Elie Wiesel roughed up at peace conference

[KristiB]

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.

[newtricks]

That's terrible.

I've enjoyed seeing him speak and he is the gentlest, soft spoken - yet incredibly powerful - man. Who would want to hurt him?

[Lauren]

I was upset to read this in the paper today.

[southjerseymom]

That is simply awful. I saw him on Oprah once and read his book, "Night", in college. A very powerful and emotional piece of literature. He is an admirable man. What's wrong with people?

[Grace]

And I know some people personally who don't believe anti-semitism exists here anymore (they told me they "just don't see it"). It's awful what happened to Mr. Wiesel. :mad:

[KristiB]

I bet it was one of those, "Holocaust Never Happened" people.

[Grace]

It wasn't, actually, but I do know a whole bunch of those too!!! I cannot tell you how totally SHOCKED I was to hear that for the first time from someone! And not much shocks me anymore, but these were not "nut job" people - they were supposed "historians"! I couldn't believe it. And they're part of the whole "Bush orchestrated 9/11" crowd too.

But the lady who doesn't see anti-semitism is an educated, intelligent attorney that I know.

[KristiB]

Eli Wiesel 'Nearly Kidnapped," Police Say
21:12 Feb 10, '07 / 22 Shevat 5767
It doesn't say whether they caught the guy...between Mel Gibson and that Iranian President the "deniers" have been getting some press attention. I think that's why the assumption is being made.

Eli Wiesel was roughed up and almost kidnapped last week by a man who pretended to be seeking an interview at a San Francisco hotel, police said.

Police are investigating the incident in which they say a man, who may have been a Holocaust denier, approached Wiesel in an elevator at a hotel where the nobel prize laureate was attending a conference.

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

Investigators said they were aware of a messages sent out by an anti-Semitic e-mail newsletter in which a man claimed responsibility for the attack, but declined to comment further.

[mbrogier]

I read a news report that reported what this freak intended to do to Wiesel. He said on a message board that he was going to hold Wiesel against his will and force him on video to recant the facts in 'Night' as a completely made up story. That sounds like torture to me.

I just can't believe that there are smart people that don't believe the holocaust happened. There is so much evidence, but if you don't want to believe something you won't. I think a lot of people forget that Jews weren't the only ones killed in the holocaust. It was anyone that disagreed with Hitler's regime. The danger in not believing in the holocaust is that it could happen again.

[newtricks]

It wasn't, actually, but I do know a whole bunch of those too!!! I cannot tell you how totally SHOCKED I was to hear that for the first time from someone! And not much shocks me anymore, but these were not "nut job" people - they were supposed "historians"! I couldn't believe it. And they're part of the whole "Bush orchestrated 9/11" crowd too.

But the lady who doesn't see anti-semitism is an educated, intelligent attorney that I know.

Not to go off on a tangent but I find the 9/11 conspiracy crowd quite scary. Precisely because they're touting anti-semitism and some of them don't even know it. My nephew, who is 20 ,*extremely* liberal (and Quaker!) believes that there's a "shadow government" and a "group of people who run the world". And we look at him and say "well, yeah, those are precisely the views held by the John Birch Society. Try Googling THAT my friend." He doesn't even know he's repeating anti-semitic crap.