Part Two: Can the books
Night and And the World
Remained Silent have been
written by the same author?
What one critic reveals.
We know a lot about the man
who calls himself Elie
Wiesel from his own mouth
and pen, but we know of the
Lazar Wiesel born on Sept.
4, 1913 only through Miklos
Grüner’s testimony, and
of the author of Un di Velt
Hot Gesvign (And the World
Remained Silent) through the
work itself. So let’s
consider what we know of
these two men before we look
at their books.
The city of Sighet can be
seen in the purple-colored
Maramures district on this
map of Greater Romania in
the 1930′s.
Who is Elie Wiesel?
Elie Wiesel says in Night
that he grew up in a
“little town in
Translyvania,” and his
father was a well-known,
respected figure within the
Hasidic Orthodox Jewish
community. However, Sanford
Sternlicht tells us that
Maramurossziget, Romania had
a population of ninety
thousand people, of whom
over one-third were
Jewish.15 Some say it was
almost half. Sternlicht also
writes that in April 1944,
fifteen thousand Jews from
Sighet and eighteen thousand
more from outlying villages
were deported. How many with
the name of Wiesel might
have been among that large
group? I counted 19 Eliezer
or Lazar Wiesel’s or
Visel’s from the Maramures
District of Romania listed
as Shoah Victims on the Yad
Vashem Central Database.
Just think—according to
their friends and relatives,
nineteen men of the same
name from this district
perished in the camps in
that one year. It causes one
to wonder how many Lazar and
Eliezer Wiesels didn’t
perish, but became survivors
and went on to write books,
perhaps.
Lazare, Lazar, and Eliezer
are the same name. Another
variation is Leizer (prounounced
Loizer). A pet version of
the name is Liczu; a
shortened version is Elie.16
In spite of having a popular,
oft-used name, Elie Wiesel
describes a unique picture
of his life. The common
language of the Orthodox
Hasidic Jews of Sighet was
Yiddish. Wiesel has said he
thinks in Yiddish, but
speaks and writes in
French.17
In his memoir, he admits
that he was a difficult,
complaining child—a weak
child who didn’t eat
enough and liked to stay in
bed.18 He comes across as
definitely spoiled, the only
son among three daughters.
According to Gary Henry, as
well as other of Wiesel’s
biographers and Wiesel
himself, young Elie Wiesel
was exceptionally fervent
about the Hasidic way of
life. He studied Torah,
Talmud and Kabbalah; prayed
and fasted and longed to
penetrate the secrets of
Jewish mysticism to such an
extreme that he had
“little time for the usual
joys of childhood and became
chronically weak and sickly
from his habitual fasting.”19
His parents had to insist he
combine secular studies with
his Talmudic and Kabbalistic
devotion. Wiesel says in
Night that he ran to the
synagogue every evening to
pray and “weep” and met
with a local Kabbalist
teacher daily (Moishe the
Beadle), in spite of his
father’s disapproved on
the grounds Elie was too
young for such knowledge.
