On this day in 2016, Elie Wiesel passed away. After surviving the Holocaust, he spent the rest of his life writing books about his experience and advocating for human rights for everyone. Elie Wiesel wrote 57 books, the most famous being Night (1956). Another of his books, The Jews of Silence, was written in 1967 to draw attention to the hardships that Jews in Soviet Russia underwent daily; the book details how they were not allowed to practice their religion, as many didn’t even possess basic Jewish knowledge or a connection with the Jewish population. This book helped further along the eventual migration of thousands of Russian Jews to Israel.Wiesel struggled with his belief in God after the Holocaust and some of his books draw on that theme, such as Souls on Fire: Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters, published in 1972. Although Wiesel was unsure of his faith in God, he felt connected to Hasidism since his grandfather was part of the community. Souls on Fire tells stories of Hasidic rabbis’, with the underlying debate throughout as to whether or not man can speak for God. Wiesel felt as though he was saved for a reason and had to live up to it. He once said: “I must do something with my life. It is too serious to play games with anymore because in my place, someone else could have been saved. And so I speak for that person. On the other hand, I know I cannot.” He spent his life advocating for others and writing about the horrors he endured, to ensure that what he went through was not forgotten and that no one else would have the same fate.