We mark the passing of one of the great moral voices of our age. Elie Wiesel survived Auscwitz and felt compelled to write about the Holocaust: “I wrote feverishly, breathlessly, without rereading. I wrote to testify, to stop the dead from dying, to justify my own survival.” (1995, from memoir)
He is best known for his subsequent great work Un di Velt Hot Geshvign, (“And the World Remained Silent”), which was translated into English and republished in the US as Night in 1960. He subsequently published additional books, served on college faculties, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
His “New York Times” obituary observes:
But by the sheer force of his personality and his gift for the haunting phrase, Mr. Wiesel, who had been liberated from Buchenwald as a 16-year-old with the indelible tattoo A-7713 on his arm, gradually exhumed the Holocaust from the burial ground of the history books.
It was this speaking out against forgetfulness and violence that the Nobel committee recognized when it awarded him the peace prize in 1986.
“Wiesel is a messenger to mankind,” the Nobel citation said. “His message is one of peace, atonement and human dignity. His belief that the forces fighting evil in the world can be victorious is a hard-won belief.”
You can read more about him at New York Times