Request for Report on the Feasibility of Renaming Clanton Park to Elie Wiesel Park - by Councillor James Pasternak, seconded by Councillor Mike Colle

There, Elie Wiesel endured the horrors of Nazism and saw his parents and younger sister perish at the concentration camps. The scaring experiences led Elie Wiesel to write the million copy selling book La Nuit (Night). Translated into 30 different languages, the book became a powerful narrative of the horrors committed by the Nazis in Europe against the Jewish community. Elie Wiesel's subsequent efforts to defend and voice the oppressed around the world, earned him becoming the Chair of the United States President's Commission on the Holocaust, and later Founding Chair of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. His work earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Medal of Liberty Award, the United States Congressional Gold Metal, the rank of Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor and Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Along with his wife, Elie Wiesel established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity building the base for a new platform for the discussion of ethical issues affecting humanity as a whole. Elie Weisel was a Judaic Studies and Humanities professor and his more than 40 publications were the reason for numerous awards, including the Grand Prize for Literature from the City of Paris and the Prix Medicis. An award on his name, The Elie Wiesel Award recognizes internationally prominent individuals whose actions have advanced the Museum's vision of a world where people confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Previously known as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Award and renamed for inaugural recipient Elie Wiesel, it is the Museum's highest honor. The numerous Jewish schools and Synagogues in the prominently Jewish Clanton Park community frequently educate future youth about the importance of Elie Wiesel's work. The community would then be honored to have such an important park renamed after a human rights champion like Elie Wiesel.