Read the passage carefully, and do the tasks that follow.
Elie Wiesel - A Messenger to Mankind
Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in Transylvania, which is now part of Romania. When he was fifteen years old, he and his family were forced by the Nazis to come to Auschwitz. Only he and his two older sisters survived.
After the Second World War, Elie Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist. During an interview with the famous French writer, Francois Mauriac, he was persuaded to write about his experiences in the death camps. The result was his book, Night, which has been translated into more than thirty languages. As a devoted supporter of human rights, Elie Wiesel has defended the cause of Soviet Jews, Nicaragua’s Miskito Indians, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of famine and genocide in Africa, of apartheid in South Africa, and victims of war in the South Africa, and victims of war in the former Yugoslavia. He is President of The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, an organization he and his wife created to fight indifference, intolerance and injustice.
Teaching has always been central to Elie Wiesel’s work. He has been teaching at many famous universities all over the world. He is the author of more than sixty books of fiction and non-fiction, including “A Beggar in Jerusalem”, “The Fifth Son”, “All Rivers Run to the Sea”, “And the Sea is Never Full”, etc.
For his literary and human rights activities, he has received numerous awards and in 1986 he won the Nobel Prize for Peace.
1: Find the words or expressions in the text which have the following meanings.
1. concentration camps in which a large number of people are __________________
systematically put to death
2. the killing of a whole group of people
3. lack of interest in someone or something
4. refusal to accept ideas, behaviour... that are different from
your own
5. the situation being unfair
2: Read the passage, and answer the questions below.
6. Why did Elie Wiesel become a writer although his first job was a journalist?
7. What did he do to support human rights?
8. What is the aim of “The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity”
9. What is the core of his work?
10. When did he win the Nobel Prize for Peace?
