He was born Eliezer Wiesel on 30 September 1928, in Sighet, Romania, a well-known center of Jewish culture, in the region of Transylvania. Shlomo Wiesel, a grocer and storekeeper, represented for the young Elie the spirit of learning and Hebrew education. He always encouraged his son to study Hebrew and Yiddish languages and their literatures. Wiesel's mother, Sarah, inculcated in him a respect for mysticism and faith and a fascination with the ancient teachings of the Torah and Talmud. Possibly the most influential force in the boy's life was his maternal grandfather, Dodye Feig, an old Hasid, who fired the child's imagination with tales of Hasidic inspiration. Indeed many of Wiesel's works of fiction depict an ancient storyteller who recounts similar tales to an inspired young listener.
What for Wiesel was a traditional and idyllic boyhood in an orthodox Jewish family came to a dramatic end with the arrival of the Nazi armies during the spring of 1944.
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