After surviving years in concentration camps, death marches, near starvation, forced labor and the murder of family members and friends, you would think that Elie Wiesel would finally be able to find the peace and healing he deserves -- but you would be wrong.
Last week the Holocaust survivor, who routinely travels and speaks on the subject, was allegedly attacked in a San Francisco hotel by Eric Hunt, a 22-year-old man posing as a reporter. The man assaulted Wiesel in an elevator and then attempted to drag him to his hotel room, where he hoped to force Wiesel into admitting that his factual memoir, Night, was really made up. Hunt was arrested after bragging about the attack on an anti-Semetic Web site.
Although investigators believe that the man who attacked Wiesel acted alone, I still wonder whether his skewed beliefs are representative of a larger trend.
Last December, Holocaust deniers from across the world held their annual conference in Tehran, Iran, with the support of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They declared the Holocaust was "just a tale." They said gas chambers never really existed.
Holocaust survivors have suffered in a way that few, if any, others have experienced, with their suffering lasting well beyond their imprisonment in camps. Deniers have added further insult to already unspeakable injuries. Survivors have had to bear being called liars while making the brave choice to publicly relive their personal nightmares.
For them, it has not been easy.
In fact, for 10 years, Elie Wiesel was silent. For 10 years following his liberation from Nazi concentration camps, Wiesel did not speak once about the horrors he witnessed, the death of his mother, sister and father, the loss of his faith or the humiliation and guilt that consumed his life. Who could blame him?
But when he finally spoke, it seemed like the world was listening. Night sold millions of copies in more than 30 languages, and he won the Congressional Gold Medal and the Nobel Peace Prize.
He wrote of babies burned alive before his 15-year-old eyes, and the world listened.
He told of a little boy being hanged, struggling for minutes before dying because the weight of his small body was too little to break his own neck. We were stunned.
He talked of the smell of burning bodies -- a smell so strong and so putrid he could not remove the taste from his mouth. We were horrified.
He wrote of watching his mother and sister being sent "to the right," a designation of "too weak to work" that meant they were destined for immediate death in the gas chambers. He spoke of contemplating suicide and planning to throw himself into the electric barbed wire fence. We're listening, Elie. We're listening.
The world might have listened to Wiesel, but in many ways, it has not learned its lesson. A lesson cannot be fully appreciated from an event some people still deny happened. A lesson cannot be taken from a subject that is often avoided because it is heart-breaking and uncomfortable, as well it should be. We cannot look away.
Winston Churchill once said, "A people who forgets its past is doomed to repeat it." Following the Holocaust, people across the world vowed that genocide would never be allowed to happen again. Since then, ethnic cleansing has occurred repeatedly -- in places like Kosovo, Iraq and Rwanda.
As the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles, it becomes the responsibility of our generation to keep alive their memory. It will be our turn to promise that such genocide will never happen on our watch. I hope we are more successful than the generations that have preceded us.
"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night," Wiesel said.
As long as the Holocaust is denied and anti-Semitism survives, the night continues.
"Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames, which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments, which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust."
"Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never," Wiesel said.
Neither should we.
