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Elie Wiesel Was a Witness to Evil and a Symbol of Endurance (Associated Press)
NEW YORK Jul 2, 2016, 5:42 PM ET
The frail, dapper man who sometimes greeted reporters in his Madison Avenue office spoke in an almost hushed voice, but with urgency, his hands gesturing gently for emphasis. Elie Wiesel's smile was wry, diffident, a thin facade over the sadness imprinted in the weary eyes and deep creases of a face that mirrored his brutal past.
The Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has died at age 87, was an ongoing reminder of one man's endurance of the Nazi Holocaust. His words, destined to last far into the future, are a testament to some of the most unfathomable atrocities in recorded history.
<snip>
Wiesel began working on "Night" just a decade after the end of World War II, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories. Frank's diary had been an accidental success, a book discovered after her death, and its entries end before Frank and her family was captured and deported. Wiesel's book was among the first popular accounts written by a witness to the very worst, and it documented what Frank could hardly have imagined.
"Night" was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first. "The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print."
...
The Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has died at age 87, was an ongoing reminder of one man's endurance of the Nazi Holocaust. His words, destined to last far into the future, are a testament to some of the most unfathomable atrocities in recorded history.
<snip>
Wiesel began working on "Night" just a decade after the end of World War II, when memories were too raw for many survivors to even try telling their stories. Frank's diary had been an accidental success, a book discovered after her death, and its entries end before Frank and her family was captured and deported. Wiesel's book was among the first popular accounts written by a witness to the very worst, and it documented what Frank could hardly have imagined.
"Night" was so bleak that publishers doubted it would appeal to readers. In a 2002 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Wiesel recalled that the book attracted little notice at first. "The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies. And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print."
...
Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/elie-wiesel-witness-evil-symbol-endurance-40305129
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Elie Wiesel Was a Witness to Evil and a Symbol of Endurance (Associated Press) (Original Post)
inanna
Jul 2016
OP
Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)1. A GREAT soul!
babylonsister
(171,102 posts)2. Respect.
840high
(17,196 posts)3. A hero to me.
Nonhlanhla
(2,074 posts)4. I taught 'Night' to my students
for several years. I had to stop teaching it after some personal trauma made it impossible for me to deal with the book on an emotional level. But it has shaped my life and thought immensely, especially his emphasis on the immorality of indifference.
I respected Elie Wiesel immensely. RIP
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)5. Kick. Rec.
I must read Night again.