“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” – Elie Wiesel
• September 30, 1928, born Eliezer Wiesel in Romania.
• May 1944, 15 year old Wiesel and his family are deported to Auschwitz.
• 1945, SS units evacuate Auschwitz in January. Elie is liberated with the arrival of US troops in April.
• 1949, visits Jerusalem for the first time.
• 1956, Wiesel’s first book, in Yiddish, Un di velt hot geshvign (“And the World Has Remained Silent”). It is considered by some to be the most powerful literary expression of the Holocaust.
• 1986, awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
• 2012, “If life is not a celebration, why remember it?” Wiesel wrote his book ‘Open Heart’, published after his heart surgery. “If life – mine or that of my fellow man – is not an offering to the other, what are we doing on this earth?”
• July 2, 2016, passed away at 87 years old.
May his memory be a blessing.
