Elie Wiesel, Dies at 87

Holocaust activist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel, 83, in his office on in New York on Sept. 12, 2012. Bebeto Matthews / AP

Elie Wiesel, the prolific Nobel Peace Prize laureate whose memoir about surviving Nazi concentration camps was one of the most poignant accounts of the Holocaust, has died. He was 87.

Wiesel's son, Elisha Wiesel, told NBC News on Saturday that the author had died, and said the family is observing Shabbat and has requested privacy at the moment.

Wiesel was born in 1928 in Romania. At the age of 15 he was deported to Auschwitz with his family, where his mother and sister died. Wiesel and his father were later taken to Buchenwald. His sick and malnourished father died there following a beating from a German soldier. Wiesel chronicled the experience in his acclaimed 1955 autobiography, "Night."

The atrocities he witnessed fueled Wiesel to combat inhumanity around the world, including in the former Yugoslavia and in Darfur — efforts that in 1986, earned him a Nobel Peace Prize.

"We must speak, we must take sides, for neutrality helps the oppressor — never the victim," he said upon receiving the prize.

The prize's citation referred to him as "a messenger to mankind."

"My father raised his voice to presidents and prime ministers when he felt issues on the world stage demanded action," Elisha Wiesel said in a statement released later Saturday. "But those who knew him in private life had the pleasure of experiencing a gentle and devout man who was always interested in others, and whose quiet voice moved them to better themselves."

"I will hear that voice for the rest of my life, and hope and pray that I will continue to earn the unconditional love and trust he always showed me," Elisha Wiesel said.

Tributes for Wiesel immediately started pouring in Saturday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling him a "beacon of light to the humanity of people who believed in the good of everyone."

President Barack Obama said, "Elie Wiesel was one of the great moral voices of our time, and in many ways, the conscience of the world."

The World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said in a statement that Wiesel "was more than a revered writer. He was also a teacher for many of us. He taught us about the horrors of Auschwitz. He taught us about Judaism, about Israel, and about not being silent in the face of injustice."

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who a few months ago gave Wiesel the medal of Honorary Citizen of Jerusalem, said of the author: "Instead of giving in to despair, the face of evil and cruelty that at the time was the darkest of humanity, he carried all the way through the message of tolerance and peace for all peoples of the world."

Following the war, Wiesel was sent to a French orphanage, where he was reunited with his older sisters, Beatrice and Hilda. He first took up writing in his 20s, when he became a journalist for French and Israeli publications.

Despite later becoming a ubiquitous, first-hand account of surviving the Holocaust, "Night" sold under 2,000 copies in the United States in the first 18 months after it was published.

It has now sold more than 6 million copies, according to Israeli newspaperHaaretz, which first reported Wiesel's death.

Wiesel originally wrote "Night" in French and had it translated into English. The book was standard reading material in schools around the world and enjoyed renewed popularity when Oprah Winfrey chose a new translation of "Night" by Wiesel's wife, Austrian Holocaust survivor Marion Rose, for her book club in 2006.

Wiesel and Marion married in Jerusalem in 1969. She also translated his future books, including "Dawn" and "Day," which completed his trilogy series on the Holocaust. In all, he wrote more than 50 works of fiction and nonfiction.

Wiesel met his wife in New York, where he had moved to in 1955. Over the years, he became a vocal activist, earning him the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in addition to the Nobel Peace Prize for speaking out against discrimination and racism.

Marion Wiesel said in a statement Saturday: "My husband was a fighter. He fought for the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and he fought for Israel. He waged countless battles for innocent victims regardless of ethnicity or creed."

"But what was most meaningful to him was teaching the innumerable students who attended his university classes," she said. "We are deeply moved by the outpouring of love and support we have already seen in the wake of his passing."

Wiesel became an outspoken advocate of education on the Holocaust when President Jimmy Carter appointed him chairman of the Presidential Commission on the Holocaust in 1978. In that role, he helped create the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

A quote from Wiesel — "for the dead and the living, we must bear witness" — is displayed at the museum's entrance.

Wiesel didn't shy away from his past. In 2006, he went to Auschwitz with Winfrey, and in 2009, Wiesel went with President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to a trip to the Buchenwald concentration camp.

His faith never wavered. At the Holocaust Days of Remembrance Ceremony in April 2009, standing alongside Obama in the Capitol Rotunda, Wiesel said, "I belong to a traumatized generation that felt abandoned by God and betrayed by mankind. And yet, I believe that one must not estrange from God or mankind.

Later in life, he made news for another reason: He was one of the victims of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. His foundation, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, lost more than $15 million it had invested with Madoff, and he and his wife lost savings.

When asked to describe Madoff, Wiesel told The New York Times, "Psychopath — it's too nice a word for him."

Obama said that he first came to know Wiesel through his account of the Holocaust, but "I was also honored and deeply humbled to call him a dear friend." The president recalled visiting Buchenwald with Wiesel, where the author was held as a teenager.

"At the end of our visit to Buchenwald, Elie said that after all that he and the other survivors had endured, 'we had the right to give up on humanity,'" Obama said. "But he said, 'we rejected that possibility ... we said, no, we must continue believing in a future.'"

"Tonight, we give thanks that Elie never gave up on humanity and on the progress that is possible when we treat one another with dignity and respect," Obama said.

Original website:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/elie-wiesel-nobel-laureate-holocaust-survivor-night-author-dies-87-n603006

MAISHA NI NINI? - What is Life? - Qu'est-ce que la vie?

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Hivi karibuni nimesikia kutoka radio Maria Tanzania kuwa wana mpango wa kuanzisha kipindi kipya juu ya maisha. Nimesikia wanauliza maisha ni nini? Swali hilo limenivutia kufanya tafakari. Kisha tafakari hiyo nikaona vyema kuwashirikisha watakaopata fursa ya kutembelea ukurasa huu.

Maisha ni nini? Ni swali linalohitaji kufikiria ili kulijibu na hakika mtu hawezi kutoa jibu la maana kama atafanya hivyo bila tafakari. Swali hili lahitaji maelezo ya utangulizi kabla ya kueleza maana ya maisha. Maisha yanahusu viumbe hai, swali letu linamlega hasa binadamu nami nitamuelezea binadamu bila kwenda kwenye falsafa ya ndani ya binadamu - philosophical anthropology, nitamuelezea binadamu kwa lugha nyepesi kabisa ili kila msomaji aelewe. Hivyo basi kwa kuanza na kiumbe huyu, binadamu ni kiumbe mwenye akili na utashi zaidi kuliko viumbe wengine. 

Kiumbe huyu huanza safari ya maisha baada ya mtu mume na mtu mke kushiriki tendo la ndoa na kutungwa mimba. Kisha kutungwa mimba kiumbe kipya kinaanza kuishi ndani ya mji wa uzazi wa mwanamke. Kuishi kwa kiumbe ndani ya mwanamke kunatupatia fursa ya kurudi kwenye swali letu la msingi la maisha, yaani maisha ni nini hasa?

Maisha ni jumla ya shughuli zote azifanyazo binadamu toka kutungwa mimba hadi pale moyo (kiungo chenye kazi ya kusukuma damu mwilini sehemu zote za mwili na hivyo kuurutubisha mwili kwani damu ndiyo njia kuu ya usafirishaji mwilini) utakapokoma kufanya kazi yake.

Katika maisha ya kila binadamu kuna shughuli zinazofanana kwa viumbe wote na kuna shughuli zinazotofautiana toka binadamu mmoja hadi mwingine. Kwa kawaidaa shughuli zote za kimaumbile za binadamu hufanana. Shughuli hizo ni pamoja na zile zifanyikazo ndani ya mwili wa binadamu; ndani ya mwili wa binadamu kuna mifumo zaidi ya kumi inayoshirikiana kati yao na pia ikipata ushirikiano na idara kadhaa mwilini. Baadhi ya mifumo iliyo mwilini kwa binadamu ni pamoja na mfumo wa usafirishaji ambapo moyo na mishipa mwilini husafirisha damu na vyakula sehemu zote za mwili. Upumuaji ni mfumo unaotumia idara za pua, mapafu na kadhalika kuwezesha upumuaji wa mwili. Utoaji taka mwilini huhusisha idara kadhaa na hata mifumo mingine kufanya kazi hiyo...

Pamoja na shughuli zinazofanana kwa binadamu wote kuna mahitaji ya lazima ambayo ni muhimu kwa viumbe wote hao bila kuzingatia nafasi zao kijamii, kiuchumi na kadhalika. Chakula, hewa safi, na hifadhi ya namna fulani ni kati ya mahitaji ya lazima kwa binadamu wote.

Ili aweze kuishi vyema na mwili wake ufanye kazi, binadamu analazimika kula; lazima apate chakula katika kipindi fulani ili mwili wake uendelee kupata mahitaji na virutubisho vinavyouwezesha mwili kuendelea kuishi, hali kadhalika kwa hewa safi. Ili mwili uendelee na kazi zake lazima upate hewa safi ili kubadilishana kwa hewa safi (Okisijeni O₂)  na hewa chafu (Kaboni diokisaidi CO₂) kuendelee kufanyika. Binadamu wote huhitaji hifadhi ya namna fulani; toka kwenye mavazi hadi nyumba ya kujihifadhi, ni ubora tu ndiyo hutofautiana toka mmoja hadi mwingine.

Tunapojiuliza maisha ni nini kuna jambo la lazima kuligusa pia. Nini lengo la maisha? LENGO KUU LA MAISHA NI KUTAFUTA FURAHA. Kwenye dini tunaambiwa lengo kuu la maisha ni kumtumikia Mungu kupitia huduma kwa binadamu wenzetu na mwisho turudi kwa Mungu. Kwahiyo, kwa mara nyingine, kwa binadamu wote lengo kuu la maisha ni kutafuta furaha. Binadamu wote shughuli zetu zote, ama kwa kujua ama kwa kutokufahamu, ni harakati za kutafuta furaha na hivyo basi maisha ni jumla ya shughuli zote binadamu anazozifanya katika harakati za kusaka furaha.

Binadamu wote bila kasoro, lengo la maisha yetu ni kusaka furaha. Tuliona mwanzoni kuwa binadamu ni kiumbe mwenye akili na utashi mkubwa kuliko viumbe wengine wote. Utashi na akili nyingi aliyonayo binadamu humpatia fursa ya kuitafuta furaha kwa namna ya kipekee kwa jinsi ya maumbile na muundo wake unaotokana na mpangilio wa 'genes' zake, ushawishi wa mazingira aliyolelewa na pia aina na ubora wa chakula alacho hasa toka utotoni. Ndiyo maana kuna wenye hutafuta furaha kwa kufanya kazi halali kwa bidii, wengine kwa kufanya kazi haramu kwa bidii (kazi haramu huleta furaha ya muda tu kwa kuwa huwadhuru binadamu wengine), wengine kwa namna yao kulingana na vipaji vyao na wengine kwa namna zao kwa namna namna.

Hivyo basi maisha ni jumla ya shughuli zote azifanyazo binadamu katika harakati za kusaka furaha katika kipindi chote ambapo moyo unafanya kazi ya kusukuma damu mwilini!

Martin Mandalu
Alice, Eastern Cape
15/11/2014