Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBEwas a Romanian-born American Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. He was the author of 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth30 September 1928
CountryUnited States of America
children believe guilt
I don't believe in collective guilt. The children of killers are not killers, but children.
teacher children teaching
My ambition really was, even as a child, to be a writer, a commentator, and a teacher, but a teacher of Talmud.
children guilty
Only the guilty are guilty. Their children are not.
teacher children giving
I'd almost say hope isn't what it used to be. It's very difficult today to be a teacher. I speak to children. And tell them, look, no matter what, you must have hope. You must. When I invoke Camus, who said when there is no hope, you must invent hope. . .hope is something that is not what God gives us. It's like peace. It's a gift that one can give to one another. Only another person can push me to despair. And only another person can push me to hope. Its my choice.
children violence adults
We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children
morning stars children
The night was gone. The morning star was shining in the sky. I too had become a completely different person. The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames. There remained only a shape that looked like me. A dark flame had entered into my soul and devoured it.
children believe single-child
I belong to a tradition that believes that the death of a single child is a blemish on creation...
children hate men
We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children, between the ugliness of hate and the will to oppose it. Between inflicting suffering and humiliation on our fellow man and offering him the solidarity and hope he deserves. Or not.
children people civilized-nations
Terrorism must be outlawed by all civilized nations — not explained or rationalized, but fought and eradicated. Nothing can, nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless children.
children war adults
When adults wage war, children perish.
children culture shields
I thought that culture and education are the shield. An educated person cannot do certain things and, and be educated, you cannot, and there they were, killing children day after day.
children hate hatred
I had to be honest with myself and that I felt hatred then, but as children say "I hate you", it's not really hate, you know, it's anger.
children fighting racism
If anyone had told us in 1945 that there are certain battles we'll have to fight again we wouldn't have believed it. Racism, anti-Semitism, starvation of children and, who would have believed that? At least I was convinced then, naively, that at least something happened in history that, because of myself, certain things cannot happen again.
tasks turbulent-times jew
The primary task of a Jew in turbulent times is to be Jewish.