Elie Wiesel’s Only Son Steps Up to His Father’s Legacy
Mr. Wiesel said that I wanted a normal American childhood,
"We must all pick up the torch." Mr. Wiesel made his first step onto the public stage in November, speaking
at a memorial for his father at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Wiesel said that I realize that my father’s death was a loss not just for me and my family, but for a lot of people,
"And now, with his father’s death, he is the inheritor of his father’s legacy." The organizers of the march saw it as
a generational moment, to have the son of Elie Wiesel light a torch and, in a sense, take the torch from his father.
Throughout his young life, Mr. Wiesel’s father made only one demand — that he marry in the Jewish faith, which he did.
"When I was young, I’d think ‘Oh God, here comes another guy telling me how great my father was.’ Now, I’m trying to be more like my father was." Mr. Wiesel was led through the throngs at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial
and Museum, passing beneath the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes You Free) entrance gate to his marked spot at the front of the crowd.
