The ACCENT Speaker’s Bureau and Jewish Awareness Month at the University of Florida will bring Holocaust survivor, Nobel Prize winner and writer, Elie Wiesel, to campus on March 12.
Wiesel, who was taken to Auschwitz by the Nazis during World War II at the young age of 15, retells his Holocaust story in his internationally acclaimed memoir Night.
Using his experiences as a foundation, Wiesel has become an internationally known advocate for Israel and an advocate for other persecuted groups, including the Kurds and victims of genocide in Africa. President Jimmy Carter appointed Wiesel as the Chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, and he later became the Founding Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
Author of more than 50 books, including A Beggar in Jerusalem, Wiesel has received various awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal and, the most prestigious of all, the Noble Prize for Peace.
Wiesel will be talking telling UF students about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor, his Jewish identity and his writing career.
The program starts at 8 p.m. at the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and will be followed by a question-and-answer session.
