Nobel Peace Prize recipient and human rights activist Elie Wiesel will speak at the College of Charleston on September 25, 2011, at 6 p.m. The invitation-only address will be held in College of Charleston’s Sottile Theatre. Wiesel’s visit to the College is sponsored by the Zucker/Goldberg Holocaust Education Initiative at the College of Charleston, along with the College of Charleston Foundation. A limited number of tickets will be made available to the public for a simulcast of the speech, which will be televised in the College’s Physicians Auditorium. Tickets for the event will be available to the public beginning Monday on a first-come, first-served basis, with a limit of two tickets per person. Tickets may be picked up at the box office of the Carolina First Arena, 301 Meeting St., from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For questions or information on ticket distribution, please e-mail wieselinfo@cofc.edu.
Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania. He was 15 when the German Nazis deported him and his family to 
Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister perished, while his two older sisters survived. Elie and his father were later sent to Buchenwald, where his father died shortly before the camp was liberated in April 1945. After the war, Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist. His internationally acclaimed memoir of his time in the death camps, Night, has been translated into more than 30 languages. Wiesel is the author of more than 40 works of fiction and nonfiction, including A Beggar in Jerusalem, The Testament, The Fifth Son, and two volumes of his memoirs. He has received numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, the Medal of Liberty Award, and the rank of Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor.
In 1986, Wiesel received the Nobel Prize for Peace, and soon after, Marion and Elie Wiesel established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. The Foundation’s mission is to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice through international dialogue and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding and equality. For information about the Elie Wiesel Foundation, go to http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org.
