Hidden in the back pages of the Los Angeles Times Saturday was the news that Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel was attacked in an elevator by a “possible Holocaust denier” while at a peace conference in San Francisco. In both the L.A. Times and The New York Times, his attack only merited a news article about the size of a deck of cards.
One would think that the attacking of one of the world’s most important and outspoken proponents of peace would elicit more alarm from two of the nation’s leading sources of news, but no.
Not only is the man 78 years old, but he has survived the most tragic event of the 20th century and went on to share with the world his experiences in his book “Night” and began The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity to “fight indifference, intolerance and injustice,” according to the foundation’s Web site.
The attacker walked up to Wiesel as he was getting into an elevator, leaving the peace conference. The man claimed he wanted an interview and then tried to drag Wiesel from the elevator and restrain him, according to the blip in The New York Times. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the attacker was insistent on going to Wiesel’s hotel room for the supposed interview.
The fact that someone who is speculated to be a Holocaust denier attacked a man that encourages peace is no surprise; there are some cruel and insane people in our world. But what is truly shocking is that this was not front-page news.
Wiesel has been media fodder, speaking about his experiences while in Auschwitz, even walking with megastar Oprah Winfrey around the remaining grounds of the interment camp. But when he’s attacked, the media is nowhere to be seen.
As tension with Iran escalates and the war in Iraq is exhausting people in the United States, both financially and emotionally, one would hope that the peacemakers of the world would get more media recognition, especially when they are attacked presumably for their beliefs.
Wiesel has said that “sometimes we must interfere when human lives are endangered. When human dignity is in jeopardy…whenever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.”
Clearly the media doesn’t recognize this mantra.
Lauren Williams is a junior journalism and political science major and the opinion editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.
