It has been reported that Nobel Peace laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel survived a kidnapping attempt in a US hotel last week.
Nobel Peace laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel told Haaretz on Thursday he escaped a kidnap attempt in a San Francisco hotel last week.
Wiesel, 78, whose novels deal with his experience as a Holocaust survivor, said he was grabbed by a stranger in an elevator at the hotel he was staying at for a peace conference and ordered to follow at the risk of violence.
In response, Wiesel called for help and the man fled.
Police asked Wiesel to keep the event under wraps until progress was made in the investigation.
According to San Francisco Police Sgt. Neville Gittens, a man approached Wiesel in an elevator and requested an interview with the author on the evening of February 1 at the Argent Hotel.
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. Wiesel could not be immediately reached for comment at Boston University, where he teaches, or through his institute in New York.
A driver’s license in the name of Harry Hunt, a member of a Holocaust denial group, was found in a car parked near the hotel. Hunt has not been located since the event.
A posting on a virulent anti-Semitic Web site Tuesday by a person identifying himself as Eric Hunt claimed responsibility.
“I had planned to bring Wiesel to my hotel room, where he would truthfully answer my questions regarding the fact that his non-fiction Holocaust memoir, ‘Night,’ is almost entirely fictitious,” Hunt wrote on the site. The poster also said “I had been trailing Wiesel for weeks and had hoped to get Wiesel into my custody, with a cornered Wiesel finally forced to state the truth on videotape.”
I cannot even begin to imagine what must have been going through Elie’s mind during the incident. I am just glad he was not hurt.
Update: Despite the fact that both Mr Wiesel’s and the perpetrator’s accounts clearly indicate this was a kidnapping attempt, the Associated Press have their own take.
Elie Wiesel accosted at S.F. hotel
A man who approached Nobel Peace laureate and Holocaust scholar Eli Wiesel seeking an interview at a San Francisco hotel last week later roughed him up, 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 peace forum at the Argent Hotel Feb. 1 and requested an interview.
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 Sgt. Neville Gittens said.
While the AP do mention the incident, you need to get past the laughable headline and first paragraph. And the “k” word is not mentioned even once.
