Preparing To Follow Elie Wiesel's Footsteps
Posted: February 5th, 2010 Greg Lacour
The Echo Foundation, a humanitarian and educational organization in Charlotte, exists because of Elie Wiesel.
It was founded on Wiesel’s suggestion after the internationally renowned professor, activist and Holocaust survivor visited Charlotte in 1997. Since then, The Echo Foundation has hosted prominent humanitarians and developed educational programs for students.
This year, the foundation is preparing for the release of perhaps its most ambitious project: “In the Footsteps of Elie Wiesel,” a 56-minute documentary that follows a group of 12 Charlotte high school students who traveled to Europe during the summer of 2007 to learn about Wiesel’s life. Over 12 days, they traced Wiesel's journey from his birthplace in Romania to the concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland to Versailles, where he was given refuge after World War II, to Berlin, where new generations of Germans are trying to atone for the sins of their forebears.






