Community Magazine August 2016

SARINA ROFFÉ “NEVER SHALL I FORGET that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never.” Elie Wiesel, excerpt from Night. S o wrote Elie Weisel, A”H, a moralist, an ethicist and a guardian of memory, who ensured that we would never forget the atrocities of the Holocaust. He was such an eloquent storyteller that he became the conscience of the world. Because of him, when brazen acts of inhumanity interrupt our daily routines, when terrorism, hate, and persecution reign, we pause and remember the Shoah. He ingrained the memory of the Holocaust into our collective conscience. Sadly, the Auschwitz survivor died on July 2, 2016 in Manhattan. An excellent orator, and champion of human rights, Wiesel was a diehard witness for the six million Jews slaughtered during World War II. His testimony sought to combat humanity’s most dangerous enemy – indifference. He urged us to voice our outrage over injustice and to speak truth and gain power in ways previously thought impossible. Born Eliezer Wiesel on September 30, 1928, he was an American-Jewish writer, professor, political activist, and Nobel Laureate. A native of Romania, he was the author of sixty 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. Among his other books were A Beggar in Jerusalem (a Prix Médicis winner), The Testament (a Prix Livre Inter winner), The Fifth Son (winner of the Grand Prize in Literature from the City of Paris), two volumes of memoirs, All Rivers Run to the Sea, And the Sea is Never Full , and most recently, The Sonderberg Case . Wiesel’s Holocaust began like many others. In May 1944, under pressure from the Germans, the Hungarian authorities began to deport the Jewish community to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Up to 90% of the people were exterminated on arrival. Wiesel was 15 when he and his family were deported and he was tattooed with inmate number “A-7713” on his left arm. His mother, Sarah, and younger sister, Tzipora, were immediately killed in Auschwitz. Weisel and his father were transferred to Buchenwald. His older sisters, Beatrice and Hilda, survived the war and were reunited with Wiesel at a French orphanage. “NEVER FORGET” Elie Wiesel Taught Us the Power of Words 48 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE