Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel died
Saturday (July 2) at the age of 87. Wiesel’s memoir Night, a firsthand
account of the Nazis’ atrocities of the Holocaust was one of the most
widely read and discussed books of the 20th century, according to USA Today.
Wiesel was remembered in a private service in Manhattan, presided over
by American Jewish Heritage Organization president Rabbi Perry
Berkowitz. He said, "This is really the double tragedy of it, not only
the loss of someone who was so rare and unusual but the fact that those
ranks are thinning out. At the same time anti-Semitism, Holocaust
revisionism keeps rising. The fear is that when there are no more
survivors left, will the world learn the lesson because those voices
will be silenced?"
Wiesel’s writing immortalized a painful time in history.
Sara Bloomfield, director of the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Washington, D.C. said, "Night really put Elie Wiesel's
personal memories into our personal consciousness and it ended up
spawning a global remembrance movement that is very vital today.”
Abraham Foxman, former national director of the Anti-Defamation League
and close friend of Weisel, said that toward the end of his life, they
discussed philosophy and faith.
"We talked about forgiveness, we talked about God. He was struggling
with it. Well now he's a little closer. Now he can challenge the
Almighty much closer and maybe he'll get some answers, which he asked,
but never got the answers to,” Foxman said.
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