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Holocaust survivor dies

Published:Sunday | July 3, 2016 | 12:00 AM
AP
In this February 25, 2010 file photo, President Barack Obama presents the 2009 National Humanities Medal to Elie Wiesel in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Wiesel, the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, has died.

NEW YORK (AP):

The frail, dapper man who sometimes greeted reporters in his Madison Avenue office spoke in an almost hushed voice, but with urgency, his hands gesturing gently for emphasis. Elie Wiesel's smile was wry, diffident, a thin facade over the sadness imprinted in the weary eyes and deep creases of a face that mirrored his brutal past.

The Auschwitz survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has died at age 87, was an ongoing reminder of one man's endurance of the Nazi Holocaust. His words, destined to last far into the future, are a testament to some of the most unfathomable atrocities in recorded history.

"Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented," he said in 1986, upon accepting the Nobel prize.

Wiesel's death was announced Saturday by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.