75 Years Since Elie Wiesel Was Sent to Auschwitz
Seventy-five years ago this week, Elie Wiesel was deported from Sighet, Romania — a small town in the Carpathian mountains — at the age of 15. Within three days, he would arrive at Auschwitz, where his mother Sarah and baby sister Tziporah were instantly murdered. Elie’s story of survival in the hell of Auschwitz, along with his father Shlomo — who would later die at Buchenwald just before the war’s end — would become one of the most famous Holocaust memoirs of all time, equaled only by the diary of Anne Frank.
Visiting Sighet and seeing Elie’s childhood home — today a museum — is a sobering experience. I was there to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the deportations and subsequent slaughter of the local Jewish community, which also saw 90 percent of Romanian Jewry annihilated.
In 1944, Sighet had about 27,000 inhabitants. A staggering 12,000 were Jewish. Then, in the space of just four transports taking place between May 16 to 22, 1944 (Elie Wiesel was on the final transport), the entire Jewish community was gone. Disappeared. Vanished. A few days later, upon arriving at Auschwitz, the vast majority went up in smoke, literally.
Over the past few years, I have visited many of Europe’s Holocaust death camps and killing fields with my family. I have done so for my children to know what happened to our people. I have come because I am certain that the six million want us to come — and they demand to be remembered. I have come because I am a Jew, and part of my identity is understanding the great triumphs and unspeakable tragedy of my people. And I have come despite how it is has made me feel toward God.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/05/20/75-years-since-elie-wiesel-was-sent-to-auschwitz/
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