Eliezer Wiesel

My birth name is Eliezer Wiesel, and I was born on September 30, 1928, In Sighet, Romania. Throughout my life I have lived in a multitude of places, including: France, Romania – my birth place and the United States (New York).

At a very young age, I found an elaborate and enticing interest In the beauty and sophisticated nature of Judaism. I started to attend a nearby yeshivah, in which I perused to extend my knowledge of spiritual beliefs. I was also heavily influenced by my grandfather and father, who both took a traditional and liberal perspective in their approach to Judaism.

Holocaust 1943, I was fifteen; my family and I were persecuted from happiness and drained from forgiveness, all during the Holocaust. We were sent to Auschwitz and were brutally separated by the merciless German soldiers. I was afraid, alone, petrified and paranoid; being banished from your family, and being sent to a sub-camp of Auschwitz, named Buna Werke, mentally abolished me. I knew no one, nor did I want to.

I was freed from Buchenwald in 1945. But the damage was already done. Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the haunting camp, which has turned my life into one long excruciating night, seven times I was cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that putrid smelling smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw heartlessly turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

Never shall I forget those flames which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forgot those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to an infinite cycle of dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live long as God himself. Never.