Elie Wiesel accosted at peace conference

[nonesuche]

This is unbelievable this could happen in this day and age?????

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/09/wiesel.accosted.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Elie Wiesel accosted at peace conference
POSTED: 11:17 p.m. EST, February 9, 2007
 
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Nobel laureate and Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel was dragged from an elevator and roughed up during a peace conference at a San Francisco hotel last week, police said Friday. The author was not injured.

The assailant approached Wiesel in an elevator February 1 at the Argent Hotel and requested an interview, police Sgt. Neville Gittens said.

When Wiesel consented to talk in the hotel's lobby, the man insisted it be done in a hotel room and dragged the 78-year-old off the elevator on the sixth floor, Gittens said.

The assailant fled after Wiesel began to scream, and Wiesel went to the lobby and called police.

Gittens said police are investigating the incident as a crime. He said investigators were aware of a posting at an anti-Semitic Web site in which a man claimed responsibility for the attack, but declined to comment further.

Wiesel couldn't be immediately reached for comment at Boston University, where he teaches, or through his institute in New York.

Wiesel, who survived the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald during World War II, has worked for human rights in many parts of the world and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

[Sam]

You are so right None. Why are there so many cruel people in this world?

This man had already endured more pain and heartache than most of do in our lifetime as a survivor of his concentration days. Then to have someone trying to cause him more.

[A's Fever]

My local newspaper reported today that the attacker had been trailing Weisel for weeks and wanted to get "a cornered Wiesel" to come to his room and renounce the Holocaust on video.  Incredible.  I can't pick up the article in the online edition of the newspaper so I have no link for the complete article.

[IBE]

Darn... am glad he screamed and the man fled.

[nonesuche]

Who and why in this day and age would think that they could revise or even eliminate the history of the holocaust? That is what boggles my mind, plus the thought of how elderly and frail Mr Wiesel now is but that some monster would think they could beat him in an elevator to obtain that statement?

Obviously this person is quite insane and now running loose, but it just reminds me of the utter madness of the KKK extremists who seem to be having a resurgence of late as well.

I find this all very distressing.

[A's Fever]

I don't understand it either.  There is so much documentation - survivor accounts, photos, military accounts and so much more - how could it be denied?  And WHY do so many wish to deny it??

I remember many years ago my first real job was working for a bank in San Francisco, and we had a couple of elderly Jewish clients who had the concentration camp numbers tattooed on their arms.  It was startling and upsetting then, and even now as I remember it.  Just can't get my mind around such evil, and for a group or groups to deny it, is utterly incomprehensible to me.

[Tibrogargan]

I am another one who does not understand how so many can deny the Holocaust.  I too have seen folk with the tattooed numbers on their arms and it really makes you feel very upset.  They always seem to be the most gentle and accepting folk too, with so much compassion for others.  Perhaps it is because of the suffering they have seen.  I also knew an English man who had been a soldier during the war and he was one of the many that had to bring out the survivors from the camps when peace was finally declared.  He used to cry openly about his memories even though he was well into his 70s by then.
We need to keep being reminded how very cruel and evil some humans can become to make sure that it never happens again.

[mrs. red]

I should probably not say it, or put it in the political thread... but it troubles me that these groups and all of the anti-Holocaust groups seem to be emerging stronger than ever with the Anti-American sentiments and the terrorists that are wrecking havoc....

I am not putting this into words very well... hope some gets what I am babbling about...  

[Cat]

The holocaust was real.My father helped liberate some camps.He didn't talk it,except when someone denied that it happened,or when a German,said he was only doing his duty.I have a friend of my little monkey,whose grandfather lives with and he has the tatto and he was a Pole.CAT

[pdh3]

I have mentioned on this forum before that the mother of one of my best childhood friends was a survivor of Auschwitz. She had the tatoo on her arm just above her wrist. She lost her entire family in the Holocaust, except for an uncle, and it took her 20 years to find him in South America. She was also originally from Poland. I get so angry when I hear about Holocaust deniers, because I saw this woman's suffering first hand. I saw her crying, and she always had an air of sadness about her. She was about 13 when she was sent to the camp, so she was very traaumatized by what she lived through. I have never forgotten this sweet woman, nor how happy she was when she found her uncle. I didn't understand it all when I was a kid, but I do now. It did happen. And six million Jews died as a result.
Shame on anyone who would harm an elderly man, let alone one as distingushed as Elie Wiesel. I hope he is caught, and I hope Mr. Wiesel has security with him from here on out.
I am just sickened by what someone tried to make Mr. Wiesel do, because you know he would never have made that videotape denying the Holocaust. I think he would have died first.

[A's Fever]

Yes, I had that same thought, pdh3, he would have died before renouncing the Holocaust.  He has spent his entire adult life dedicated to preserving the memory of those who perished and educating the world about the Holocaust.  One needs only to read Night to understand his great sorrow and passion.  

As far as Holocaust deniers, the only thing I can come up with is that belief is a matter of choice.  We can choose to believe what we want to believe.  We see that often with bigotry, for example, or possibly certain religious beliefs.  So I think maybe it grows out of sheer hatred of Jews, which of course has been going on for centuries, in various forms.  Denying the Holocaust is another way to cause them pain, to invalidate an experience that is central to the consciousness of Jews today.  Of course I am no psychologist, and this is JMO.

[nonesuche]

A's fever, my daughter actually alerted me to this incident, she had recently gifted a younger male cousin with his book Night. My children do give me hope, both don't acknowledge prejudice but as Mrs Red pointed out, will those be enough to combat a resurgence of prejudice?

pdh3 - Distinguished is the perfect word, he has represented those who died in the holocaust with grace and dignity, what a legacy not even a criminal brute can rob from him.

[Peaches]

I read "Night" recently.  It is a fabulous book.  I caught Mr. Weisel on Oprah too.  Fascinating man.

[pdh3]

I have not read Night yet, but it's on my list. I also saw Elie Wiesel on Oprah, and the tour of the camp was haunting. I can still see that pair of red shoes that belonged to a small child. And I always think of my friend's mother and her younger siblings who did not survive when I see things like that.
For those of you who have never seen Schindler's List, I can highly recommend it. Oscar Schindler was a very brave man to take the risks that he took to save those people.
Mila 18 is an older book about the Warsaw Uprising. It's in the form of a novel, but the facts of the uprising are true.

[A's Fever]

Wiesel: "I Feared for My Life"; Attack Suspect Located

http://www.ktvu.com/news/10992916/detail.html

[nonesuche]

thank you for that link A's, I read his words and I am even more discouraged

[A's Fever]

thank you for that link A's, I read his words and I am even more discouraged

Yes, I know what you mean.  You're welcome!

[A's Fever]

Warrant Issued For Suspected Elie Wiesel Attacker
22-year-old NJ Man


http://www.ktvu.com/news/11038325/detail.html