13 February 2007
The man accused of attempting to kidnap Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Shoah survivor Elie Wiesel in a San Francisco hotel earlier this month has boasted about his efforts on an anti-Semitic website. Wiesel, 78, who has written extensively about how he survived the Auschwitz and Buchenwald death camps, told police he was accosted by an individual in the hotel lift during a peace forum meeting two weeks ago. The stranger claimed he wanted to interview Wiesel, who suggested the lobby of the hotel, but the man demanded that Wiesel come with him to his hotel room and confess on camera that "Night", Wiesel's Holocaust memoir, was a work of fiction. When the attacker tried to drag Wiesel from the lift on the sixth floor, Wiesel shouted and the assailant fled. Wiesel then went to the hotel lobby and reported the attack to police.
The Israeli newspaper "Ha'aretz" reports that the attacker later posted a description of his encounter with Wiesel on "Ziopedia", a virulently anti-Semitic website registered. Claiming to be an individual named Eric Hunt, the alleged attacker states on the website: "I had been trailing Wiesel for weeks and had hoped to bring Wiesel into my custody, with a cornered Wiesel finally forced to state the truth on videotape." The website has since been closed down. San Francisco police said that they believe to have identified the attacker, but did not name him.
In an interview published on Monday, Elie Wiesel said that the attack on him showed that Holocaust deniers were increasing in numbers worldwide and getting bolder by the day. "Until today they used words; now they have switched to violence," he told the Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera". Wiesel has been a campaigner for human rights in many parts of the world and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
