First Person Singular - Elie Wiesel

Product Description Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel reflects upon his life, work, and concerns for mankind's future. The celebrated author of "Night" reconstructed his life after surviving Auschwitz to write, teach, and campaign for human rights. As a journalist, prolific author, and human rights activist, Wiesel focuses on how human beings dehumanize others in order to kill with impunity, and reflects on the re-emergence of terrorism after 9/11. Amazon.com This thoughtful PBS special examines the life and work of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, perhaps best known for his compelling memoir, Night, in which he describes his survival in the Auschwitz concentration camp of Nazi Germany. While an hour cannot do justice to an entire life--to say nothing of a life as tumultuous as Wiesel's--interviews with Wiesel and readings from his works trace the path from his terrifying childhood to his days as a journalist in Paris, the establishment of Israel, and his later years in America, including his troubled thoughts on the current conflict between Israel and Palestine and the September 11 assaults on the World Trade Center. Weisel describes the central concern of his work as memory--ensuring that the horrors of the past are not forgotten, but honored and held up as a warning to the future. Narrated by William Hurt. --Bret Fetzer From the Back Cover Nobel peace prize Laureate Elie Wiesel reflects upon his life, his work, and his concerns for the future of mankind. The celbrated author of the Holocaust memoir "Night" reveals how he reconstructed his life after surviving the horrors of Auschwitz to enter a world of writing, teaching, and human rights activism. He revisits his experiences as a journalist in Paris and Jerusalem, his authorship of more than 40 novels, plays and essays, and invites viewers into his university seminar on "Literature and Memory." In Boston, New York, Paris and Jerusalem he sums up a life of seeking to understand human behavior, and mourns the tendency of humans to dehumanize each other in order to kill with impunity. In his discussion of the events of September 11, he analyzes the re-emergence of terrorism in its new and ruthless form, and wonders if the 21st century can avoid recreating the nightmares of the 20th. Narrated by Academy Award winner William Hurt.