Wiesel Returns To S.F. For 1st Time Since Attack
(CBS 5 / AP) SAN FRANCISCO Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel returned to San Francisco under heightened security Wednesday to accept the Koret Prize for lifetime achievement. It was his first visit here since being attacked by a Holocaust denier at a city hotel in February.
Guarded by police and private security, Wiesel told a group of reporters at a downtown location that though he has traveled to dangerous places all over the world since the end of World War II, the assault allegedly committed by a Holocaust denier was the first time he felt fear.
"I confess to you I was traumatized," said Wiesel, 78.
Eric Hunt, 22, of Sussex County, N.J., was arrested at a New Jersey behavioral health clinic in February after allegedly dragging Wiesel from an elevator at the Argent Hotel, where Wiesel was speaking at a San Francisco peace forum.
According to Wiesel, Hunt grabbed him, told him he was being taken "into his custody" and demanded he admit "the Holocaust is a lie."
Wiesel began yelling, and the suspect ran away, police said.
Hunt faces kidnapping, false imprisonment, battery, elder abuse, stalking and hate crime charges in San Francisco. Wiesel is eager to testify in the case against Hunt.
"When he ran away they found the car with his ID and they showed me the picture," Wiesel said. "Of course it's him, there's no doubt."
Hunt's New Jersey lawyer said his client was not an anti-Semite but a "very, very disturbed young man" suffering from bipolar disorder.
"The person who attacked Mr. Wiesel there's no denying the horror and criminality of that," Hackensack defense attorney James Addis said. "But if in fact it turns out to have been Eric Hunt, I think that you'll find the origins of that behavior in psychological disease."
Hunt remained Wednesday in the Somerset County Jail in Somerville, New Jersey. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Hunt was in the process of being extradited and could appear in San Francisco later this week.
"Of all of the kinds of crimes that we prosecute, both elder abuse and hate crimes are two of the most serious," Harris said.
Wiesel was in San Francisco Wednesday to receive an award and $250,000 prize from the Koret Foundation for "a lifetime devoted to perpetuating Jewish life."
The location of Wiesel's appearance was kept secret until reporters called to confirm their attendance, and their credentials were double-checked when they arrived.
Though Wiesel has faced harassment from Holocaust deniers for years, including at his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, he said, the violence of the recent attack was a "new element to the equation."
"I call them not mentally ill but morally ill people," Wiesel said.
Wiesel said he believed anti-Semitism was on the rise worldwide and singled out Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for criticism, calling him the "number-one Holocaust denier in the world."
Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust a "myth" and said Israel should be "wiped off the map," hosted a December conference in Tehran where delegates cast doubt on the genocide.
"I have learned in my life to trust the threats of the enemy," Wiesel said, "But he (Ahmadinejad) is the enemy not only of the Jewish people, not only of Israel, I believe he is the enemy of the whole world."
Wiesel also encouraged President Bush to recruit some help to win the war in Iraq, by reminding Europe about past world wars.
"I think [he] should go to Europe, to America's traditional allies and simply tell them gently, delicately, respectfully" 'You owe us. In the 20th century we have come to your help, to your aid, to save you twice."
Wiesel, whose mother, sister and father all perished in Nazi concentration camps, survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald and has authored more than 40 books, including the best-selling memoir "Night."
Source: CBS 5
