 3 million came after her translation. It was heavily promoted by Oprah Winfrey and, in the following years, it became a widely assigned book in high schools, a concise literary work of moral instruction, akin to ''Animal Farm' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' Advertisement Ms. Wiesel also advised and coached her husband as he made public appearances — including frequent TV interviews with Ted Koppel on ABC — and became a voice in world politics. Using money from Elie Wiesel's 1986 Nobel Prize, the couple founded the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Marion Wiesel took the lead in managing the Beit Tzipora Centers in Israel, which provide schooling and other support to Jewish children of Ethiopian origin, who have faced challenges integrating into Israeli society. The initiative reaches hundreds of children every year. Former president Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia spoke with Nobel peace recipient Elie Wiesel and his wife, Marion, at a ceremony of the 10th Forum 2000 Conference in Prague in 2006. The forum aimed to identify the key issues facing civilization and to explore ways in which to prevent escalation of conflicts that have religion, culture, or ethnicity as their primary components. MYSKOVA MARTA/Associated Press Elie Wiesel's other public activities included serving as the founding chair of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He also was a member of the faculty in Boston University's Department of Philosophy and Department of Religion. Perhaps no single moment of his political career is so vividly recalled as his plea to Ronald Reagan, issued in the White House alongside the president and in front of TV cameras, not to visit the Bitburg military cemetery, where members of the SS are buried in what was then West Germany. 'That place, Mr. President, is not your place,' Elie Wiesel said. 'Your place is with victims of the SS.' Those remarks had an editor: Marion Wiesel. 'There would not have been a Bitburg speech without Marion's conviction,' the couple's editor, Ileene Smith, wrote in an email. She called Ms. Wiesel her husband's 'most trusted adviser,' adding: 'As his translator from the French, Marion pored over every sentence of Elie's work with astonishing insight into his interior world, his literary mind.' Advertisement Mary Renate (also sometimes spelled Renata) Erster was born in Vienna on Jan. 27, 1931. Her father, Emil, owned a furniture store. He and Mary watched from a street corner as Nazi troops took over Vienna. A long flight ensued. Her mother, Jetta (Hubel) Erster, carefully guarded jewelry and silver candlesticks that she would barter over years of repeated escapes. During a brief period in Belgium, Mary attended school. She announced to her classmates that she had shed her first name — which was inspired by her mother's love of Americana — and that from then on she would be called Marion. 'It was an emotional turning point — my first step toward freedom,' she wrote in an unpublished reminiscence. The family spent time at Gurs, a French concentration camp, then fled to Marseille, where they narrowly avoided detection thanks to the protection of neighbors. Jetta had a relative with Swiss citizenship, and the family managed to smuggle themselves into Switzerland in 1942. The family arrived in the United States in 1949. Marion attended the University of Miami but mainly lived in New York City, where she worked at a bra factory and as a salesperson at a department store. She wound up having a creative career of her own. She edited 'To Give Them Light' (1993), a collection of Roman Vishniac's photographs of Eastern European Jewry before World War II. She also wrote and narrated 'Children of the Night' (1999), a documentary about children killed during the Holocaust. Advertisement She married F. Peter Rose in the late 1950s and had a daughter, Jennifer. While her marriage was falling apart, she met Wiesel. They discussed French literature on their first date. He quickly fell in love. In addition to their son and her daughter, Ms. Wiesel leaves two grandchildren. Elie Wiesel died in 2016. The Wiesels' relationship was not solely an experience of Holocaust remembrance. Marion Wiesel also had the ability to convince her philosophically inclined husband that he would, for example, enjoy going to a Broadway cast party at Sardi's restaurant. Back when Elie Wiesel was single, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the revered Lubavitcher rabbi, wrote him a personal plea to marry and have children, suggesting that the propagation of the Wiesel line would be a repudiation of the Nazis. Wiesel was unconvinced: He did not want to bring more Jews into the world. 'I changed his mind,' Marion Wiesel told Berger. 'I told him he would be happy.' This article originally appeared in
