Growing Up With Elie Wiesel

Rather than turn me off from God or religion, these movies instilled in me a deep sense of right and wrong, and the need to watch out for each other. From the conversations that followed the movies, I learned the mantra of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations: “Never again.” Never again to genocide, repression, racism. Never again to silence in the face of injustice.

I’m grateful to Elie Wiesel. His work raised important questions, not just for my 8th grade self, but for the world. He stood for worldwide human rights—for Jews in Israel, the Soviet Union and Ethiopia; for the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, the Desaparecidos of Argentina, Bosnian victims of genocide in Yugoslavia, the Miskito Indians in Nicaragua and the Kurds.