SAN JOSE, Calif. (MCT) — Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace-prize-winning Holocaust survivor and scholar, was grabbed and pulled out of a San Francisco hotel elevator last week — and now police and Jewish groups are mounting a intensive search for his attacker.
A blogger boasted about the Feb. 1 incident on an anti-Zionist Web site based in Australia on Wednesday, prompting the first media reports. The blogger claimed he had been trailing Wiesel for weeks and wrote he intended to get "a cornered Wiesel" to come to his room and renounce the Holocaust on video. The posting also suggests the attacker was seeking publicity from the attack on the 78-year-old Wiesel.
Wiesel, a respected human rights activist, strong supporter of Israel and author of more than 40 fiction and non-fiction books, was in San Francisco to speak at a forum on conflict resolution. Of his books, he is best known for "Night," a memoir of his experience in Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
On Friday, San Francisco police described Wiesel's attacker as a white man in his 20s. A spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League, which is working to identify the attacker, said police believe the man is from the East Coast, not the Bay Area.
Wiesel was unharmed, and police were called shortly after the 6:30 p.m. altercation. Wiesel told police he was in an elevator, heading back to his room at the Argent Hotel, when a young man asked Wiesel if he could interview him about the Holocaust. Wiesel said yes, but suggested they go to the lobby. The attacker insisted that Wiesel go with him to his room and then grabbed Wiesel, pulling him out of the elevator and dragging him into the hall.
"Mr. Wiesel started screaming and was able to run away," San Francisco police spokesman Sgt. Neville Gittens said. Wiesel went to the lobby, and police were called.