biography
pronunciation:
[veezel]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1928– )
|
| biography:
| Writer, born in Sighet, Romania. When he was 16, the Jews of his town were taken to Nazi concentration camps. The rest of his family died at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, but he managed to survive. After the War he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and worked for Israeli, American, and French newspapers. He settled in the USA in 1956, and taught at City College of New York, then became professor of humanities at Boston University (1976). His life was devoted to writing and speaking about the Holocaust, with the aim of making sure that it is never forgotten, and he was one of the principal forces behind establishing the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. His first novel, Night (1956), was first published in Yiddish, and is based on his experiences in the death camps. Other novels include Dawn (1961) and Jews of Silence (1967). He also wrote plays, retellings of biblical stories, and Hasidic tales. In 1986 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a ‘messenger to mankind’. |
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