A square in Jerusalem was named after Elie Wiesel
A monument to a Jewish writer, journalist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel was unveiled on the campus of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem on Dember 1st. The ceremony was attended by University President Professor Asher Cohen, Chairman of the Board of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) Aaron G. Frenkel, Chairman of the Board of the Yad Vashem Memorial Complex Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, and former President of the Israeli Supreme Court Professor Hanan Meltzer.
A day earlier, Wiesel Square was opened in front of the Jerusalem office of the Yad Sarah charity. The solemn ceremony was attended by the mayor of the city Moshe Leon, the delegation of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC), the founder and head of Yad Sara, Rabbi Uri Lupoliansky, as well as public figures, politicians, and scientists.
The initiative to name the square and to build the monument belongs to the Chairman of the Board of the EAJC, Aaron G. Frenkel. According to him, the location of Wiesel Square has a symbolic meaning: the road to Mount Herzl passes through it, “where the most devoted heroes of the Israel Defense Forces are buried, who sacrificed their lives for the common good.”
“Eli Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in preserving the memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust,” said Aaron Frenkel. – The Shoah claimed several of his closest family members. He spent terrible years in the death camps when the Nazis tried to deprive him and other prisoners in the camps of their very human form. It is symbolic that Wiesel Square will be built near the Yad Sara building, an organization that embodies the very principle of charity, supporting the weak and helping the infirm. All the thoughts of the people who are here are immersed in support and help to people. Here they are constantly thinking about how to support, help and improve the quality of life of all the inhabitants of Israel without exception.”
Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in the Romanian city of Sighet to a religious Jewish family. At the age of 15, in 1944, he and his family were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Later, Wiesel and his father were transferred to the Buchenwald death camp. Only two of his sisters survived. Starting his literary career in Yiddish, Wiesel subsequently also published in Hebrew, French, and English. 10 years after his release from the death camp, he described his story in his memoir “Night”, which had a huge impact on world culture. Originally published in French, the book was later translated into 30 languages and published in millions of copies. Wiesel is the author of over 40 works, many of which are dedicated to the Holocaust and Jewish culture. For most of his life, Elie Wiesel worked to preserve the memory of the events of the Holocaust of European Jewry. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his commitment to the subject of the suffering of the Jewish people, the victims of Nazism.”
