Nobel Prize-Winning Activist Elie Wiesel Coming to Campus on April 15

Akron, Ohio, March 29, 2002 — Elie Wiesel — the noted author, Holocaust survivor, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner — will speak of his experiences and life's mission at The University of Akron on April 15. Sponsored by the University Honors Program, the fifth event in the 2001-02 Forum Speaker Series will take place at 8 p.m. at E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall.

“The University Honors Program is proud to sponsor a talk by such a moral force as Elie Wiesel,” says Dr. Dale Mugler, director of the Honors Program. “Professor Wiesel is a Holocaust survivor, but his philosophy reaches much further. This lecture will provide a focus for discussion for all those who attend.”

Wiesel has worked on behalf of oppressed people for much of his life. His personal experience of the Holocaust has led him to use his talents as an author, teacher and storyteller to defend human rights and peace throughout the world.

His efforts have earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal and the Medal of Liberty Award, the rank of Grand Officer in the French Legion of Honor and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

A native of Sighet, Romania, Wiesel and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz when he was 15. His mother and younger sister perished there; his two older sisters survived. He and his father were transported to Buchenwald, where his father died.

After the war, Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist in that city, yet he remained silent about what he had endured in the death camps. During an interview with the French writer Francois Mauriac, he was persuaded to end his silence. He subsequently wrote “La Nuit (Night).” Since its publication in 1958, “La Nuit” has been translated into 25 languages, and millions of copies have been sold.

A devoted supporter of Israel, Wiesel also has defended the cause of Soviet Jews, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Argentina's “disappeared,” Cambodian refugees, and more recently the victims and prisoners in the former Yugoslavia.

Since 1976, Wiesel has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, where he is also a professor in the departments of religion and philosophy. An American citizen since 1963, Wiesel lives in New York with his wife and son.

General admission tickets for the event are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and children, and $4 with a University of Akron ID. For more information call the E.J. Thomas Hall Ticket Office at 330-972-7570.

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