A Letter to My Daughter Kim before she embarks on the March of The Living

Dearest Kim,

The March of the Living is an extraordinary, unforgettable experience. With thousands of Jewish people, from countries all around the world, you will share in a once in a lifetime experience when they march three kilometers from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest concentration camp complex built by the Nazis during World War II. The March commemorates Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. You with be there – along with over 8,000 participants who will be part of this historic event.

As one of the Marchers, you will retrace the steps of the March of Death, the actual route which countless numbers of our people were forced to take on their way to the gas chambers at Birkenau. You will experience Jewish history where it was made. This time, however, there will be a difference. It will be a March of the Living with thousands of Jewish youth, like yourself, marching shoulder to shoulder. You will take part in a memorial service at one of the gas chambers/crematoria, in Birkenau, which will close with the singing of Hatikvah, reaffirming Am Yisrael Chai – The Jewish People Lives.

The 36  Shabelstoch first cousins above the age of 21  at a 1927 wedding in Riga There were already twice as many below the age of 21. Other than my grandmother Fryda Shabelstock Baker seated between the first and second rows on the right, there were no survivors . Between November 30 and December 8 , they, their children and grandchildren with over 29,000 other Riga Jews ( and surrounding areas) were slaughtered in the Rumbula Forest Massacre. There were no survivors . 

Kaddish is a Jewish Prayer to Remember the Dead and normally said by Men. In the absence of a Male Member of the Family ( there are only your brother Jonathan and I left) when you place the Three Jerusalem Stones with the Names of Three Branches of your Family that were Murdered in the Holocaust say Kaddish out Loud . Say Kaddish for the Drues of Kraków and your Great Aunt Hadasaeah that died in Belzec extermination camp and all the other Drues cousins of Kraków that died in Belzec,Treblinska and Auschwitz .Over 280 Drues s of Kraków relations died. There are no known survivors.. Say Kaddish for the Drues of Majzugola near Vilna who died in the Vaivara and Auschwitz Camp if they were not murdered first in the Forest of Paneriai .There are no known survivors . Say Kaddish for the Shabelshok/Fialkov Families of Riga who were murdered between 30th November and 8th December in the Rumbula Forest near Riga with 25,000 thousand other Jews from Latvia. Say Kaddish for the sisters and brothers of your Great Grandmother Freda Shabelstok Baker who died in the Forrest of Rumbula . Say Kaddish for Sarah , Robert, Michael, David , Gregor , Rachel , Lazer, Leah and Fredrich , Freda and Rosa Shabelstok’s older sisters and brothers and all their children and even grandchildren Not one survived. Over 850 members of the Shabelstok / Fialkov Extended Families died in the misty Forest of Rumbula with other Latvian Jews mainly from Riga and surrounding areas. Say Kaddish for all the Shabelstok/Fialkov/Drues cousins and relations …there must have been hundreds and hundreds,  if not thousands and thousands, in the extended ealthy and long established Riga families of  the Shabelstok / Fialkov families .Four Shabeltok Siblings married four Fialkov Siblings. There were no  survivors.



Say Kaddish in Tears and then Shout… “We Survived and Are Here Now Again -Never Ever Again” , אנחנו שרדנו ואנחנו כאן עכשיו – לעולם לא עוד יהיה שם שואה חוזרת

Those that Survived The Holocaust but did not experience it first hand:-

Shabelskok: Freda and her younger Rosa . Freda was in Uitenhague ,South Africa married to Chaim Baker and Rosa, her younger sister in Norway taken there by the Danish Resistance with most of the Danish Jews.They were the youngest of 11 siblings . All the siblings were married with kids .all the siblings and their families were murdered in the Forest of Rumbuka

Fialkov: Twin Brothers Manny ( Mordechai) and Jay ( Josef) in Cape Town,South Africa . They were the youngest of 10 siblings . None of their siblings or their families survived the Holocaust..

Drues: Samuel ( your great grandfather) and Naomi in Cape Town, South Africa and William in Chicago, USA survived the Holocaust.. The children of Hadaseah who died in Belzec, joined Shomer Hazair,immigrated to Israel in 1932 and survived in Israel . They were Freda and Hashya who married the Kurman Brothers , Max , who was wounded twice in Palmach operations and Chaim who was a teacher for 43 years before retiring.

Mourn and then Celebrate the Shabelstok/ Fialkov / Drues Survival when you March from Birkenau to Auschwitz… you are their Symbol of Survival .

 

  

 

 

Love You To Bits
xoxoxo
Dad



On the Origin of our surname
Stephen Darori ( דרורי)

Before I Hebrewized my surname on the 6th September 1986 I was Stephen Ellis Drus…the son of Fay Baker Drus and Morrie Drus z’l

Fay Baker Drus was the daughter of Freda Shabelstol Baker and Hymie ( Chaim Baker) one of the 3 founders of Betar in South Africa in 1931 and Jabotinskyt stayed at him when he visited the Eastern Cape, South Africa in the same year.

Morrie ( Morris ) Drus is the son of Samuel Drues and Sarah Kaplan Drues. . They were married in Poland and then in 1921 immigrated to Cape Town , South Africa. Drues became Drus. Sarah Kaplan Drus founded the Socialist Poalei Zion and the (Dor)Habonim Youth Movement in South Africa in 1933 which today is the huge Bnoth Zion Organisation.

Surprisingly Sarah and Haim always got along united in their belief in Zionism and they worked endlessly to great and support the establishment of a Jewish State in the British Mandate of Palestine. Both listened to the the UN vote on 23rd November 1947 from separate wireless full of static,joy and plenty of tears united in Zionism , Jabotisky's Betar and Herut Movement and Ben Gurion's Histadrut, Jewish Agency and Labour Movement. Chaim and Freda Shabelstock Baker in Uitenhague in the Eastern Cape , South Africa with their children Fay Baker Drus and Sydney Baker and their family and freinds and comrades in Betar , Herut and the future Machal contingent of volunteers from South Africa who later fought and some died in the Israeli War of Independence and in Cape Town Sarah Kaplan Drus with her husband Samuel Drus and children Ethel Drus and Morrie ( Morris) Drus under the red banner of Socialism but no longer communism after Stalin's infamous agreement with Hitler that became known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pactsigned on 23rd august ,1939. Our family's last Polish remnants ( Krakow) embraced in Zionism our familiy's last Latvian remnant ( Riga) crying with joy and fear of the Arab threat of invasion and the annihilation of the Jews of Palestine . They were at that moment in time just two future machatosim ( family by marriage) working and praying with their last remnant belief in God for the survival of the Jewish Nation . 9 Betar comrades in arms left immediately to join the Machal Contingent to fight in Israel's War of Indeendence. 3 died herotically carrying a Gift Bible from Chaim Baker and the Betar Movement in South Africa,
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPx5yf5RFc

Chaim Baker is sitting on the right of Jabotinsky (0.55)

"למות או לכבוש את ההר"

שיר בית"ר 

מילים: זאב ז'בוטינסקי

לחן: דב פרנקל

קיימים 2 ביצועים לשיר זה 

ביתר 

מגב ריקבון ועפר 

בדם וביזע 

יוקם לנו גזע 

גאון ונדיב ואכזר 

ביתר הנלכדה, 

יודפת, מסדה, 

תרומנה בעז והדר. 

הדר 

עברי גם בעוני בן שר 

אם עבד, אם הלך 

נוצרת בן מלך 

בכתר דוד נעטר 

באור ובסתר 

זכור את הכתר 

עטרת גאון ותגר 

תגר 

על כל מעצור ומיצר 

אם תעל או תרד 

בלהב המרד 

שא אש להצית - אין דבר 

כי שקט הוא רפש 

הפקר דם ונפש 

למען ההוד הנסתר 

למות או לכבוש את ההר - 

יודפת, מסדה, ביתר. 

Betar
From the pit of decay and dust
With blood and sweat
Shall arise a race
Proud generous and cruel
Captured Betar, Yodefet, Masada
Shall arise again In all their strength and glory

Hadar
Even in poverty a Jew is a prince
Whether slave or tramp
You have been created the son of kings
Crowned with the diadem of David
Whether in light or in darkness
Always remember the crown
The crown of pride and Tagar

Tagar
Through all obstacles and enemies
Whether you go up or down
In the flames of revolt
Carry the flame to kindle
""Never mind""
For silence is filth
Worthless is blood and soul
For the sake of the hidden glory

To die or conquer the hill
Yodefet, Masada, Betar"

The logic of the Hebrewaization of Drus ro Darori. Drus דרוס pronounced Darus is the Gerund of “Ledareis”.לדרס..” to be trodden on to be run over”…. we could not live with that when I came on Aliyah from Cape town, South Africa and a letter change דרוס -> דרור which became דרורי the Biblical word for a Sparrow. Cage a Sparrow and it will die wrote Acad Ha’am so Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the reviver of the Hebrew Language in his New Hebrew dictionary gave Drori a new metaphorical meaning of “Freedom and Liberty”. The “a’ was added for Branding Purposes . Darori ( Drori) is very appropriate… Kim , your great Aunt Professor Ethel Drus led the committee of 12 ( 9 Jews and Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Z.K. Mathews ) who drafted the Freedom Charter , the most important document of the African National Congress. After being listed under the Suppression of Communism Act she left South Africa for the UK and headed the ANC Foreign Membership secretariate for the next 25 years. Both your Grandparents and I were very active in the Progressive Party of Helen Suzman and Harry Oppenheimer which has evolved into the Democratic Alliance, the Liberal Opposition to the ANC, As Chairman of the Progressive Federal Party National Youth Organisation , I played a pivotal role in financing the activities of the United Democratic Front that merged with the ANC after Nelson Mandela was released and the ANC unbanned. I proposed the motion that called on the Progessive Federal Party to incorporate alternative military service in their official platform.... with a lot of schlentering this motion  resulted in the National Party Government introducing a 4 year alternative to military service, one of the pricipal gaols  of  End Conscription Campaign in south Africa.
.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Charter (Ethel Drus)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Democratic_Front_(South_Africa) ( Stephen Drus Darori)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_Conscription_Campaign ( Stephen Drus Darori)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumbula_massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp

http://www.jewishgen.org/forgottencamps/camps/auschwitzeng.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treblinka_extermination_camp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belzec_extermination_camp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilna_Ghetto#Liquidation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaddish

MARTIN NIEMÖLLER: "FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE SOCIALISTS..."

Statement by the President on International Holocaust Remembrance Day“It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust. It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror.“Yet, we know that in the darkest hours of humanity, light shines the brightest.‎ As we remember those who died, we are deeply grateful to those who risked their lives to save the innocent.“In the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good. Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world.”

The Statement of the White House omn International Holocaust Day was unquestionable the greatest boost ever to the Holocaust deniers Brigae ever in Social Media . Jared and Ivanka Kushner should be ashamed of #OyVeyDonaldTrump . #AmericaHangsItsHeadInShame

Martin Niemöller, a prominent Protestant pastor who opposed the Nazi regime. He spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. Germany, 1937.

— Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz





Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.

Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

The quotation stems from Niemöller's lectures during the early postwar period. Different versions of the quotation exist. These can be attributed to the fact that Niemöller spoke extemporaneously and in a number of settings. Much controversy surrounds the content of the poem as it has been printed in varying forms, referring to diverse groups such as Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Trade Unionists, or Communists depending upon the version. Nonetheless his point was that Germans—in particular, he believed, the leaders of the Protestant churches—had been complicit through their silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people.

Only in 1963, in a West German television interview, did Niemöller acknowledge and make a statement of regret about his own antisemitism (see Gerlach, 2000, p. 47). Nonetheless, Martin Niemöller was one of the earliest Germans to talk publicly about broader complicity in the Holocaust and guilt for what had happened to the Jews. In his book Über die deutsche Schuld, Not und Hoffnung (published in English as Of Guilt and Hope)—which appeared in January 1946—Niemöller wrote: "Thus, whenever I chance to meet a Jew known to me before, then, as a Christian, I cannot but tell him: 'Dear Friend, I stand in front of you, but we can not get together, for there is guilt between us. I have sinned and my people has sinned against thy people and against thyself.'"

Further Reading

James Bentley, Martin Niemöller: 1892–1984 (NY: Macmillan Free Press, 1984).

Victoria Barnett, For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (NY: Oxford University Press, 1992).

Wolfgang Gerlach, And the Witnesses were Silent: The Confessing Church and the Jews (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2000).

#OYVeyDonaldTrump's White House says it Deliberately Omitted Jews and well all other victims From Holocaust Rememberance Day Statement #AmericaHangsItsHeadInShame ( Again and Again and Again) h

Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp c. 1945 --- The person standing in the middle of the dead bodies is Nazi physician Fritz Klein.

The White House is defending the statement it released on International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday that had no mention of the 6 million Jews that were killed.

Statement by the President on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

“It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust. It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror.“Yet, we know that in the darkest hours of humanity, light shines the brightest.‎ As we remember those who died, we are deeply grateful to those who risked their lives to save the innocent.“In the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good. Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world.”

Hope Hicks, the Donald Trump administration spokeswoman and in circle wingwoman of #OyVeyDonaldTrump, told CNN that, "despite what the media reports, we are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all of those who suffered."

Other than having no mention of the 6 million Jews killed, the statement also failed to mention anti-Semitism.

Instead, Hicks provided a link to a Huffington Post UK story that notes the 5 million other "priests, gypsies, people with mental or physical disabilities, communists, trade unionists, Jehovah's Witnesses, anarchists, Poles and other Slavic peoples, and resistance fighters," that were murdered in the genocide, according to CNN. When asked if asked if Trump purposely left out Jews in his statement to avoid offending anyone, Hicks simply said, "it was our honor to issue a statement in remembrance of this important day."

President Trump's statement is sharply different than those of his predecessors — namely Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama — who both had some mention of Jews or anti-Semitism in their statements.

God Save America from Donny T.... Trump details plans to track illegal immigrants. Pleeeease don't straight jacket him until November 9th ......let his disconnect between brain and mouth and political sanity continue.

First They Came for the Jews
by Martin Niemöller

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Trump details plans to track illegal immigrants

Donald Trump said those who overstay their visas will be "quickly removed" o concentration camps? US Jails are full and no place for rapists and murders to influence our criminals with their own evil ways.

The US Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has said he will develop a tracking system to help authorities control immigration.

Speaking on the campaign trail in Iowa, he outlined what he called an "entry-exit" programme, which would track those who overstay their visas.

He also reiterated his support for building a wall along the southern border with Mexico.

And he said he would stop illegal immigrants getting welfare benefits.

"I am going to build a great border wall, institute nationwide e-verify, stop illegal immigrants from accessing welfare and entitlements, and develop an exit-entry tracking system to ensure those who overstay their visas are quickly removed," Mr Trump said.

"If we don't enforce visa expiration dates, then we have an open border - it's as simple as that," he added.

• How could you deport 11m people?
• How might Trump's screening plan work?
• Trump’s Super Shock troops( SS) : Who are the ‘alt-right’?

Immigration was a central issue in Mr Trump's primary campaign.

Earlier this week, he signalled he would soften his immigration plans.

Instead of deporting all 11 million people living illegally in the US as he had suggested before, he said only criminals would go immediately.The rest would be put into concentration camps and deported as soon as possible

He was immediately criticised by the right of the Republican party, with Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin warning him of "massive disappointment" if he backed down on his plan to deport undocumented immigrants.



The Little Boy with His Hands Up
by Yala Korwin

Your open palms raised in the air
like two white doves
frame your meager face,
your face contorted with fear,
grown old with knowledge beyond your years.
Not yet ten. Eight? Seven?
Not yet compelled to mark
with a blue star on white badge
your Jewishness.

No need to brand the very young.
They will meekly follow their mothers.

You are standing apart
Against the flock of women and their brood
With blank, resigned stares.
All the torments of this harassed crowd
Are written on your face.
In your dark eyes—a vision of horror.
You have seen Death already
On the ghetto streets, haven't you?
Do you recognize it in the emblems
Of the SS-man facing you with his camera?

Like a lost lamb you are standing
Apart and forlorn beholding your own fate.

Where is your mother, little boy?
Is she the woman glancing over her shoulder
At the gunmen at the bunker's entrance?
Is it she who lovingly, though in haste,
Buttoned your coat, straightened your cap,
Pulled up your socks?
Is it her dreams of you, her dreams
Of a future Einstein, a Spinoza,
Another Heine or Halévy
They will murder soon?
Or are you orphaned already?
But even if you still have a mother,
She won't be allowed to comfort you
In her arms.

Her tired arms loaded with useless bundles
Must remain up in submission.

Alone you will march
Among other lonely wretches
Toward your martyrdom.

Your image will remain with us
And grow and grow
To immense proportions,
To haunt the callous world,
To accuse it, with ever stronger voice,
In the name of the million youngsters
Who lie, pitiful rag-dolls,
Their eyes forever closed.

Elie Wiesel September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016 : Universal Lessons of the Holocaust. Never, Never, Never NEVER AGAIN ,

Elie Wiesel September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016 : Universal Lessons of the Holocaust. Never, Never, Never NEVER AGAIN ,

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE (/ˈɛli wɪˈzɛl/; September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was an American Romanian-born Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Laureate. 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, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps. Wiesel was also the Advisory Board chairman of the newspaper Algemeiner Journal. He was the Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Boston University, in Boston, Massachusetts.

When Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a "messenger to mankind," stating that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps", as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace", Wiesel had delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity.

Early life

The house in which Wiesel was born

Elie Wiesel was born in Sighet, Transylvania (now Sighetu Marmației), Maramureș Romania. in theCarpathian Mountains. His parents were Sarah Feig and Shlomo Wiesel. At home, Wiesel's family spoke Yiddish most of the time, but also German, Hungarian, and Romanian. Wiesel's mother, Sarah, was the daughter of Dodye Feig, a celebrated Vizhnitz Hasid and farmer from a nearby village. Dodye was active and trusted within the community. In the early years of his life, Dodye had spent a few months in jail for having helped Polish Jews who escaped and were hungry.

Wiesel's father, Shlomo, instilled a strong sense of humanism in his son, encouraging him to learn Hebrew and to read literature, whereas his mother encouraged him to study the Torah. Wiesel has said his father represented reason while his mother Sarah promoted faith.

Wiesel had three siblings – older sisters Beatrice and Hilda, and younger sister Tzipora. Beatrice and Hilda survived the war and were reunited with Wiesel at a French orphanage. They eventually emigrated to North America, with Beatrice moving to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Tzipora, Shlomo, and Sarah did not survive the Holocaust.

World War II

Buchenwald concentration camp, 1945. Wiesel is in the second row from the bottom, seventh from the left, next to the bunk post.

In 1940, when he was 15, Wiesel and his family, along with the rest of the town's Jewish population, were placed in one of the two confinement ghettos set up in Sighetu, the town where he had been born and raised. In May 1944 the Hungarian authorities under German pressure began to deport the Jewish community to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

After they were sent to Auschwitz, his mother and one of his sisters were killed soon after. Wiesel and his father were deported to the concentration camp at Buchenwald, where his father was also killed. In Night, Wiesel recalled the shame he felt when unable to help, he heard his father being beaten nearby. Weisel was tattooed as inmate number "A-7713" on his left arm. The camp was liberated by the U.S.Third Army on April 11, 1945.

After the war

After World War II, Wiesel taught Hebrew and worked as a choirmaster before becoming a professional journalist. He learned French, which became the language he used most frequently in writing. He wrote for Israeli and French newspapers, including Tsien in Kamf (in Yiddish).

In 1946, after learning of Irgun's bombing of the King David Hotel, Wiesel made an unsuccessful attempt to join the underground movement. In 1948 he translated articles from Hebrew to Yiddish for Irgun periodicals, but says he was not a member of the organization. In 1949 he travelled to Israel as a correspondent for the French newspaper L'arche. He then was hired as Paris correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, subsequently becoming its roaming international correspondent.

For ten years after the war, Wiesel refused to write about or discuss his experiences during the Holocaust. However, a meeting with the French author François Mauriac, the 1952 Nobel Laureate in Literature who eventually became Wiesel's close friend, persuaded him to write about his experiences. Wiesel said that a discussion he had with The Rebbe Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson was a turning point in his writing of the Holocaust.

Wiesel first wrote the 900-page memoir Un di velt hot geshvign (And the World Remained Silent) in Yiddish, which was published in abridged form in Buenos Aires. Wiesel rewrote a shortened version of the manuscript in French, which was published as the 127-page La Nuit, and later translated into English as Night. Even with Mauriac's support, Wiesel had trouble finding a publisher for his book and initially it sold only a few copies.

In 1960 Arthur Wang of Hill & Wang agreed to pay a $100 pro-forma advance and published it in the United States in September that year as Night. The book agent was Georges Borchardt, then just starting his career. Borchardt was Wiesel's literary agent all his life.

The book sold just 1,046 copies over the next 18 months, but attracted interest from reviewers, leading to television interviews with Wiesel and meetings with literary figures such as Saul Bellow. "The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies," Wiesel said in an interview. "And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print." The 1979 book and play The Trial of God are said to have been based on his real-life Auschwitz experience of witnessing three Jews who, close to death, conduct a trial against God, under the accusation that He has been oppressive of the Jewish people. Regarding his personal beliefs, Wiesel calls himself an agnostic.

Night has been translated into 30 languages. By 1997 the book was selling 300,000 copies annually in the United States alone. By March 2006, about six million copies were sold in the United States. On January 16, 2006, Oprah Winfrey chose the work for her book club. One million extra paperback and 150,000 hardcover copies were printed carrying the "Oprah's Book Club" logo, with a new translation by Wiesel's wife, Marion, and a new preface by Wiesel. On February 12, 2006, the new translation of Night was No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list for paperback non-fiction, and the original translation placed third.

Film director Orson Welles approached Wiesel about making Night into a feature film. Wiesel refused, saying that his widely read memoir would lose its meaning if it were told without the silences in between his words.

Life in the United States

In 1955, Wiesel moved to Washington, D.C., having become a U.S. citizen. He was offered this citizenship to resolve his status of living with an expired visa from being forced to stay in New York due to an injury. In 1964 The Rebbe  Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson encouraged Wiesel to get married.Wiesel went on to marry Marion and they had a son, Elisha.^[24] In the US, Wiesel wrote over 40 books, both fiction and non-fiction, and won many literary prizes. Wiesel's writing is considered among the most important in Holocaust literature. Some historians credit Wiesel with giving the term "Holocaust" its present meaning, but he did not feel that the word adequately described the event and wished it would be used less frequently to describe significant occurrences as everyday tragedies.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for speaking out against violence, repression, and racism. He received many other prizes and honors for his work, including the Congressional Gold Medal in 1985, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence. Additionally, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996http://www.artsandletters.org/academicians2_current.php

Wiesel also played a role in the initial success of The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski by endorsing it before revelations that the book was fiction and, in the sense that it was presented as all Kosinski's true experience, a hoax.^[26][27]

Wiesel published two volumes of his memoirs. The first, All Rivers Run to the Sea, was published in 1994 and covered his life up to the year 1969. The second, titled And the Sea is Never Full and published in 1999, covered 1969 to 1999.

Wiesel and his wife, Marion, started the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. He served as chairman for the Presidential Commission on the Holocaust (later renamed US Holocaust Memorial Council) from 1978 to 1986, spearheading the building of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., during which he pleaded for intervention during the persecutions in Yugoslavia after a visit in December 1992.

Wiesel was particularly fond of teaching and held the position of Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Boston University, where he became a close friend of the president and chancellor John Silber. From 1972 to 1976 Wiesel was a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York and member of the American Federation of Teachers. In 1982 he served as the first Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in Humanities and Social Thought at Yale University. He also co-instructed Winter Term (January) courses at Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida. From 1997 to 1999 he was Ingeborg Rennert Visiting Professor of Judaic Studies at Barnard College of Columbia University.

Wiesel in 1987.

Wiesel co-founded Moment Magazine with Leonard Fein in 1975. They founded the magazine to provide a voice for American Jews.

Wiesel became a popular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust. As a political activist, he advocated for many causes, including Israel, the plight of Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the victims of apartheid in South Africa, Argentina'sDesaparecidos, Bosnian victims of genocide in the former Yugoslavia, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, and the Kurds. Conversely, he withdrew from his role as chair of the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, and made efforts to abort the conference, in deference to Israeli objection to the inclusion of sessions on the Armenian genocide.

In 2004 he voiced support for intervention in Darfur, Sudan at the Darfur Emergency Summit convened at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York by the American Jewish World Service and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He also led a commission organized by the Romanian government to research and write a report, released in 2004, on the true history of the Holocaust in Romania and the involvement of the Romanian wartime regime in atrocities against Jews and other groups, including the Roma. The Romanian government accepted the findings in the report and committed to implementing the commission's recommendations for educating the public on the history of the Holocaust in Romania. The commission, formally called the International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, came to be called the Wiesel Commission in honor of his leadership.

Wiesel was a member of the International Council of the New York–based Human Rights Foundation.

On March 27, 2001, Wiesel appeared at the University of Florida for Jewish Awareness Month and was presented with an honorary degree from the University of Florida.

In 2002, he inaugurated the Elie Wiesel Memorial House in Sighet, in his childhood home.

Later life

President George W. Bush, joined by the Dalai Lama and Wiesel, October 17, 2007, to the ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., for the presentation of theCongressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama

In early 2006, Wiesel traveled to Auschwitz with Oprah Winfrey, a visit which was broadcast as part of The Oprah Winfrey Show on May 24, 2006.Wiesel said that this would most likely be his last trip there. In September 2006, he appeared before the UN Security Council with actor George Clooney to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. On November 30, 2006, Wiesel received a knighthood in London in recognition of his work toward raising Holocaust education in the United Kingdom.

During the early 2007 selection process for the Kadima candidate for President of Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly offered Wiesel the nomination (and, as the ruling-party candidate and an apolitical figure, likely the presidency), but Wiesel "was not very interested." Shimon Peres was chosen as the Kadima candidate (and later President) instead.

In 2007, Wiesel was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award.That same year, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity issued a letter condemning Armenian genocide denial, a letter that was signed by 53 Nobel laureates including Wiesel. Wiesel has repeatedly called Turkey's 90-year-old campaign to downplay its actions during the Armenian genocide a double killing.

Wiesel was a member of the International Advisory Board of NGO Monitor.

Wiesel and his wife invested their life savings, and the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity invested nearly all of its assets (approximately $15.2 million USD) through Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, an experience Wiesel later spoke about at a Condé Nast roundtable. Although an exact recovery percentage is not yet known, as of April 2013, 53% of victims' monies have been recovered and returned to them. In a New York Times article, Wiesel called Madoff a "thief, scoundrel, criminal."

Elie Wiesel at a celebration for President Obama inauguration in 2009

In 2009, Wiesel criticized the Vatican for lifting the excommunication of controversial bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the Society of Saint Pius X.

On June 5, 2009, Wiesel accompanied US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkelas they toured Buchenwald. Merkel and Wiesel each spoke about Buchenwald in personal terms, with Merkel considering the responsibility of Germans vis-à-vis Nazi history, and Wiesel reflecting on the suffering and death of his father in the camp.

Wiesel returned to Hungary for the first visit since the Holocaust between December 9–11, 2009, by the invitation of Rabbi Slomó Köves, executive rabbi of the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation and the Hungarian branch of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. During his visit, Wiesel participated in a conference at the Upper House Chamber of the Hungarian Parliament, met Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai and PresidentLászló Sólyom, and made a speech to the approximately 10,000 participants of an anti-racist gathering held in Faith Hall. The speech was broadcast live by Magyar ATV, a nationwide television channel.

In November 2011, Wiesel accepted an appointment to the Board of Visitors of Ralston College, a start-up liberal arts college based in Savannah, Georgia.

In June 2012, he protested against "the whitewashing of tragic and criminal episodes" that happened in Hungary during the Holocaust. He gave up the Great Cross award received from the Hungarian government and sent a letter to László Kövér, the Speaker of Hungarian Parliament, where he criticized him for his participation in a ceremony celebrating József Nyírő, a loyal member of Hungary's World War II fascist parliament. During the short rule of the Arrow Cross Party, which led a government in Hungary, ten to fifteen thousand Jews were murdered outright, and 80,000 Jews, including many women, children and elderly were deported from Hungary to their deaths in the Auschwitz concentration camp. In his letter Wiesel wrote:

It has become increasingly clear that Hungarian authorities are encouraging the whitewashing of tragic and criminal episodes in Hungary's past, namely the wartime Hungarian governments' involvement in the deportation and murder of hundreds of thousands of its Jewish citizens. I found it outrageous that the Speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly could participate in a ceremony honoring a Hungarian fascist ideologue.

Wiesel was currently an adviser at the Gatestone Institute. In 2010, Wiesel accepted a five-year appointment as a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. In that role, he made a one-week visit to Chapman annually to meet with students and offer his perspective on subjects ranging from Holocaust history to religion, languages, literature, law and music.

Wiesel was in attendance and his famous "Never Again" quote was recited by the Israeli prime minister's Benjamin Netanyahu; during Netanyahu 2015 address to United States congress.

2007 attack on Wiesel

Elie Wiesel at the 2008 World Economic Forum.

Wiesel was attacked in a San Francisco hotel by 22-year-old Holocaust denier Eric Hunt in February 2007. Hunt was arrested the following month and charged with multiple offences.

Baptism against his knowledge or desire

In February 2012, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints performed a posthumous baptism of Simon Wiesenthal's parents. After Wiesel's name had been submitted to be proxy baptised, he spoke out against the practice of posthumously baptizing Jews and asked presidential candidate and Latter-day SaintMitt Romney to denounce it.

Iran and Gaza

In December 2013 Wiesel wrote an ad in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal declaring that "Iran must not be allowed to remain nuclear", and that "If there is one lesson I hope the world has learned from the past it is that regimes rooted in brutality must never be trusted. And the words and actions of the leadership of Iran leave no doubt as to their intentions."

In an August 4, 2014, full-page advertisement in The New York Times and other newspapers, Wiesel condemned Hamas for the "use of children as human shields" during the 2014 Israel-Gaza ConflictThe Times (London) refused to run the advertisement, saying "the opinion being expressed is too strong and too forcefully made and will cause concern amongst a significant number of Times readers."

Wiesel lived in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Opinions about Jerusalem

Wiesel has often emphasized the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and has criticized the Obama administration for pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt East Jerusalem Israeli settlement construction. He has explained that "Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture—and not a single time in the Koran.... It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city..."

Awards and honors

• Prix de l'Université de la Langue Française (Prix Rivarol) for The Town Beyond the Wall, 1963.
• National Jewish Book Council Award for The Town Beyond the Wall, 1963.
• Ingram Merrill award, 1964.
• Prix Médicis for A Beggar in Jerusalem, 1968.
• Jewish Heritage Award, Haifa University, 1975.
• Holocaust Memorial Award, New York Society of Clinical Psychologists, 1975.
• S.Y. Agnon Medal, 1980.
• Jabotinsky Medal, State of Israel, 1980.
• Prix Livre Inter, France, for The Testament, 1980.
• Grand Prize in Literature from the City of Paris for The Fifth Son, 1983
• Commander in the French Legion of Honor, 1984.
• U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, 1984.
• Four Freedom Award for the Freedom of Worship, 1985.
• Medal of Liberty, 1986.
• Nobel Peace Prize, 1986.
• Grand Officer in the French Legion of Honor, 1990.
• Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1992
• Niebuhr Medal, Elmhurst College, Illinois, 1995.
• Grand Cross in the French Legion of Honor, 2000.
• Star of Romania, 2002.
• Man of the Year award, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2005.
• Light of Truth award, International Campaign for Tibet, 2005.
• Honorary Knighthood, United Kingdom, 2006.
• Honorary Visiting Professor of Humanities, Rochester College, 2008.
• National Humanities Medal, 2009.
• Norman Mailer Prize, Lifetime Achievement, 2011.
• Loebenberg Humanitarian Award, Florida Holocaust Museum, 2012.
• Nadav Award, 2012.^[84]
• S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards, 2013
• John Jay Medal for Justice John Jay College, 2014

Honorary degrees

• Doctor of Humane Letters, Siena Heights University, Adrian, MI, 1984
• Doctor of Humane Letters, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, 1985.
• Doctor of Humane Letters, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, 1988
• Doctor of Humane Letters, DePaul University, Chicago, 1997
• Doctorate, Seton Hall University, New Jersey, 1998.
• Doctor of Humanities, Michigan State University, 1999.
• Doctorate, McDaniel College, Westminster, MD, 2005.
• Doctor of Humane Letters, Chapman University, 2005.
• Doctor of Humane Letters, Dartmouth College, 2006.
• Doctor of Humane Letters, Cabrini College, Radnor, PA, 2007.
• Doctor of Humane Letters, University of Vermont, 2007.
• Doctor of Humanities, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, 2007.
• Doctor of Letters, City College of New York, 2008.^[
• Doctorate, Tel Aviv University, 2008.
• Doctorate, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel, 2008.
• Doctor of Humane Letters, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, 2009.
• Doctor of Letters, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, 2010.
• Doctor of Humane Letters, Washington University in St. Louis, 2011.
• Doctor of Humane Letters, College of Charleston, 2011.
• Doctorate, University of Warsaw, June 25, 2012.
• Doctorate, The University of British Columbia, September 10, 2012.

Death

Elie Wiesel died on July 2, 2016 in Manhattan, New York at the age of 87.

Watch Yad Vashem Video and The Horrific Selection Process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X6ku8KNsOw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ld-GMYs_7Q