Born September 30, 1928

Sighet, Romania

Writer, teacher, and human rights activist

Elie Wiesel. Getty Images.

"Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the center of the universe."

Elie Wiesel (pronounced ELL-ee vee-ZEL) is one of the world's best-known human rights activists. Wiesel is a survivor of the Nazi death camps—concentration camps run by the Nazis, a German political party which, under the direction of Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), seized control of Germany in 1933 and was responsible for the destruction of millions of European Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other minorities. In the 1940s, Wiesel used his experiences to write more than forty books dealing with topics such as peace, evil versus good, and...