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Elie Wiesel: Let Us Never Forget

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Elie Wiesel: Let Us Never Forget
Elie Wiesel: Never Forget

Elie Wiesel has written over thirty novels over the course of his life. These novels directly affect society in general and especially impact Judaism. He has contributed not only to his race and religion but to ever human soul who reads his work. Elie Wiesel does this by not allowing any to forget the Halocaust of the Jews. "Elie Wiesel was born in Signet, Transylvania on September 30, 1928. He grew up the only son of four children, in a close-knit Jewish community." His given name at birth was Elizer Wiesel and almost immediately, "Elie began religious studies in classical Hebrew nearly as soon as he could speak." This early religious education helped to develop his faith. "The first years of World War II left Signet relatively untouched," and then "The secure world of Elie Wiesel's childhood ended abruptly with the arrival of the Nazis in Signet in 1944."

So began the horror of the Holocaust. "The 15 year old boy [Elie Wiesel] was separated from his mother and sister immediately on arrival at Auschwitz. He never saw them again. He managed to remain with his father for the next year as they we were worked almost to death; starved, beaten and shuttled from work camp to work camp on foot or in open cattle cars in the driving snow- without food, proper shoes or clothing. In the last months of the war, Wiesel's father succumbed to dysentery, starvation exhaustion and exposure."

The death of his family and the horror of the camp internments was a devastating experience which began a reformation of Elie's religious beliefs. "The Holocaust created a void in the souls of many who survived. Elie Wiesel was one of those people. Before the Holocaust he had been one of the most devout Jewish children." During the Holocaust, "The town felt that God was with them and would protect them from anything as horrible as what these rumors suggested. They felt safe and secure in their faith." Once in the camps,

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