'He Was A Man Capable Of Enormous Happiness': Remembering Holocaust Survivor And Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel

Upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, writer, humanitarian and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said, "I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices."

Wiesel — who spent nearly four decades as a professor at Boston University — died over the weekend at the age of 87.

Rabbi Joseph Polak was a close friend of Elie Wiesel. Polak is rabbi emeritus of the Hillel House at Boston University. When Polak was an infant, he and his family were taken by the Nazis to the concentration camp Westerbork in the Netherlands and then to Bergen-Belsen in Germany.

Rabbi Polak joined Morning Edition to remember the legacy and impact of Wiesel.