Elie Wiesel
Holocaust survivor. Author. Humanitarian. Nobel laureate. Elie Wiesel's life has spanned the widest possible arc of human experience.
The 2007 Koret Prize was awarded to Elie Wiesel, whose Foundation for Humanity is devoted to combating indifference, intolerance, and injustice through international dialogue and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding, and equality. Professor Wiesel's achievements as an author and human rights activist have earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the 1986 Nobel Prize for Peace. The author of more than 50 books, he was selected for inclusion as one of 50 great Americans in the 50th anniversary edition of Who's Who in America.
Elie Wiesel was 15 years old when his family was deported to Auschwitz, where his mother and younger sister perished. Wiesel and his father were later taken to Buchenwald, where his father died before the camp was liberated in 1945. Ten years after liberation, Wiesel wrote the acclaimed memoir, Night. Since its publication in 1956 in Yiddish, the austere and breathtaking account of the Holocaust has been translated into over 30 languages.
