“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” ~ Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel is a Jewish American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor born in Hungary September 30, 1928. He is the author of over fifty books including Night , a work about his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps. When receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the Norwegian Nobel Committee described him as a "messenger to mankind", stating that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps", as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace", Wiesel had given to the world a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity."