When Elie Wiesel emerged from quintuple heart bypass surgery, still wired to monitors, he immediately started writing a book about the ordeal – “in my head.” In French.
A year later, as he recuperates from post-procedure fatigue and depression, “Open Heart” is being published, in English. And the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust activist is busy in the Manhattan office of his foundation, which also is recovering – from financial ruin by Bernard Madoff, who had invested the money funding its humanitarian efforts.
Madoff’s Ponzi scheme also wiped out Wiesel’s family investments.
About one-third of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity’s $15 million assets have been replaced through new contributions, according to tax documents obtained by The Associated Press.
“Children sent us their pocket money, people we never heard of, Jews, non-Jews, young, old,” Wiesel says. “I was so touched by that.”
After the heart surgery last summer at Manhattan’s Lenox Hill Hospital – sudden and unexpected – Wiesel says his doctor asked him to cut back on teaching at Boston University. He’ll still deliver lectures there this fall, and may add courses later.
“I love teaching, it’s my passion,” he says. He also was to speak at New York’s 92nd Street Y in October on two topics: “Judaism and Peace” and “Ezekiel and his Frightening Visions.”
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