Elie Wiesel (1928–2016), born Eliezer Wiesel on September 30, 1928, in Sighet (now Sighetu Marmației), Maramureș, Romania, was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1986), Holocaust survivor, and prominent human rights advocate. The only son among four children in a devout Jewish family to parents Sarah Feig and Shlomo Wiesel, a grocer, he was also a distant relative through his maternal grandmother. During World War II, at age 15, he and his family were deported to Auschwitz, where his mother and younger sister perished; he was later transferred to Buchenwald, enduring forced labor, starvation, disease, and torture until liberation in 1945, shortly before which his father died. These experiences inspired his seminal memoir Night (1958), the first of 57 books he authored in French and English, which explore themes of suffering, memory, and moral responsibility.

After the war, Wiesel moved to France to study at the Sorbonne and began a journalism career under a pseudonym, honoring a vow of silence about his Holocaust experiences. He emigrated to the United States in 1956, became a U.S. citizen, and taught at institutions such as City College of New York and Boston University, where he served as Distinguished Professor of Judaic Studies. In 1967, he served as the commencement speaker for Akiba's graduating class. Wiesel founded the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity in 1987, which later suffered significant losses due to a fraudulent scheme. He also played a key role in establishing the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993.

Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for his advocacy against genocide, racism, oppression, and antisemitism, as well as for his wider human rights efforts, including fundraising through speeches at national conferences and a focus on Soviet Jewry and genocide prevention. He continued writing and speaking globally until his death on July 2, 2016, in New York City, leaving a legacy as a vital bridge between personal trauma and universal ethical imperatives.