Question of the Day

1. Question of the Day • Read biography in front of you. Then answer the questions below. • What is the name of your person? Where were she/he from? When were she/he born? • List two things that happened to him/her during the years 1933-1939 • List two things that happened to him/her during the years 1940-1944 • What happened to him/her?

2. Obj: Learn background information to understand the relevance of the novel, Night Elie Wiesel (pronounced ELL-ee vee-ZEL)

3. Background Information • Elie Wiesel was born in Sighet, Transylvania, (now part of Romania) in 1928 • At 15, Elie and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz ( a concentration camp) because they were Jewish

4. Elie Wiesel at 15, the age he was imprisoned in Auschwitz

5. Elie’s Family

6. Where He Grew Up Sighet, Transylvania is located in present day Romania and is referred to as Sighetu, Marmatiei. Over 40,000 people live there today. • In 1941, 20,000 Jews lived in Sighet • Today, 100 Jews are left

7. 1941 in Sighet Elie Wiesel met Moishe the Beadle

8. Elie Wiesel’s House in Sighet

9. Elie’s entry card to Paris

10. Elie as writer • After graduating from the Sorbonne (in Paris), Elie became a journalist for a small French newspaper • He also worked as a translator and a Hebrew teacher to make ends meet

11. Elie’s entry card to Paris

12. The novel, Night • After 10 years of silence, Elie was persuaded to recount his time at Auschwitz • Night, his memoir about his experience during the Holocaust, was published in 1960.

13. Night - continued • Has been translated into more than 30 languages • Sold more than 7 million copies • Wiesel has written 40 books since • Most of them are about the Holocaust, which still “haunts” him

14. Nobel Peace Prize • In 1986, Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize • He used the Prize to create the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity

15. Wiesel delivered his Nobel Prize speech in Oslo on December 10, 1986.

16. His work • Wiesel considers himself a “messenger of the dead among the living.” • He considers it his mission to make sure that the Holocaust is never forgotten. • He also works fervently to protect others from Human Rights violations

17. Human Rights- Wiesel has defended: • Israel • Soviet Jews • Nicaragua's Miskito Indians • Argentina's Desaparecidos, • Cambodian refugees • Victims of famine and genocide in Africa, of apartheid in South Africa\ • Victims of war in the former Yugoslavia.

18. Present • Wiesel lives with his wife in Connecticut • He is 80 years old • He is still working to promote human rights all over the world

19. Recent photo of Elie Wiesel

20. Quotes “Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other.”- Nobel Speech, 1986

21. In November 1945 Niemöller visited Dachau, where he had been imprisoned from 1941 to April 1945.

23. Summary and Processing Summary • Write a summary about what you learned about the author Elie Wiesel • Finally, mention why you think the author may have chosen to name the novel Night. How may this be symbolism? Process • Your option, but it must support your summary

24. Question of the Day 1/4 • Choose one of the quotes I showed you and put it in your own words. In addition, mention why the meaning has relevance still today

25. Works Cited “Elie Wiesel.” The Elie Wiesel Foundation. 12 March 2009. <http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/eliewiesel.aspx>. “Elie Wiesel Biography.” The Nobel Foundation. 12 March 2009. <http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-bio.html>.

26. Works Cited “The Life and Work of Elie Wiesel.” 2002. PBS.org. 12 March 2009. <http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/life/index.html>.