Elie Wiesel Knows Soviet “Liberators” Destroyed the Birkenau Crematoriums

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

By Carolyn Yeager
copyright 2012 carolyn yeager

The official Holocaust narrative versus Elie Wiesel on what is Auschwitz Liberation Day

The official Holocaust narrative has it that the Red Army did not arrive at the Auschwitz labor camps until January 27th, 1945—where they found some of the barracks burning, and also blown-up crematorium buildings which had housed “gas chambers.” This is the date that is commemorated all over the world as the Liberation of Auschwitz.

However, on page 87 of the novel Night it is stated that the Russians “liberated” the inmates who were left behind at Monowitz (Auschwitz III) on January 20th, two days after the bulk of the prisoners left on the one-day forced march to Gleiwitz, from where they were put on a train to Buchenwald.

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The photograph at right is a still photo from a Soviet propaganda film about the Auschwitz liberation.  The clothing warehouses, known as “Canada,” are burning. But who set them on fire?   [Author’s note: In January 2014, I wrote in an article published here:  The photograph at right, a still from a Soviet propaganda film about the Auschwitz “liberation,” had been thought to be of the clothing warehouses burning. But new research suggests it is more likely regular barracks, probably in Compound B1. If this is true, it makes little difference when the picture was taken, as it was certainly after the Russians arrived.]

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I included this detail in Night #1 and Night #2, Part Two under the heading “A record of fact it isn’t.” For the first time I’ve seen anywhere, I pointed out this sentence from Elie Wiesel’s book Night:

 A strange detail … is on page 87 of the original Night. Eliezer remarks, after his and his Father’s deliberations and final decision to go on the march: “I learned after the war the fate of those who had stayed behind in the hospital. They were quite simply liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation.” The evacuation, as we all know, was on the 18th. We also know the Russians did not arrive on the 20th of January! The actual liberation day is January 27. What possessed Wiesel to write this? Well, because it was in Un di velt: “Two days after we had left Buna, the Red Army occupied the camp. All the sick had stayed alive.”

It’s important to keep in mind that the Jan. 20th liberation originally appeared in Un di velt hot geshvign, the Yiddish book published in 1955 from which La Nuit was born in 1958 (with the English version Night following in 1960). Whether or not Elie Wiesel is the author of the Yiddish book, there is no doubt that he wrote La Nuit directly from it. So he either wrote that sentence in Un di velt or he copied it from Un di velt for La Nuit. In any event, he has never rejected that sentence as a mistake, nor was it changed in Marion Wiesel’s 2006 translation … perhaps because it appears in the Yiddish Un di velt.

What is the official narrative and what is its source?

There is no easily determined source for the narrative. It consists of the story that the Germans returned to Birkenau on Jan. 20th to blow up Crematorium II and III in order to destroy the evidence of the “gas chambers.”

According to web-based Holocaust Research Project:

On 20 January 1945 an SS division under SS–Corporal Perschel destroys Crematorium II and III and abandons the camp. On 26 January an SS squad blows up Crematorium V, the last of the crematoriums in Birkenau.

An entire division was required to explode two measly crematorium buildings?! I guess what they’re trying to say is that an SS team returned to Birkenau, after the bulk of the prisoners had been evacuated and before the Russians first arrived, to destroy the “evidence.” In other words, they didn’t plan well enough to do it ahead of time so had to sneak back after they had already abandoned the camp. But wouldn’t the ex-prisoners who remained in the hospital buildings that were very close to Crema II and III have heard and seen the explosions? Yes, of course they would, although we don’t have any statements of hospital patients about a demolition in the camp on January 20th.

On Nizkor we find this timetable (source unknown):

“January 20 [1945] … The SS division under Corporal Perschel blows up the already partly demolished Crematoriums II and III and abandons the camp.”

“January 23 [1945] … An SS division arrives in the prisoner’s infirmary camp in B-IIf in the afternoon…they set 30 storeroom barracks [the “warehouses”-cy] in the personal effects camp on fire…. These barracks burn for several days. After the liberation, 1,185,345 pieces of women’s and men’s outerwear, 43,255 pairs of shoes, 13,694 carpets, and a large number of toothbrushes, shaving brushes, and other items such as protheses, glasses, etc., among other things are found in the six remaining partially burned barracks.” [Note: The warehouse barracks were right behind the hospital barracks, where most of the remaining prisoners were staying.]

“January 26 [1945] … At 1:00 A.M. the SS squad with the task of eliminating the traces of SS crimes blows up Crematorium V, the last of the crematoriums in Birkenau.”

“January 27 [1945] …The first Red Army reconnaissance troops arrive in Birkenau and Auschwitz at around 3:00 P.M. and are joyfully greeted by the liberated prisoners….

[Note: If the clothing warehouses were set on fire on Jan. 23, would they still be burning on Jan. 28, 29, 30… however long it took the Soviet movie makers to get there?-cy]

Above: Underneath the roof of the dynamited Crema II in 2005.  Below: Ruins of Crema III taken at the same time (Photos courtesy of Scrapbookpages.com)

In Danuta Czech’s Calendarium [Auschwitz Chronicle 1939-1945, Henry Holt, 1990, 855 pp], probably the source of the above, Czech has the final destruction of Cremas II and III taking place on January 20, 1945. Her basis for that are two “eyewitnesses”—female prisoners Anna Kowalczyk and Maria Matlak—who had remained behind and who said that they “saw” the SS in the camp on that day, and from them came the name of SS-Unterscharführer Perschel, who had been “capo of the Work Service in the women’s camp”, so they knew him. These two women said that after ordering 200 women outside the camp gates to be shot (!), Perschel selects a group of male prisoners from the infirmary (!) to carry boxes of dynamite to Cremas II and III. This is the entire basis for Czech’s claim that the SS returned on Jan. 20th and blew up the Cremas! This is what the Holocaust Industry passes off as proof.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum uses Czech’s timeline, but leaves out the Jan. 20-26 demolition dates.

USHMM’s Chronology of the Holocaust

JANUARY 17, 1945

As Soviet troops approached, SS units evacuated prisoners in the Auschwitz camp complex, marching them on foot toward the interior of the German Reich. The forced evacuations came to be called “death marches.”

JANUARY 27, 1945

Soviet troops liberated about 8,000 prisoners left behind at the Auschwitz camp complex.

I did not find anything on the Auschwitz-Birkenau website either. So one thing is clear: these dates about the SS divisions returning to blow up and burn down “evidence” are not sourced in documents. No order has been produced, and there would have to be an order. The SS troops couldn’t  just do whatever they decided on their own. The witness statements are of dubious value, to say the least. Thus, there is no reason to believe the “Germans-blew-up-the-Cremas-to-hide-evidence-of-crimes” story, except that it became part of the official narrative that was constructed at Nuremberg. It is held .. it is believed … it is thought … but it is not proved.

What does a January 20th liberation mean?

A January 20th liberation by the Soviets means the Germans could not have returned to blow up the crematorium buildings, nor could they have burned down the clothing warehouses. It means that only the Soviets could have done it—because only the Soviets had the opportunity to do it.

Would they do such a thing if they really held “evidence of German crimes” in their hands … in the form of real gas chambers? Certainly not. It was because there was no evidence of German crimes in those buildings. It was to cover up the lack of German crimes that they would destroy the buildings. They reasoned (in their sly, dishonest minds) that the best course would be to invent German crimes, which they had already been doing since 1941 (and the Polish Resistance had been spreading gassing rumors since 1942), and to simply add the destruction of the buildings by the SS to their list of “German crimes.”

I came across an exchange between two revisionists that took place in 2005. It went like this:

 1st revisionist: For me, it seems more plausible that the Soviets (or some other party) destroyed the crematoriums after the war to support their alleged story of genocide. Then they were able to spread this story: “Why would the SS have destroyed the cremas, if not to cover for mass homicide.”

2nd revisionist: I agree with you totally. I also believe the Russians blew them up to destroy the solid evidence that would contradict the lies they were cooking up and about to release on the world.

From the time the Red Army arrived, Soviet Intelligence was in total control. None of the other Allies were allowed to enter this region. In 1947, the Soviets rebuilt the crematorium in Auschwitz I to make it appear that it was used as a gas chamber. Even so, it is not a convincing job. In Birkenau, it was easier to destroy the crematoriums and tamper with them (such as breaking holes into the collapsed roof to match the absurd story of Zyklon B thrown into the chamber through the holes in the roof.) About these chiseled-out holes, court-certified expert engineer Walter Luftl, as quoted by Germar Rudolf in his book Lectures on the Holocaust (Theses and Dissertations Press, 2005), p 246, said:

In the cellars of Crematories II and III, the entire force of explosion was forced upward, causing heavy damage to the roofs. The hole under consideration is characterized by the fact that all the cracks and breaks of the slab are found around it, but do not go through it! According to the rules of construction technology this fact alone proves with scientific certainty that it was made after the roof had been destroyed.

Photo documentation and literature of what the Russians found is scarce.

Why is it that the earliest photo that exists of the destroyed Crema II is this one from February 1945? Why is there no photograph from the time the Russians arrived in January, since such a picture would have much greater propaganda value? To properly document such an important discovery—that the Germans had blown up evidence of crimes as they retreated—many photographs would need to be taken. What happened? Did they run out of film?

As Tom Moran noted on the Nizkor page linked to above:  “It is written the Soviets installed an “Extraordinary Commission” the very day of liberation of the camp and yet no photos are presented on the Holocaust promotional circuit of these buildings, or what was left, lest of course the one and only photograph of Crema II which is nothing more than a collapsed slab of concrete.”

In Photographing the Holocaust: Interpretations of the Evidence (Tauris & Company, London, in association with The European Jewish Publication Society, 2004) on page 143, author Janina Struk writes:

On 28 January, 1945, the day after the camp was liberated by the Red Army, Adolf Forbert was one of the first Polish soldiers to arrive. He described his first impression of Auschwitz as being as “macabre” as Majdanek but on a larger scale.

Forbert stayed to film everything he could, but with only 300 meters of film, a camera of the Bell and Howell type manufactured by the Russians, and one Leica, the possibilities were limited.

He said there were 500 sick women in the women’s hospital in Birkenau. The fate of Forbert’s film and photographs of Auschwitz is not known.

The film “Chronicles of the Liberation of Auschwitz,”  made in 1945, is attributed to four Soviet army filmmakers. The majority of the now well-known stills of the liberation are taken from this film.

Soon after liberation, other photographers began to arrive to take photos for the special investigative commissions established to collect evidence of Nazi crimes.

(Barbie) Zelizer [author of books on the Holocaust and Media -cy] states there was an inconsistency in the way the Soviets reported the liberation of the camps in Eastern Europe generally. Not only did they not publicize the liberation of Auschwitz until after the liberation of the western camps, but they didn’t issue press releases about the extermination camps at Belzec, Sorbibor and Treblinka.

Although their [Red Army] advances through Silesia were reported in detail, there were only two brief mentions about the liberation of the camp. On 29 January in the Guardian, one sentence. On 3 February, the Daily Express had one column on page 4 about the liberation.

In Poland itself, few images were published of the liberation of Majdanek or Auschwitz-Birkenau.

It would be decades before images of Auschwitz would become familiar in the West.

There is almost nothing in Holocaust literature on the arrival of the Soviets to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The only documentation was put together afterward. All the photographs that are exhibited in the various memorial museums (USHMM, Yad Vashem, A-B Memorial & Museum, etc.) and in books, are “stills” from a propaganda film(s) made many weeks or months later … or they are retouched photos, photo-montages and mis-labeled photos that actually show other places and even other national-ethnic groups.

The narrative of a January 27th liberation comes unraveled when scrutinized

Why all the deception? Why all the trickery? The arrival of the Soviets on Jan. 20 instead of Jan. 27 explains it. The person who runs Scrapbookpages Blog and calls himself  “furtherglory” once wrote this to a commenter on his blog:

I have read in several books that the Soviets arrived in the area on January 17, 1945 and were in the area for 10 days before they “liberated” the prisoners on January 27, 1945. I have read at least one Holocaust survivor book which said that the warehouses were still there after the Germans left on January 18, 1945. I believe that the Soviets burned down the warehouses. With all the evidence gone, no one could dispute the Soviet testimony at the Nuremberg IMT that 4 million people had been killed at Auschwitz.

The Central Sauna building at Birkenau was kept off limits to tourists for 60 years. Why? The Sauna building was where the clothes were disinfected. Why weren’t tourists allowed to know that the Germans were trying to prevent typhus epidemics?

Also, keep in mind that the last group of Sonderkommandos were marched out of the Birkenau camp and I think a couple of them are still living. Why did the Germans allow these witnesses to live?

Cremas IV and V were also shower houses with hygiene facilities for disinfection. They were close to The Central Sauna and served the same purpose although on a  smaller scale. Consider that if the only shower facility in the entire camp was the rather modestly-sized one in The Sauna building, it would not have been at all adequate. But with “Cremas IV and V” also serving that function, they got by. Crema IV was heavily damaged in an uprising on Oct. 7, 1944. Both were ultimately totally destroyed, but the question remains—by whom?

The answer has to be by the Russians themselves. And it is Elie Wiesel who has told us. Just as with his failure to mention “gas chambers” in his book Night, Wiesel falls out of step with the official storyline at times and lets the truth slip out. Was he just saying what most people knew at the time, in spite of what was dreamed up at Nuremberg? I think so. He wrote this in 1954. Not even Elie Wiesel should confuse 9 days with 2 days when it comes to a matter of life or death.  Which brings up another question:  Is it reasonable that the prisoners left behind in an unguarded facility would just hang around for nine days waiting for the feared “Red Army” to arrive? Would they not take off once they got the chance? Elie says he was one of the  hospital patients, his father being allowed to stay with him, yet they both were capable of going on the evacuation march and keeping up with the pace. Thus,  many others lying around in the hospital surely could do the same. That is, unless the Soviet representatives surprised them by showing up already on the 20th, before they could prepare themselves to leave.

The story of the Auschwitz liberation is as cloudy as it gets. It has been told in emotion-wrenching photographs that were all staged by Soviet photographers and film makers in the following month of February and even March–every one of them–and by revengeful witnesses who were coached in what to say. As portions of the book by Janina Struk point out, time would pass before a final solution of what happened at Auschwitz could be cobbled together for public consumption  by Soviet propagandists.

 

Little New in Wiesel’s Speech at Xavier; Robert Ransdell Gets Attention

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

By Carolyn Yeager

Reportedly “thousands of students” listened to Elie Wiesel on Sunday night, May 6, in the  Cintas Center in Cincinnati as he intoned his usual theme: “We haven’t done enough; we still haven’t learned from the Holocaust.” [Right photo shows one section of the Cintas auditorium interior, which is home to the Xavier basketball team.]

Who does he mean by “we”? Why, white western (European) man, of course. Not Jews. Nor any other non-whites. They are the ones dying “of famine or of disease or of violence.” As he said, “Every minute today, somewhere in this world a child dies” from one of these three causes, and he asked “How is that possible in a civilized society?”

Civilized? Is the world composed of civilized societies? Most of these deaths of children occur in areas of the world that are not civilized, but Wiesel expects western White societies to be and to feel responsible for what occurs there. This is just one of the dishonest manipulations of thought and speech he exhibits. If you examine his words in any speech you want to name, you discover the irrational element running through it. The guilt-tripping of Europeans. The identification of himself with the innocence of children. He places himself  on the child’s side, against what he would call selfish and indifferent White people.

He very quickly brought up Nazi Germany as the perfect example of this, and again his faux incomprehension about “why.” He said of Nazi Germany, “To this day, I don’t understand it. Why the children?” He is lying about the children because certainly the National Socialist regime did NOT go after children. Thousands of children were liberated from the camps, including himself (according to his story) and they were in good health. Pictures of the “boys of Buchenwald” shortly after “liberation,” for example, show sturdy, normal-looking boys. The internment policy did include whole families by necessity; sometimes they could remain together in family camps and sometimes they were separated by sex into sections for men and women.

Wiesel’s general pattern is to lament the state of the world, followed by “Will the world every learn?” or “The world hasn’t yet learned the lesson of The Holocaust.” This makes the Jews the teachers and the overwhelming majority of us who are not Jews the poor students who won’t learn. Wiesel always presents us with the entire world’s ills and expects a solution for the entire world … something that is not a possibility in any event. In this, he reveals his utter lack of intellectual integrity, common-sense reasoning, and good faith.

Wiesel extracts sympathy for himself; talks about crying

After describing his family victimology for the umpteenth time, he did say one thing new! In recounting his rescue from the concentration camp by the US Army, he recalled that  “We cried.  We discovered for the first time that we could cry.”

Again, who is “we”? Wiesel always said that he felt nothing after his father died; that he shed no tears at the liberation either. “Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provisions.” (Night, p115) It was later, at the orphanage in France, that he began to feel again, he said in his memoir. But now he’s added a new twist — he cries at liberation. Wiesel goes directly from these touching sentiments to denouncing those who deny the “existence of the Holocaust,” which is more of his dishonest manipulation of speech. Those he calls “deniers” only deny the official narrative of the Holocaust as the Jews insist on it; they do not deny “the existence” of what actually happened to Jews under National Socialism. Big difference, but this difference is denied by the holy holocausters and Wiesel followers. Only their version is acceptable and all must follow it or be called deniers.

Holocaust Denial should be a crime!

Wiesel again calls for the criminalization of “holocaust denial” in the United States. He thinks because this narrative has become sacred to Jews, it should be an exception to the guarantee of freedom of speech that Americans enjoy, and have enjoyed from America’s founding. Think about this. Think about this! This kind of “we come first” attitude is why National Socialist Germany wanted to remove their Jews from the country.

Elie Wiesel is very bold. We must be bold in return. He may feel that at his advanced age he should put it all out there, and, with his untouchable reputation and the protection of the mass media, go for broke. He defended Israel too, as he always does, especially in its formation (in which he played a part), and said he “hopes” for peace—easy to say. Wiesel poses himself as a defender of children, even while Israeli policies kill Palestinian children without a care. Everyone knows this, but at this large gathering, with most students sitting in the cheap seats in the upper balconies, there is no way to shout a question at him.

Robert Ransdell considers his action a success

Ransdell has informed Elie Wiesel Cons The World that he is writing up his May 6 experience to post on the internet under his name, but he sent a long email describing what took place. Unfortunately, he was alone and there was no one to take photographs of him.

Cintas Center showing parking lot

Upon arriving at the Cintas Center, he says he was already tailed by a motorcycle cop, who, however, did not accost him. After parking his car in the lot and walking a short distance toward the entrance, he was approached by two men in suits who identified themselves as campus police and told him he would not be admitted into the building. Hillel had done it’s job. They took his ticket and gave him a $20 bill to compensate for the cost. Ransdell was dressed in his custom t-shirt and hat which asked the question of Wiesel’s tattoo and stated the $1000 challenge.

Ransdell says he was prepared for this eventuality, so he left and parked across the street. He then stood on a street corner right in front of the main entrance to the Xavier campus where most of the people coming to the event would enter. It was still 45 minutes before 7 pm. He had brought with him a sign which was easily visible, and so he stood there with his sign, wearing his custom t-shirt and hat while the traffic flow built up until it was badly stalled first on one side and then the other, as each lane had to wait to turn into the entrance.

He says he was easily seen by the occupants in the cars since he received stares, visible gasps, sneers and middle fingers from them, while he smiled and waved. Some yelled words such as “bigot”at him, which is clearly the wrong word as he was asking to see a tattoo which Elie Wiesel has always said he has but which he has never shown. (Not to mention that photographs show it isn’t there.) Ransdell said some police were stationed across the street from him, which made him feel safer from the likelihood of someone getting out of a car and coming after him. So, all in all, Robert was a happy camper.

Critics and news blackout

He says he stayed until about 7:15 when traffic became completely normal again. Further details will be in Ransdell’s own written account. But I call him a courageous man for standing up to the power of the Jews in his own town as a known entity. He is a good-looking, well-spoken young man and while I would not have written the flyer exactly as he did, or put on the sign exactly what he did, I only find fault with those “couch quarterbacks” on CODOH Forum who criticize his actions from behind their pseudonyms. (Not all are critical.)  If we had just a hundred Robert Ransdells, what an impact we could make. Why don’t we? Ransdell has allies but they are afraid to go to a public function with him! Another one who went out alone to a college campus with flyers about Elie Wiesel’s tattoo was Steve Bock, but these two live almost the entire width of the United States apart from each other.

The Channel 9 news truck was in the area, but made a point to ignore him — another example of the news black-out on any activity that is not good for Jews. They like controlled acts of “antisemitism” to feed their narrative, but do not like to have Elie Wiesel’s self-proclaimed tattoo brought into the limelight. That’s why we use it. It’s the most visible and effective counter to his story of himself  as a holocaust survivor. Elie, please show us the tattoo!

Kentucky man offers $1000 reward in “Elie Wiesel Tattoo Challenge” at Wiesel’s Xavier University May 6 Speech

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

By Carolyn Yeager

Updated on May 2, 6:30 p.m. (see below)

Robert Ransdell is a man after our own heart. He’s putting up money to publicize the fact that Elie Wiesel doesn’t have the Auschwitz tattoo he claims to have.

“An Evening with Elie Wiesel” is coming to Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, Sunday, May 6th. The entertainment/education event  is being marketed by CHHE, which stands for Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education. We just finished with Holocaust Remembrance Week in the United States, and now the entire month of May is Jewish American Heritage Month! So people like Elie Wiesel are on the circuit.

Picture at right is used on promotional materials for the “Evening with Elie Wiesel.”

CHHE is worth studying in itself. It shouldn’t pass your notice that “Holocaust” is combined with “Humanity,” cleverly making a connection between the two. Headquartered in Cincinnati at the campus of Rockwern Academy (formerly Yavneh Day School) at 8401 Montgomery Road, Cincinnati, OH 45236, it displays a permanent exhibit named Mapping Our Tears which showcases  “a multimedia theater set in a 1930’s European attic that takes visitors back in time.” A portable exhibit of “Out of the Attic” can be taken to schools and other locations (with trained “educators,” of course) for a fee of $350.00 a half-day and $500.00 for a full day. But Mapping Our Tears is also supported by generous benefactors, such as United Way, U S Bank, Time-Warner Cable, Kroger, Proctor & Gamble, Cinergy, Federated Dept. Stores and Frisch’s Big Boy … and one whose logo I can’t recognize. (Anyone in the mood to boycott?) To see the permanent exhibit, it is suggested you give a “donation” of $5 per person. CHHE is a non-tax-paying, non-profit organization … such a laugh.

Left: Henry Fenichel, top speaker, wears a yellow Star of David while conducting a presentation to students.

CHHE has a Speakers Bureau, naturally, featuring “Holocaust survivors, Holocaust refugees, World War II veterans and concentration camp liberators, and other eyewitnesses. Additionally, children and grandchildren of survivors, and trained experts and educators are available to speak to your group.” Also, “A donation to the Center of $100 is suggested to cover the costs incurred by this program.” I imagine one would be made to feel downright cheap if an even more generous “expression of appreciation” were not given directly to the speaker also. Elie Wiesel is too exalted to be just another available speaker on their list, and absolutely costs more than $100 (LOL) but he is still handled by the Speakers Bureau.

The Center likes to hold major events at nearby Cintas Center of Catholic Xavier University. In the new spirit of Catholic-Jewish reconciliation, the Jesuit university is more than willing to help promote holocaust education. But does the Jewish school or the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati (which used to house the CHHE) promote Catholic-Christian history in a way that the Catholics would like? Very doubtful. With Jews, you don’t get an equal exchange.

The poster that advertises the event says “Professor Wiesel’s visit is made possible by The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati … with their partners The American Jewish Committee, Cedar Village, Jewish Community Relations Council, The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, Jewish Vocational Service and the Issac M. Wise Temple. In other words, it’s an all-Jewish production. It is Jews, and Jews alone, who present endless programs on the Holocaust to the long-suffering Christians, although the audience will probably be majority Jewish. They make sure to support their own.

Note that there is both a Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati and a Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. The CHHE reminds me of the British HET (Holocaust Education Trust). I feel sure it is patterned after that older, very successful organization.

The man who is sponsoring a $1000.00 Challenge to bring the ‘Wiesel—No Tattoo’ issue to the Xavier campus

Robert Ransdell, who lives in the Kentucky/Ohio area, has been flyering both the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University for the past month — since he found out Wiesel would be making the speech there. He has come up with “The $1000 Challenge”—the money promised to the first person to get Elie Wiesel to show his left forearm and reveal his A-7713 tattoo number … or lack of it. If there is no tattoo visible, no reward will be given. The winner must show proof that Elie Wiesel does have a tattoo—which would require Wiesel’s cooperation.

Ransdell realizes that few, if any, would even be able to get close enough to Wiesel to ask him, but he is trying to make a point with his Challenge. He also tried to place an ad in the Xavier campus newspaper, but it was eventually turned down. Ransdell thinks it’s because his flyering made them aware of his intentions—the ad simply said “Elie Show the Tattoo,” with “Elie” being the name of a band coming out with a new album titled “Tattoo.” Ransdell also posted some of his flyers at Hillel, the “largest Jewish campus organization in the world,” which was probably a mistake since they would then be on the lookout for him.

Ransdell, however, is no novice to this kind of activity. He told me that he has crashed holocaust speaking engagements in the past, including Deborah Lipstadt at Xavier in March 2007, and has had some success for his efforts. Because it was a smaller audience than Wiesel’s will be, Ransdell was able to interrupt Lipstadt’s speech when she started talking about the Holocaust. He asked, “Now which Holocaust are we talking about here, the first or the second?” As the room fell silent, he continued, “are we talking about the one in 1919, when Ilya Ehrenburg claimed that 6 million Jews were being killed in a Holocaust … or the second one?” Lipstadt fumbled for a second and Ransdell rose and said even more before he was ordered to leave. But he continued talking on the way out, and Lipstadt had no answer.

He is not planning to attend the “Evening with Elie Wiesel” himself, but hopes to inspire some action by others with the promise of the $1000 reward.  We will report on further developments next week. You can contact Robert Ransdell at [email protected]. He could probably use some financial contributions to help cover his costs, if you feel inclined.

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UPDATE: May 2, 6:15 p.m.

From the Cleveland Jewish News:  For the ADL, this is another sign of rising antisemitism.

Hate Fliers target Wiesel’s May speech in Cincinnati

MARILYN H. KARFELD
Senior Staff Reporter | 0 comments

Anti-Semitic fliers have been posted at the University of Cincinnati and nearby Xavier University, targeting Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor, who is speaking at Xavier on Sunday, May 6.

On April 4, about 30 fliers were posted at the University of Cincinnati on and around the Hillel Jewish Student Center, and a couple were found by the student union, said Judith Wertheim, 20, a resident of University Heights and a junior at the university. The fliers were posted a day after Hillel began advertising Wiesel’s speech, which is being presented by The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education, an independent nonprofit in Cincinnati.

The fliers, which call Wiesel a liar and a fraud, among other scurrilous charges, [No mention of the legitimate question of Where Is Elie’s Tattoo? That is not hate, and it is very dishonest of them to not state the actual contents of the flyer. They are AFRAID of the tattoo question. -cy] were also spotted on the campus at Xavier University, a Jesuit institution that is co-sponsoring his appearance.

In response, the University of Cincinnati’s Undergraduate Student Senate passed a resolution supporting a letter drafted by Rabbi Elana Dellal, executive director of its Hillel, and submitted to the senate by Stephen Lamb, a student intern at Hillel. The letter criticized the fliers’ message, said Wertheim, a senator from the College of Allied Health Sciences.

“We, the student body of the University of Cincinnati, will not stand by as intolerance occurs on our campus,” Dellal wrote in the letter titled “We Will Not Be Silent.”

“We, students and supporters of the University of Cincinnati, understand that denying that the Holocaust happened is anti-Semitic,” the letter continued. [Did the flyer deny the holocaust happened? -cy]  “There is no place on our campus for intolerance of any kind, be it religion, race, gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity.”

Jewish students active at Hillel, who plan to attend Wiesel’s speech, also decided that doing more than writing the letter and alerting the student government to the fliers was “giving too much power to this person posting them,” said Wertheim. “This wasn’t a threat of violence. But we don’t condone hate speech [only their own -cy], which is why we brought it to the student government to get more backing.”

When informed of the fliers, university officials said they would “keep an eye out,” said Wertheim. “It was very clear the university is very supportive of Hillel.”

The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education is presenting Wiesel, a Romanian-born Holocaust survivor and author, with financial support from the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati. Wiesel’s first book “Night,” the 1956 memoir of his experiences in Nazi concentration camps including Auschwitz, has sold millions of copies. [Why does the author of a 10- million-plus-selling-book need financial support? And 1956 is not the publication date for Night, but for the Yiddish book Un di velt hot geshvign  … the one Elie never talked about until Nikolaus Grüner brought it to public attention after the 1986 Nobel Prize awards. -cy]

The author of the flier identifies himself as Robert Ransdell, coordinator of Cincinnati’s unit of the National Alliance, a white supremacist group that has dwindled in support in recent years and only has about a dozen active participants, said David Schneider, an Anti-Defamation League investigative researcher based in Chicago.

“Elie Wiesel, because of his prominence and his status, attracts the attention of Holocaust deniers and white supremacists,” said Schneider.

Wiesel has not spoken in Cincinnati in a decade, said Sarah Weiss, executive director of The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education. Many schools in the area include “Night” in their reading lists, and there are already 4,000 reservations for the event, including 2,000 students, she said.

“While it is unfortunate that individuals who hate and want to deny history are present and visible and active, it’s a small minority of people,” said Weiss. “We should use this to energize and galvanize efforts around Holocaust education. Maybe, in a small way, it’s an opportunity for us.”

Publicizing hate-mongering activities requires walking a fine line, said Nina Sundell, area director of the Anti-Defamation League, whose region covers Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.

“The purpose of distributing the fliers is to bring more attention to a hateful activity,” she said. “There’s a downside to publicizing that as more people hear their message. However, one of the best ways to fight hateful rhetoric and speech is through other speech, the reverse type. It’s always a judgment call” whether or not to make these activities public.

Sundell has not decided if she should become involved in the Cincinnati incident. “Would it assist them in putting forth a positive message or spread the hateful message further?” she asked. “We feel it is the ADL’s role to bring these issues to light, but we need to examine this situation further to decide if we take any action.”

[email protected]

The lesson here, dear readers, is that even the smallest of actions against St. Elie of Wiesel will bring down a torrent of abusive reaction from the guardians of the most powerful narrative in the Jewish arsenal.

“If you look closely you can see a sixteen-year-old boy …”

Wednesday, April 25th, 2012

By Carolyn Yeager

Do we have a stupid President, or what?

On Monday, April 23, U.S. President Barack Obama toured the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum with Elie Wiesel as his guide. Following the tour, both Wiesel and Obama gave boring, highly hypocritical speeches to the assembled diplomats, Jews,  Shoah  survivors, supporters  and workers. Both speeches together lasted about 35 minutes. (Pictured right, Wiesel and Obama hug between speeches)

During Obama’s talk, he recalled a previous time that Elie had guided him through one of the Shoah’s sacred shrines–Buchenwald, in June 2009. At the 11:10 mark of this video, Obama remembers:

We stopped at an old photo, men and women lying in their bunks, barely more than skeletons, and if you look closely you can see a sixteen year old boy, looking right at the camera, right into your eyes … you can see Elie.

President Obama was talking about this old photo, which is a cropped version of the original.

This photograph was taken on April 16, 1945 when Elie Wiesel could not have been in it because he was in the hospital at Buchenwald deathly ill from food poisoning, according to both Night and his memoir All Rivers Run to the Sea.

Obama  made a big boo-boo in saying “men and women” were in the photo, lying in bunks together. But we already questioned his intelligence, so we’ll pass that by. The bigger mistake he made was identifying the face in the far upper right as Elie Wiesel.  His presidential aides should familiarize themselves with this blog before their boss’ next meeting with the Holo idol. This site has proven that it is not Elie Wiesel in that picture, especially here and here.

Judge for yourself from this cleaned up, unretouched enlargement of the round-headed man (right),  found to be in his 30’s by a computer program designed by Apple. Or check out Computer program judges “Elie Wiesel in Buchenwald” to be 30-36 years of age once again.

Compare this face to a  real 16 year-old—Nikolaus Grüner in the far lower left of the picture above.

This tells us that President Obama doesn’t think for himself, but accepts whatever he is told by members of the Jewish race, like Elie Wiesel. But we already knew that. Elie says, “That’s me,” and Barack says, “My, so it is.”

Obama continues recalling the Buchenwald meeting:

And at the end of our visit that day, Elie spoke of his father. “I thought one day I would come back and speak to him,” he said “of times of which memory has become a sacred duty of all people of good will. ”  Elie, you’ve devoted your life to upholding that sacred duty. You’ve challenged us all as individuals and as nations to do the same with the power of your example, the eloquence of your words … as you did again just now … and so to you and Marion we are extraordinarily grateful.

First, who is we? The entire U.S. citizenry? I’m sure there are many who, like me, opt out of that sentiment and are not grateful to Elie Wiesel. Think how Wiesel uses the word “memory” here. “Memory should become a “sacred duty of all people,” is what he is saying. How can “memory” alone be a sacred duty? But he is meaning a specific memory of the Jewish Holocaust, nothing else. He doesn’t want to say that out loud for all us non-Jews to hear, but we’re supposed to pick it up anyway. We know he means only the memory of the Jewish “holocaust” because he supports the Holocaust Lobby’s  condemnation of the Germans’ right to their memories, doesn’t he? If any nation’s memories conflict with the sacred Shoah narrative, they should be suppressed, even criminalized.  Wiesel said as much in his speech. In the case of Germany, their non-shoah-approved memories are criminalized (see here). It is the same in Austria and to a lesser degree in many European countries, and Wiesel is on record for favoring criminalization in the United States! Barack Obama is promising that “as a nation” we will follow Elie Wiesel’s example.

You should also be aware that the Shoah narrative is still in flux, still changing, so we don’t even know what we’re in for.

Barack Obama, representing the American people, is committing a great injustice to most of us in order to beg for the Jewish vote.  How far will we allow the Jewish takeover of America to go?

UPDATE: April 26, 8 p.m.

A perfect example of the hypocrisy of Wiesel’s “sacred duty of memory” was offered today in a news story from Europe. The U.S. State Department’s “special envoy to fight global antisemitism” Hanna Rosenthal was touring Latvia after meeting earlier with the mayor of Malmo, Sweden. In Latvia, she pressed the Latvian leadership on their country’s continued commemorations of Latvian participation in the Waffen SS, the military wing of the National Socialist party, which included volunteer divisions from all over Europe. Many Latvians consider the volunteers who fought against the Soviets to be heroes of the nation. To Rosenthal’s objections that this amounted to condoning the killing of Jews, they said their history is “complicated” and they don’t see it in simple right/wrong terms. But Rosenthal insisted, with the weight and power of the United States government behind her, that such a commemoration was “offensive to Jews.”  Because it is offensive to Jews, the Latvians’ sacred duty to their memory of resisting the takeover by the Soviet Union cannot be allowed.

What could show more clearly that it is indeed only the memories sacred to the Jews that all the world is expected to honor.  Our own sacred memories, whatever they may be,  must come second to theirs. Who in their right mind accepts such rules?

Elie Wiesel’s One Week Annual Visit to Chapman University Kept Private

Friday, April 20th, 2012

By Carolyn Yeager

From the website of Chapman University:

Elie Wiesel  will return to Chapman University on April 15-22.  His annual one-week visit marks the second year of his five-year appointment as a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at the university.  While on campus, Wiesel will meet with [selected] students and faculty and be a guest speaker in various classes.

This year, Wiesel plans to present four “Conversations” during his visit.  The moderated discussions (which will be open only to the university community, not to the general public) will focus on themes central to his work and to the university community.   Scheduled topics include:

• “Why Study?” (moderated by Daniele Struppa, Ph.D., Chapman University chancellor)
•  “Why Write?” (moderated by English professor Patrick Fuery, Ph.D.)
• “Why Be Just?” (moderated by Tom Campbell, dean of Chapman University School of Law)
•  “Why Believe?” (moderated by Gail Stearns, Ph.D., dean of the Chapman University chapel)

Chapman University President James L. Doti, Ph.D., sees this as another exceptional learning experience for the Chapman community.  “Elie Wiesel challenges us to ask ourselves the big questions,” Dr. Doti said.  “He believes that as human beings, we are defined more by the questions we ask than by the answers we give.* I am especially excited that our students will be able to join with Professor Wiesel in a week of questions and conversations.  I know this week will have an impact on their years here at Chapman and on the way they look at the world.”

Elie Wiesel first visited Chapman University in April 2005, when he took part in dedication ceremonies for the university’s Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library. His second visit came in April 2010, when he spoke to the university community and was guest of honor at a gala marking the 10^th anniversary of the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education and the Stern Chair in Holocaust Education.  That same year, he accepted a five-year appointment as a Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Chapman University.  In that role, Wiesel is invited to visit Chapman annually to meet with students and offer his perspective on subjects ranging from Holocaust history to religion, languages, literature, law and music.

* Here at Elie Wiesel Cons The World, we have defined ourselves by asking the same question “Where’s the Tattoo?” for two years, but have received no answer from the professor. If you pay attention, you will see that Wiesel’s whole ploy is to ask questions, while always saying, “I have no answers.” Only on the witness stand in a court of law does he have to answer.

That’s it, folks. No follow-up stories, no photos,  no comments from students; it’s all being kept totally private this year.  

Do you think it’s because of our coverage last year? Absolutely, yes! The Wiesel forces, while totally ignoring us outwardly, have changed their tactics and the visibility of “the man” because of our lampooning of his speeches and our use of the school’s photos, and comments from faculty and students. Elie Wiesel Cons The World is the only media that has done this.  Thus … no more fun for us.

Even the Panther student newspaper received it’s instructions — it had only one announcement article, basically the same as the University website write-up. The Orange County Register had no coverage as it did last year.

Above: Spacious interior of auditorium in Memorial Hall. Right: Exterior.

What I can tell you is that the Chapman students are also being deprived. Five out of the nine comments to the announcement on the school website (as of this writing) were from confused students wanting to know if they could attend Wiesel’s  Thursday night speech at Memorial Hall.  This was the answer they got:

The 7 p.m. Evening of Remembrance  at Memorial Hall is open to the public, but advance registration was required and due to the popularity of this event, all seats are reserved at this time. But there is a chance that some stand-by seating may be available just prior to the start time. Likewise, stand-by seating may be available at Friday’s “Conversation with Elie Wiesel” at 11 a.m.  in the Fish Interfaith Center.

I’m sure the majority of students at Chapman don’t get even a glimpse of Wiesel during his week-long stay, let alone have the privilege of suffering through one of his “conversations.”

Today being Friday, it is all over now.   Even though Wiesel’s contract runs through Sunday, he’s probably completed all he has to do to earn his … what? $25,000.00? Or more? Maybe 5 times $25,000. Is that possible? Sure it is … with all those rich, uh, Californians.

Computer program judges “Elie Wiesel in Buchenwald” to be 30-36 years of age

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

 

A Swedish reader has informed this website of a new computer program that gives the approximate age of a person by scanning their photograph.  Scroll down the linked page to see six examples. [Unfortunately, as of 12-5-15 this page is no longer online, at least not at the address it was. But I found two write-ups about it here and here. It does exist.]

Our reader took advantage of the website’s free demonstration offer and tested two faces from the famous Buchenwald liberation photo taken on April 16, 1945.  Nikolaus Grüner is in the lower left of the FBLPhoto,  and in the background is the round-headed man who is claimed to be Elie Wiesel. These are the results the computer program gave him.

Above:  Estimated age 16 years (exactly the age Grüner was at the time)

Above:  Estimated age between 30 and 36 years (Elie Wiesel was only 16 at the time)

This does not surprise us. It fits what we can see with our natural eyes and brain — and what other evidence has told us. But it’s nice to know that a program designed by the bright folks at Apple has confirmed it.

Elie Wiesel Condemns Günter Grass for “going too far”

Saturday, April 14th, 2012

By Carolyn Yeager

Wiesel rushes to the defense of Israel once again, proving he is always a political person ahead of being an artistic person.

Zionism has always come first for Elie Wiesel. You might even say all his writing has been in the service of Zionism, one way or another. Now a poem made public by one of Germany’s most famous novelists is causing an uproar in the Jewish/Israeli world, of which Wiesel is an integral part. The poet is Günter Grass; the poem’s title is “What Must Be Said.” It is a criticism of Israel’s nuclear capability and it’s willingness to use it against Iran.

In an article in the New York Daily News, Wiesel for the second time in the past month, speaks out on a controversy affecting Jews and Israel. While Wiesel is often portrayed as a kind of suffering saint who stays above the fray in his capacity as “teacher” and one who represents “victims of the Jewish holocaust” for the sake of greater humanity, this has never been the case in reality. He is a scrapper and a partisan in every circumstance involving Israel. Everything he does is done to advance the interests of World Jewry. This latest article makes it clear enough.

It is titled “Guenter Grass’ buried hatred comes to light.” The subtitle brings out that “He once served in the Nazi Waffen SS; today, he is attacking Israel.”

Well, that pretty much covers the Jew’s reasons why we should hate Grass. He was a Nazi! He’s been a secret Nazi, therefore a Jew-hater, all along! He is not an honest man. Therefore, ignore what he has to say … a version of “attack the messenger,” a tried and true tactic which Wiesel is not above using.

This particular spat can be seen as another chapter in the historic German-Jewish conflict between two nations that are at eternal odds with each other. The idea that these two “races” will ever overcome their inherent “unlikeness” and be able to live together is a pipe-dream. It never will be, as they are opposites. The problem with Grass’ reasoning is that he believes a reconciliation is possible, and has even been made. As long as he holds this belief he will never get it right.

* * *

The following are some highlights from what Wiesel wrote, with commentary by me. You can read the entire article by following the link above.

Wiesel: […] the German Nobel Prize-winning novelist Guenter Grass has obviously chosen to set himself up as judge over the state and people of Israel.

As we know, Elie Wiesel has since even before 1945 set himself up as judge over the nation and people of Germany. But, of course, in Wiesel’s very biased mind he has every right, while Grass has not. Grass, in the eyes of the Jews.  is a German perpetrator without any rights at all.

Wiesel: [Grass’ poem] makes the argument that Iran is not, in fact, pursuing nuclear weapons — and that Israel is bent on killing Iranians by the millions. […] How dare he? What does he know about the nuclear sciences? What moral credentials could he claim to possess in order to act as accuser of the democratic Jewish state?

Is Iran pursuing nuclear weapons? There is no evidence that it is. Further, Iran has been a peaceful nation for hundreds of years. If it did make a decision, several years down the road, to produce a nuclear weapon as a defensive measure, it has every right. Iran is a legitimate nation with an immensely long history, that joins with and follows the rules of  international legal organizations, while Israel is a rogue state that ignores and disobeys every international law.

So Wiesel’s “how dare he?” is a totally arrogant outburst of someone who’s had way too much privilege in his life … someone who has gotten away with too much. How dare Wiesel question Grass’ moral credentials. In my opinion, they are about on the same level of morality—they are both comfortable with lying—although Grass has bought into the guilt-trip leveled at Germans, while Wiesel rides the high-horse of Jewish-invented victimhood at German hands. Therefore, Grass has no permission to criticize anything Jewish and needs to be put back in his place.

Wiesel: Clearly, had the Swedish Academy known of his secret [Waffen SS membership], it would have had some difficulty awarding him the Nobel Prize.

Ha! Similarly, if the Nobel Peace Prize committee had known that Wiesel lied about being in the famous Buchenwald liberation photo (not to mention all the lies in his book Night) they would certainly have had difficulty awarding him that prize! Wiesel is skating on thin ice here, but then that is typical of him and his ingrained chutzpah.

Wiesel: [Grass’] hatred of Israel, a land founded as the homeland of the Jewish people, is in his poem. In fact, it is the poem.

The whole world is coming more and more to hate Israel. In fact, it is impossible for decent people not to hate Israel. If Israel represents what the Jewish people are, what does that tell us? Wiesel should really wake up and stop beating a dead horse.

Wiesel: Well, he isn’t the first to claim that the Jewish people’s aim is planetary destruction.  Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels preceded him in that kind of propaganda.

Bring up the Hitler card, why not? It’s another tried and true tactic. But what is the Jewish people’s aim if not to own the whole world? Their rationale is sometimes given as ” to prevent their own persecution at the hands of the rest of the world.” But it is not a justification, though they think it is. Hitler and Goebbels had more justification for wanting the majority of Jews out of their country in the 1930’s, as do many Americans today, as do the Palestinians. How many nations today would just like the Jews to go away?

Wiesel: Sadly, these despicable accusations come from someone who ranked among the great intellectual minds of postwar Europe.

Grass was never a great intellectual mind. He is not a successor to Goethe and Schiller, who loved Germany and would have stood up and told the truth about her rectitude. The Jewish-controlled media portrayed Grass as great because he acted the role of the perfectly contrite post-war German. For that, he was celebrated and given every accolade. He sold out to the devil, just like Faust.

Wiesel: Iran’s ruler Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the world’s foremost Holocaust denier. Everyone who reads knows that. But not Grass.

Perhaps Grass is tired of being a holocaust believer. Maybe that will come next?  But I wouldn’t count on it because he is a leftist and their power is based on the holocaust.

Wiesel: [Grass] accuses the Israeli leader (Netanyahu), and consequently his nation, of planning mass murder against Iran—and furthermore, warns German Chancellor Angela Merkel of becoming an accomplice to this crime if she helps Israel.

This is so interesting! Wiesel has repeatedly accused (and still does) Adolf Hitler and “his nation” of planning mass murder against European Jews. The difference in his biased mind between his accusations and those of  Grass is that Germany was guilty but Israel is not. Yet there is more evidence by far of Israel’s guilt (and from 1945 onward) in wanting to murder the Germans, plus the British and the Palestinians, than of any plan by Germans to murder Jews. You don’t believe that? If so, it’s because you haven’t looked into it for yourself, but have believed Jewish-controlled media all this time.

The Israelis and Wiesel greatly fear losing German support. It is the United States that keeps German leaders like Angela Merkel in line.

Wiesel: There were times when I even felt close to [Grass]. Now I see in his hatred an abyss I shall not cross. He has gone too far.

It’s only normal practice that Wiesel “felt close” to the German writer as long as he spouted praise for Zionism and Israel, and emphasized German Guilt—characterizing it as never-ending. Then, he was a great German! Now the slightest divergence from that stance … the smallest challenge to Israel to stop its war-mongering and bullying … is enough to create an uncrossable “abyss” between them. Günter Grass will never be forgiven. Let’s hope he will forego asking for it, or seeking it in any way, because it will never be granted him. He has “gone too far.”

 

UPDATE April 15, 1 pm:  I’m sure Elie Wiesel now repeats Yemach shemo  (meaning “May his name be erased”) every time his says the name of Günter Grass. Orthodox Jews add this Hebrew phrase whenever they mention the name of a great enemy of the Jewish nation past or present. Also here the best answer at this site informs us that the phrase when applied to Jesus’ name means  to exterminate  the spirit of the Christ (the Logos) and to liquidate his followers like the Jewish “Bolsheviks” did to 66 million Orthodox Christian Russians. “

This recalls to my mind the insistence of the Holocaust-believing Jews to interpret the German word ausrotten which means  “to get rid of” or “to root out” or “to eradicate” as “to exterminate“,  giving it the sole meaning of  “to murder.” Do Wiesel and other  Orthodox Jews  take the Hebrew word Yemach shemo as literally as they do German words? Something to think about.

 

 

 

Elie Wiesel Can’t Stop Revealing his Jewish Supremacy

Saturday, March 24th, 2012

By Carolyn Yeager

In an article titled “The Tragedy in Toulouse,” dated March 21, Elie Wiesel reveals once again his belief that Jewish pain is the only pain that matters. He  also suggests that this idea has been held firmly in the Jewish mind for 5000 years–if you believe they’ve actually been around that long.

The background for Wiesel’s essay is the death of seven persons (four of them Jewish) by a gunman on a motorcycle,  identified as Mohammed Merah, a 23-year old French National of Algerian origin.

*   *   *   *

To provide my own background to this article, I am reproducing a picture and some text from The Guardian in January 2009.

At least 14 more Palestinian children were killed in the Gaza Strip yesterday as the misery and terror of civilians trapped by the Israeli bombardment intensified.

With Israel defying mounting international demands for a ceasefire, aid workers warned of a humanitarian crisis facing terrified families trapped in their homes with little power, food, fuel and medicine.

The death toll passed 535 as planes, helicopters, artillery and tanks pounded the Palestinian territory for a tenth day.

At right are 3 innocent murdered children whose deaths were not mourned by Elie Wiesel or most Jews in the world, even though their deaths were caused by Jews.  Where is the anguish expressed by politicians and presidents for these three children?

*   *   *   *

Merah, now dead himself, killed three French paratroopers of North African origin in drive-by type shootings on a motorcycle. In the aftermath of these three murders, we heard only cries that the perpetrators must have been right-wing, neo-nazi fanatics. A few days later, four Jews (including three children) were killed in the same fashion. Now the cries of anguish reached much higher levels and the media and left-wing politicians went into a frenzy, demanding that the “neo-nazi, far-right extremists” who must be responsible for such a crime be driven from French society and political intercourse.

When it was determined the shooter was an Islamic extremist, not white, the print and internet pundits became focused almost solely on the three Jewish children, and the theme became antisemitism. The French paratroopers of Algerian descent were all but forgotten. In addition, France felt the need to launch it’s biggest manhunt in living memory—anti-terrorist police were sent from Paris, and thousands of policemen were put on the case (according to the Economist).

Into this volatile situation comes Elie Wiesel with a short essay that, in his trademark way, says nothing of substance but accuses millions of “not caring enough” about the Jews. As in all his writings, Wiesel tells us nothing of the facts, but reveals a lot about himself–and Jews in general.

For your information, the news outlet to which Wiesel offered his essay  (for $25,000?) is a self-described e-paper that goes by the name of The Algemeiner.  It is a Jewish-Israeli operation with 50 Jewish writers  featured—and not a Gentile in sight. The Algemeiner even uses the Hebrew date (for example 1 Nisan 5772) at the top of their page.

Let’s now turn to the essay itself. First I will copy the essay as it appeared; then I will go through it sentence by sentence, commenting on the meaning.

Exclusive by Elie Wiesel: The Tragedy in Toulouse   March 21, 2012

Will the hatred of the Jews ever finally vanish? Will Jewish children always be in danger?

This time, a murderer slew four Jews: a teacher and three young children.

When a blood-thirsty Jew-hater wants to kill Jews, he goes first to the Jewish schools. Jewish children are his primary target.

It’s always been this way. This is what Pharaoh, King of Egypt did, what Hitler did. And this is what happened now.

This is the background to the tragedy that occurred in the French city, Toulouse.

I have visited that city many times. The Jewish community there is old and well-established – it dates back to the Middle Ages – but it is dynamic.

In the streets, you can see Jews wearing yarmulkas. Nobody thinks of anti-Semitism. Spiritually, it is one of richest Jewish communities in France.

Obviously, the terrible murderous attack evoked tears and rage among both Jews and non-Jews. The President, his ministers, and other political figures in France, as well as all the newspapers, have demanded that the murderer be found and punished.

It often happens like this. Jewish blood is spilled and, temporarily, sympathy for Jews grows; the world warms to them.

But the pain does not go away, nor does the anger. We think about the martyrs: Rabbi Yochanan Sandler, his sons Aryeh and Gavriel, and Miriam Monsonego. We say, as is Jewish tradition: “May G-d avenge their blood.” That will be the response from Above.

Our own answer must be concrete and to the point. When we are persecuted, our response must be: We will remain Jewish – and do everything to become more Jewish.

Now my commentary in blue. Wiesel writes:

Will the hatred of the Jews ever finally vanish? Will Jewish children always be in danger? 

Wiesel has made a slip here by using the word “of.” Hatred of the Jews can mean hatred by the Jews as well as hatred for the Jews. I read it first as the Jew’s hatred. In any case, he means to set up “hatred for Jews” as the crime. He doesn’t mention “hatred of Algerians” even though three French Algerians were the first victims of the murderer, who himself was of Algerian origin!

This time, a murderer slew four Jews: a teacher and three young children. 

Wiesel uses the Old Testament word “slew” as an artifice, to create a sense of history repeating itself—Jews being slain again and again.

When a blood-thirsty Jew-hater wants to kill Jews, he goes first to the Jewish schools. Jewish children are his primary target. 

Wiesel uses more apocryphal language to simplify the Algerian down to “a blood-thirsty Jew hater.” If this man was blood-thirsty, what then are Jews when they bomb Palestinian schools and hospitals? Are the persons inside those buildings threatening them? Can they really say they’re acting in self-defense? Wiesel once again refuses to show any concern for those whom Jews kill. It’s amazing that he gets away with ignoring the terrible fate of Palestinian children, and other children throughout recent history, such as the hundreds of thousands of innocent ethnic German children who were killed before and after WWII.

It’s always been this way. This is what Pharaoh, King of Egypt did, what Hitler did. And this is what happened now. 

Pharaoh and Hitler are the two rulers who “expelled the Jews” in a way that is most hateful to Jews. It’s not really surprising when one thinks about it, but still eye-opening that Wiesel links them together here. In the bible story, Pharaoh grew fearful of the Jews because of their power in his land; it was the same with Adolf Hitler, but Hitler did not “target” Jewish children. I doubt that Pharaoh did either, in spite of the stories. Jews have made up many stories about Hitler, but they are lies, defamation and forged and mislabeled photographs.

This is the background to the tragedy that occurred in the French city, Toulouse. 

Wiesel is saying that Hitler and Pharaoh are the ‘background’ of this contemporary event. Jews think like this. The four Jews who were killed in this rather sporadic fashion have to be seen as connected to a long chain of purposeful persecution … they must be seen as part of an eternal holocaust … and the world must also see it this way.

I have visited that city many times. The Jewish community there is old and well-established – it dates back to the Middle Ages – but it is dynamic. 

Jewish communities anywhere are of high value, Wiesel implies, and must be safe-guarded by all of us. Wiesel emphasizes how long Jews have been in that particular place in France to show that it means they belong there. The comparison comes to mind of how long Palestinians have been in Palestine, but the Jews don’t want them there because they want all the land for themselves. Why is it that Jews want to share in everyone else’s land, but cannot share their own, which was given to them on conditions they have not fulfilled.

In the streets, you can see Jews wearing yarmulkas. Nobody thinks of anti-Semitism. Spiritually, it is one of richest Jewish communities in France.

In spite of the fact that they have been in France since the Middle Ages, they are still a “Jewish community in France” not Frenchmen or a French community. That says a lot. The four Jews who were killed were flown immediately to Israel for burial, which tells us even more that this Jewish community does not consider itself French.

Obviously, the terrible murderous attack evoked tears and rage among both Jews and non-Jews. The President, his ministers, and other political figures in France, as well as all the newspapers, have demanded that the murderer be found and punished. 

How often does a President, his ministers and politicians take a personal interest in solving a crime? This shows the power of the Jews in Europe, not love for them. Politicians and newspapers believe they have no choice when it comes to catering to the Jews in their country. This has been true ever since Jews came to control the money, banks and financial systems (think Goldman-Sachs), and Wiesel knows it.

It often happens like this. Jewish blood is spilled and, temporarily, sympathy for Jews grows; the world warms to them. 

Wiesel believes in a spiritual eternal opposition to the Jews. Gentiles will never accept Jews as they are, he is saying … since Jews are a people who insist on being and remaining separate from all others while they live and flourish in others’ nations … often at the expense of the people of those nations.  At the same time, he expects sympathy for Jews as a persecuted class. He expects special protection for them. And to non-Jews who don’t want to give Jews that special place and special protection, he points the accusing finger.

But the pain does not go away, nor does the anger. We think about the martyrs: Rabbi Yochanan Sandler, his sons Aryeh and Gavriel, and Miriam Monsonego. We say, as is Jewish tradition: “May G-d avenge their blood.” That will be the response from Above.

Vengence is the cornerstone of Jewish thought. While he adds that it should come from above, from G-d, he wants it to come. He knows that young Jews will hear him. Wiesel now wants to make new Jewish martyrs of these four victims.

Our own answer must be concrete and to the point. When we are persecuted, our response must be: We will remain Jewish – and do everything to become more Jewish.

Those are fighting words. Our separation, our apartness, will never end, he proclaims. Nor will our demand for special protection. Elie Wiesel remains always a Hasidic Orthodox Jew who reveres the Talmud, the Cabala, and all esoteric Jewish rabbinical texts. Therefore, he is comfortable expecting the impossible. Animosity toward their host populations is a constant for Jews. Their crime against us is that they paint it the other way around. In this little essay, Wiesel provides another example of just how it’s done. … how we are convinced that it is our failings, not theirs. That’s why I have analyzed it in so much detail. Gentiles should take heed and reject Wiesel’s  image of us … and reject him.

 

 

Night #1 and Night #2—What Changes were Made and Why, Part Two

Wednesday, March 7th, 2012

By Carolyn Yeager
copyright 2012 Carolyn Yeager

Elie Wiesel questioned under oath in a California courtroom in 2008:
Q. And is this book Night that you wrote a true account of your experience during World War II?
A. It is a true account. Every word in it is true.

In Part One, I established that the decision to rebrand Night into an autobiography was the reason for a new translation, in which necessary changes could be made to better ‘fit’ the story both to the real Elie Wiesel and the known facts of the Hungarian deportation.

When the 2006 translation came out, with its new classification to “autobiography,” questions arose from some circles. Responding to these questions, Edward Wyatt wrote an article  in the NewYork Times on Jan. 19, 2006, in which he quoted Jeff Seroy, senior vice president at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, parent company of Night publisher Hill & Wang, as strongly denying that changes were made to bring the book more in line with the facts. “Nonsense,” said Seroy. “Some minor mistakes crept into the original translation that were expunged in the new translation. But the book stands as a record of fact.”

Blaming the Translator

“Mistakes in the original translation” can only mean mistakes by Stella Rodway, the original translator! But we have already shown that Stella Rodway faithfully reproduced the French La Nuit, which was Wiesel’s own work. The author and publisher are casting  these changes as translation errors to divert attention away from Elie Wiesel’s own errors—part of their campaign to pass Night off from now on as “a record of fact.”

A record of fact it isn’t

When I ended Part One, Eliezer and Father were still in the train car on their way to Buchenwald. You will recall that the Yiddish, the French and thus the original English version of Night specified the trip took 10 days and 10 nights from Gleiwitz (on the former German/Polish border) to Buchenwald. Since we know from standard historical sources1 that the prisoners were evacuated from Monowitz on Jan. 18 and arrived in Gleiwitz the next day, Jan. 19; and since according to the description in Night itself, they spend three days in Gleiwitz (Jan. 20-22), this would make their day of arrival February 1, 1945. But in Night, Father’s death takes place the night of Jan. 28-29, three days before they arrived!  This is why Marion Wiesel removed the number 10 in her new translation, leaving the number of days and nights undetermined.

A strange detail that actually belongs in Part One is on page 87 of the original Night. Eliezer remarks, after his and his Father’s deliberations and final decision to go on the march: “I learned after the war the fate of those who had stayed behind in the hospital. They were quite simply liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation.” The evacuation, as we all know, was on the 18th. We also know the Russians did not arrive on the 20th of January! The actual liberation day is January 27. What possessed Wiesel to write this? Well, because it was in Un di velt:  “Two days after we had left Buna, the Red Army occupied the camp.  All the sick had stayed alive.”

From the point in the story of Eliezer and Father’s arrival at Buchenwald there are no significant changes made by Marion Wiesel to the original French and English versions. But there is much in all the versions that differs strikingly from the “official holocaust history” as written by acknowledged official chroniclers such as Danuta Czech. So I will continue with comparisons between Night and “official history,” along with some very significant changes made from Un di velt hot geshvign to Wiesel’s edited French La Nuit.

Arrival at Buchenwald:  26 Jan. or 1 Feb.?

Danuta Czech, in her Auschwitz Chronicle1,  records that on January 26,

A transport with 3,987 prisoners from Auschwitz auxiliary camps reaches Buchenwald.  There are 52 dead prisoners in the transport.  115 prisoners die on the day of arrival.  Their corpses are delivered to the autopsy room. (P 801)

This is the transport that carried Lazar and Abraham Wiesel/Viezel, Miklos (Nikolaus) Grüner and all of the inmates of Monowitz whose names are on the transport list.2 According to Czech, the Monowitz prisoners began their march on the evening of January 18, 1945, with “divisions of nurses placed between the columns” of 1000 each (P 786), arriving at Gleiwitz Camp the following evening. On Jan. 21 “they are loaded in open freight cars with other prisoners from Auschwitz who have arrived in Gleiwitz.” (P 788) From Jan. 21 to Jan. 26 is five days of travel … not ten, as Wiesel wrote in Night.

The narrative in Night gives us a date of Jan. 22 for the boarding of the train, one day later than Czech. And while Night gives the number of days on the train (10), it does not name the date of arrival.

Hilda Wiesel says her father died on arrival

Totally contradicting what is written in Night, Hilda Wiesel Kudler, Elie’s oldest sister, in her testimony for the Shoah Foundation in 1995, said she learned from her brother that their father died as he stepped off the train.

And I said, where is father? And he replied, he’s gone back to Sighet; he[Elie] didn’t want to tell me [that he was dead]. And I repeated, but where is he? And he insisted he was at Sighet. And I said, look, I want you to tell me the truth. Because he knew the date of my father’s death. You know, they did a long march3 from Auschwitz, then they put them on the train to go to Buchenwald; he died gasping for air; when he stepped off the train, he died gasping for air; at Buchenwald. But he[Elie] knew the date.                 

From this, we can better understand something about Elie Wiesel—that he has never had a problem with making up stories that “sound better” than the truth. But, if Hilda is correct in her recall, and if their father really was one of the 115 inmates who Danuta Czech reports died on the day of arrival, then Wiesel’s long, melodramatic story of watching his father sicken and die over a ten-day period in Night is fiction. All of it—including his father being whacked on the head by a cruel “officer” in the barracks.

The day of arrival for this transport is Jan. 26, but according to the timeline in Night, it arrives on Feb. 1. Either way, it doesn’t correspond to the date of  Jan. 28 that Wiesel, for reasons unknown, selected as the date his fictional Father died.

You might also be interested to know that Hilda is named Deborah in Un di velt;  the name Hilda is never used. It was Wiesel who changed it to Hilda in La Nuit.

Un di Velt says Father dies a week after arrival in Buchenwald, Night says 8-10 days … yet it is January 28 … or is it the 18th Day of Shevat?

Regular readers of this blog will know this already, but it bears repeating yet again: there is no Shlomo Wiesel in the official history or in the records who fits the profile of “Father” as described by Elie Wiesel in Night. There is an Abraham (sometimes shortened to Abram) Viezel who is recorded in several places—on a medical report at Auschwitz, on the transport to Buchenwald, and on a death certificate dated  Feb. 2, 1945, seven (7) days after arrival. This Abraham was born Oct. 10, 1900, making him 44 years old when he died. Recall that Night gives Father’s age as 50 in 1944 (SR, P 40).

Wiesel’s description has the transport to Buchenwald arriving on Feb.1st.  But that’s just the beginning. After arriving, this is the timeline given in both the original Night and Marion Wiesel’s 2006 translation:

It was daytime when I awoke. I went to look for my father. (Feb. 2nd) 

[…]

On the third day after our arrival at Buchenwald, everyone had to go to the showers [his father went too-cy]. Even the sick who had to go through last. (Feb 4th)  […] Struck down by dysentery, my father lay in his bunk, five other invalids with him. I sat by his side watching him … A week went by like this. (Feb. 11th or Feb. 8th depending on how you read it)

[ . . . ]

When I got down after roll call, I could see his lips trembling as he murmured something. […] Then I had to go to bed. I climbed into my bunk, above my father, who was still alive. It was January 28, 1945. (still Feb. 8 or 11) I awoke on January 29 at dawn. In my father’s place lay another invalid. They must have taken him away before dawn and carried him to the crematory.” (Feb 12th or 9th)  [Stella  Rodway translation, pp 107-112]

The timeline in Un di velt is not in doubt:

On the seventh or eighth day of our being in Buchenwald, the bunk-elder [should be block-elder -cy) who used to deal out bread for the whole bunk [sic], came to me. . . .  

[ . . . ]

On the same day, in the evening, disaster struck. The end. During roll call.  The healthy had to go out of the block in order to be counted by the S.S. men.  The sick stayed in their bunks.  My father and I thus stayed inside.   He — because of his dysentery and I — because of my bandaged foot.  Father was lying in the lowest bunk and I — in the uppermost.

[ . . . ]

After roll call, I immediately jumped down from the uppermost bunk and ran to him.  He was still breathing.  But — he was silent.

[ . . . ]

For a couple of hours I stayed by him and looked at his face long and well […] Then they forced me to go lie down to sleep. I climbed up to the uppermost bunk and I did not know that in the morning, on awakening, I would find my father no more.

It was the eighteenth of Shevat, 5705.  

* * *

 Nineteenth of Shevat.  Early in the morning.

 I got up and ran to my father.  Another sick man was lying in his place.

 I had a father no more. (pp 233-238)

Readers might be surprised to learn that the Hebrew calendar date of 18-19 Shevat, 5705 corresponds to February 1-2, 1945! How neat is that? So, in Un di velt Father dies seven days after arrival, on the very same day as Abraham Viezel died, who was officially recorded at Buchenwald with the registration number of 123488 and the Auschwitz registration number of A-7712. (However, Un di velt also says that the trip from Gleiwitz to Buchenwald took ten days, which means they could not have arrived until sometime in February. Seven days from that time would not be Feb. 2nd.)

So can we conclude from this that Abraham is Shlomo? Not necessarily. The Yiddish author  reports Father’s death as occurring during the night of 18-19 Shevat (Feb. 1-2), but Elie Wiesel, author of La Nuit, says the date is Jan. 28th! Why? Who can answer that but Elie Wiesel? He certainly knows what the month of Shevat and the year 5705 means … or he could have easily found out.

Or can we conclude that Un di velt was written by Lazar Wiesel, as Nikolaus Grüner claims … that he wrote his story as a father-son relationship … and that he was perhaps not the brother of Abraham as Grüner says he was? (It’s noted on Lazar’s Buchenwald file card that his father was also in Buchenwald; his mother in Auschwitz.) Well, again, not necessarily.  There are other possibilities. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The facts are, there are problems with all of these theories; none is a perfect fit. We can ask: If Elie Wiesel is the author of Un di velt hot geshvign, why did he change so many of the underpinning facts of the story when he rewrote it in French as La Nuit? This is a real head-scratcher. We can also ask: Why did Naomi Seidman, the Jewish professor who discussed in detail some of the differences between the Yiddish book and Night, not mention the 18th of Shevat? Is it because she couldn’t find an explanation for it? Siedman, Ruth Franklin and other Jewish reviewers have never brought up some of these Yiddish to French discrepancies. They are too embarrassing a problem for them.

What we can safely say is that no matter who the author of Un di velt was … he was totally unfamiliar with the real facts of when the Monowitz prisoners arrived at Buchenwald. Was it because he was not one of them? Was it  because he was not concerned about accuracy since his story was directed at a non-critical audience—a Yiddish-speaking Jewish audience? As we continue, we’ll find more mystifications, but also a few certainties.

 What happens to Eliezer after Father’s death?

Wiesel writes in Night (essentially the same in all translations):

I had to stay at Buchenwald until April eleventh. I have nothing to say of my life during this period. […] I was transferred to the children’s block, where there were six hundred of us. […] I spent my days in a state of total idleness. And I had one desire—to eat. I no longer thought of my father or of my mother. (SR, P 114)

He continues that on April 10, a general evacuation of the remainder of the camp—20,000 prisoners in all, including “several hundred children”—was begun but was soon interrupted. It resumed on the 11th but was again interrupted around ten a.m. when the camp inmate “resistance movement” rose up, firing guns. And then at 6 p.m. on that same day the first American tank arrived. This corresponds pretty well with the official story, but then it goes astray.

In a November 2000 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Wiesel recalled:

… and we [children] were left until the end. But every day we marched to the gate anyway. I was near the gate more than five times before I was released, and each time, the gate closed just before I came to it. 

Ah, we have heard this before, haven’t we? As exaggerated as it sounds, in Un di velt the author goes even further. He writes:

I didn’t even bother to try hiding myself.  Let myself be born along with the stream.  Tens of times I stood before the iron camp gate, on the threshold of death, and always something happened which brought us back to the block.  

Un di velt continues: “If I was not killed then it is merely thanks to almightly chance. For – because of the hunger, I even wanted to go to the gate: outside the gate, they were distributing bread and marmalade.”

UdV, P 244:  The first gesture of freedom: the starved men made an effort to get something to eat. They only thought about food. Not about revenge. Not about their parents. Only about bread. And even when they had satisfied their hunger—they still did not think about revenge.

SR, P 115: Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provisions. We thought only of that. Not of revenge, not of our families. Nothing but bread.

Oprah Winfrey interview:  Oprah asks, “After you were liberated, what did you do?” Wiesel answers: “The first thing many of us did was reassemble to say a prayer for the dead.”  (page 5)

*   *   *   * 

UdV, P 244:  Early the next day Jewish boys ran off to Weimar to steal clothing and potatoes. And to rape German girls [un tsu fargvaldikn daytshe shikses]. The historical commandment of revenge was not fulfilled.

LN, P 178:  Le lendemain, quelques jeunes gens coururent à Weimar ramasser des pommes de terre et des habits—et coucher avec des filles. Mais de vengeance, pas trace.

SR, P 116:  On the following day, some of the young men went to Weimar to get some potatoes and clothes—and to sleep with girls. But of revenge, not a sign.

MW, P115:  The next day a few of the young men ran into Weimar to bring back some potatoes and clothes—and to sleep with girls. But still no trace of revenge.

In this case, Wiesel made the change from ‘rape’ to ‘sleep with’ in La Nuit. The expression for “German girls” that we find in the Yiddish book was also removed. The term that was actually used is shikses, a word which originally meant “abomination” and which is used today as a term of contempt for all non-Jewish women. In other words, in saying daytshe shikses, the author was expressing, in rather vulgar terms, his contempt and hatred for German women. This apparently was not good for the eyes of the Goyim to see. It was changed by Wiesel in the French La Nuit, and thus it never reached our eyes until now.

Yet, the Yiddish author goes even further and decries the failure of the Jewish males to take a proper revenge, which is here envisioned as a much larger public act of retribution than the “too mild” raping of German women. (Public retribution, of course, did come later with the Nuremberg Military Tribunals.)

Eliezer is hospitalized for two weeks—April 14 to April 28

UdV P 244:  Three days after liberation I became very ill; food-poisoning. They took me to the hospital and the doctors said that I was gone. For two weeks I lay in the hospital between life and death. My situation grew worse from day to day.

SR P 116:  Three days after the liberation I became very ill with food poisoning. I was transferred to the hospital and spent two weeks between life and death.

MW P 115:  Three days after the liberation of Buchenwald, I became very ill: some form of poisoning. I was transferred to a hospital and spent two weeks between life and death.

Three days after liberation on April 11th is April 14th. Thus, Eliezer is in the hospital from April 14 until April 28—extremely ill, close to death. In his 1995 memoir, All Rivers Run to the Sea, Elie Wiesel claims that on that day (the 14th) he was thrown a can of lard, which he apparently ate although he doesn’t remember doing so. He lost consciousness and awoke in a hospital. But the addition of this story, which is in the original Un di velt, presents serious problems for Elie Wiesel. Perhaps the hospital story had slipped his mind when he decided to claim he was one of the survivors lying on a bunk in the “famous Buchenwald liberation photograph.” Because he was in the hospital …

He cannot be in the famous Buchenwald liberation photo taken on April 16 …

I have already demolished the false claim that Wiesel is in that photograph here. But on top of that, our translator found an interview of Leo Eitinger, a Jewish Czech-born psychiatrist, by Harry James Cargas, a friend and biographer of Elie Wiesel, which contained this gem:

 HJC:   The same thing happened with Livia Rothkirchen at Yad Vashem as happened with you. I was there doing research on atrocity photography for my book A Christian Response to the Holocaust and saw a photo that covers a large wall, of seventeen men lying in their bunks at liberation time. I think you’ve probably seen this picture. Wiesel and Dr. Rothkirchen passed it by many times, over a several-year period, before he told her he was in that photograph. I asked Elie if I could write something about it and he said, “No.” I wrote something and showed it to him and he gave me permission to publish it. 

The photo at Yad Vashem in Israel with Elie Wiesel posing in front of it in 1986 after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.

LE: I didn’t know Elie is in the photo.4

Cargas’ book was published in 1993, ten years after it was publicly announced that Elie Wiesel was in that photograph. Apart from the revelation that Cargas has to ask permission from Wiesel before he publishes anything about him, can you imagine that after walking by that famous photo for several years, Wiesel would finally think to say, “Oh hey, that’s me laying there, back in the shadows.”

He cannot have been present to agree to and sign the Military Questionaire on April 22 …

Much has been made by holocaust historians like Kenneth Waltzer and others I won’t name that this Fragebogen made out for Lázár Wiesel proves that Elie Wiesel was in Buchenwald. The birth date is not Elie’s; the date of arrest is not Elie’s; the signature is not Elie’s; the registration number belongs to another prisoner (Pavel Kun) who died only a month earlier; and on top of all that … Elie himself tells us in Night that he was lingering between life and death in the hospital on April 22. He was still six days away from having recovered enough to leave the hospital.

He cannot be in the photograph of the “Boys of Buchenwald” taken on April 27.

Kenneth Waltzer also claims on his Michigan State University website that Elie Wiesel is “seen to the left”  (short boy fourth from the front in left row wearing dark suit in front of the taller boy wearing a beret) in this photograph of the youths being transferred from the barracks inside Buchenwald to the former SS barracks on the outside. Why is Waltzer not paying attention to what is written in Night — that Eliezer was put in the hospital on the 14th of April, at death’s door, and remained for two weeks? One really has to wonder at the stupidity of holocaust historians. Or more likely — how stupid they think the rest of us are! See The Many Faces of Elie Wiesel.

The book’s ending: What does the long passage in Un di velt hot geshvign tell us?

UdV P 245:  One fine day I got up—with the last of my energy—and went over to the mirror that was hanging on the wall. I wanted to see myself. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.

From the mirror a skeleton gazed out.

Skin and bones.

I saw the image of myself after my death. It was at that instant that the will to live was awakened.

Without knowing why, I raised a balled-up fist and smashed the mirror, breaking the image that lived within it.

And then—I fainted.

From that moment on my health began to improve.

I stayed in bed for a few more days, in the course of which I wrote the outline of the book you are holding in your hand, dear reader.

But—

Now, ten years after Buchenwald, I see that the world is forgetting. Germany is a sovereign state, the German army has been reborn. The bestial sadist of Buchenwald, Ilsa Koch, is happily raising her children. War criminals stroll in the streets of Hamburg and Munich. The past has been erased. Forgotten.

Germans and antisemites persuade the world that the story of the six million Jewish martyrs is a fantasy, and the naive world will probably believe them, if not today, then tomorrow or the next day.

So I thought it would be a good idea to publish a book based on the notes I wrote in Buchenwald.

I am not so naive to believe that this book will change history or shake people’s beliefs. Books no longer have the power they once had. Those who were silent yesterday will also be silent tomorrow. I often ask myself, now, ten years after Buchenwald:

Was it worth breaking that mirror? Was it worth it?

SR P 116:  One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.

From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.

The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.

MW P 115:  One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.

From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me.

The look in his eyes as he as he gazed at me has never left me.

The difference in length between the Yiddish and the English passage is the first thing that strikes us. The Yiddish writer had a lot to say in these final thoughts. He regained his “will to live” right there in the hospital. Twice he speaks of writing an outline and notes for Un di velt hot geshvign  while still in his hospital bed. But there is no record by Elie Wiesel anywhere that says he did any writing in preparation for writing his “testimony” while in the camp (in fact, just the opposite), or at any time in advance of 1954.

The tragic true story of Ilse Koch is that she gave birth to one child while a prisoner of the Americans but she certainly was not allowed to raise him. She was hounded, vilified and persecuted after the war, retried by a German court in 1951 after being acquitted at the IMT, and ultimately given a life sentence—solely, it can be argued, to satisfy Jewish vengeance. She committed suicide in prison in 1967.

The Yiddish author also mentions the “six million Jewish martyrs” … in 1954. This number emerged from the Nuremberg Tribunals, but we know that claims of “six million Jewish victims” goes all the way back to the 1890’s.

All this and more was cut out for the French La Nuit (which, remember, was written by Wiesel) and the English versions which were taken from the French. As has been noted by Jewish commentators themselves, the Yiddish writer is an angry, politically-minded religious Jew who expected, or wished, the world to have been transformed by the travail of the Jews during WWII. He is bitterly disappointed. There is more in this final chapter of the Yiddish book that doesn’t appear in the French or English versions. Here is just one passage:

 Dreams of truth, of freedom are false dreams for men. Visions of justice and equality are false visions for men. Man is: the struggle for bread, for meat; man is: the struggle to satisfy one’s own instincts.

Man is instinct to the core.  Flesh to the core.  And not heart.  And not spirit.  And not morality.

I learned that in Buchenwald. And what one learns in such conditions is without a doubt the truth, the purest truth.  For man can really know man only in extreme conditions, when he has thrown away from himself all masks, social and psychological, and appears before us naked, as he is in truth.

In Buchenwald I saw the true face of man.  The face of a human animal, which is worse than a true animal. O God, woe is you, woe is man, how trifling and puny.  Ought you to even exist, if the son of Adam was made in your image!

God . . . I had ceased to believe in his existence.  But despite that, I continued to believe in his evil. (UdV, P 240-41)

Was this written by Elie Wiesel? If it was, he is a man who has put on his own mask to play the game of Jewish vengeance against the goyim persecutors of his people. In other parts of Night, Wiesel writes of losing his faith in a caring God, of no longer following his religion—but later he denied that is true, even though he wrote it! But this passage in Un di velt is too passionate to dismiss as merely a passing sense of discouragement. That is, of course, unless it is just a literary construct and doesn’t reflect any truth of the author.

What does it all mean?

The title of this two-part article is “What Changes were made to Elie Wiesel’s Night, and Why.” I didn’t promise to solve the mystery of the author of Un di velt hot geshvign, but I did hope I might do so, or at least eliminate some contenders.

I confess I expected there to be more difference between the Yiddish and the French books than it turns out to be. It is now clear that La Nuit was taken directly from Un di velt, although that doesn’t mean they were written by the same person. However, that is the greater likelihood unless it can be proven otherwise. Similarly, if Elie Wiesel is the author of Un di velt, it doesn’t mean he was in the camps. The fact that the books are filled with errors argues against it.

Night is a novel

It’s difficult to come to any certainties when the material we have to work with is so internally inconsistent and when there are several versions of it—similar in some ways to the many versions of the Anne Frank Diary. But we can conclude for certain that Night only works as a novel, not as an autobiography—no matter how much the Jewish spin doctors say that a memoir, to be a work of “great literature,” must include some fictional flights of fancy. Nowhere does Night fit the facts. Even with wife Marion’s changes in 2006, it couldn’t be pulled together enough to make a convincing true-life testimony. And we know how many of these “survivor novels” there are around. It’s not like many other hopefuls didn’t have the same idea!

The Lazar-Lázár Riddle

In spite of all the above, I would like to propose a hypothetical scenario, one that I am not endorsing, for obvious reasons, but that does have the value of answering one of the more ignored aspects of this riddle, namely the way the 32-year-old Lazar Wiesel disappeared at the same time the 16-year-old Lázár Wiesel appeared. This cannot be denied. Thirty-one-year-old Lazar arrived at Buchenwald in January; sixteen-year-old Lázár left there in July. The easiest explanation for this is that Lazar wanted to have the papers of a 16-year-old Buchenwald orphan so he could be sent to France. In the confusion of the last months of the war and the immediate post-war period, this kind of thing became more possible.  Such an explanation may sound a little far-fetched, but is it any harder to swallow than Elie Wiesel not having the tattoo (Auschwitz ID number) that he says he has? Or Elie Wiesel not having his own Buchenwald identification number, but “borrowing” a dead man’s (Pavel Kun, 2 years older than Elie) right before, or after, liberation? These things don’t make sense. Nor does the fact that in La Nuit Elie Wiesel wrote that his father died on Jan. 28, 1945, while in the Yiddish book that he also claims to have written as his own “testimony” the date is Feb. 2nd?  Or that he wrote that the Russian Army took over the Auschwitz complex two days after its evacuation, which everyone knows is false?

Elie Wiesel even wrote in Night that his foot was operated on right before the evacuation of Auschwitz, while in his later real memoir, All Rivers Run to the Sea (pp 89-90), he flat-out recalled it as his knee, something that could not be mis-remembered. I could list many of these senseless “mistakes,” many of which I have written about in earlier articles.

There is something that doesn’t fit well into this Lazar-Lázár hypothesis, though—that is, that we have pictures of the real Elie Wiesel in France at the Jewish welfare orphanage, OSE. But how did he get through a year at Auschwitz and Buchenwald with no records of his being there … and a poor memory of what occurred and when?  Did he somehow manage to attach himself to the Buchenwald transport with the stolen identity papers? But also, there are other ways he could have come to be at the Ecouis homes in France than in the children’s transport from Buchenwald. Just as there are other ways he could have come into possession of the Yiddish Un di velt without writing it himself.

Was Elie Wiesel in the camps?

My answer is still no. Wiesel could have been in some camps in some capacity under some auspices, but he is not telling the truth about what camp experience he did have. That means Hilda Wiesel Kudler is also not telling the truth but is standing by her brother. She says at the end of her bitter testimony to the Shoah Foundation, “I will not forget, and I will not forgive.” Have you ever wondered why Elie has not contributed a videotaped testimony to the Spielberg/USC Shoah Foundation library?

Wiesel’s other sister, who changed her name to Beatrice from Batia, never wrote or testified a word about it. She did go to work for Jewish organizations in Germany, however, immediately after the war, helping Jews to emigrate to wherever they wanted to go, including Palestine. The whole family were committed Zionists, as were most Eastern European/Russian Jews who were able to flood into the West because of the war. ‘Bea’ finally got her own papers to emigrate to Canada.

A Jewish organization, Sharit Ha-Platah, gathered names of Jews who were liberated from Dachau and it’s many sub-camps and published them in 1946. This is the only record so far found with the names of Hilda and Beatrice Wiesel, and it is a self-identified list of Jews by Jews, not an official German record of forced laborers or prisoners. So the hard evidence for the Wiesel family is not there. It doesn’t mean they weren’t, however; it’s  just that we’re left with believing what they say, because we want to or because we’re expected to.

The easiest option is to go along with Elie Wiesel’s story that he was in those camps, and question his credibility from other angles, such as the in-credible stories he tells. This is what revisionists had done before Nikolaus Grüner came along and released documents he had obtained from Buchenwald and the correspondence he had with the archivists there. These documents cannot be ignored, in spite of what other nonsense Grüner writes in his book Stolen Identity. These documents have caused a sea change in revisionism about Elie Wiesel, to the extent that it can be divided between pre-Grüner and post-Grüner research and writing.

Wiesel needs to expose himself to questions

Because of these documents, it is up to Elie Wiesel to come forth and answer questions about them. But being that he is completely unprepared to do so, this job has been given to his surrogates—Professor Waltzer for one. Kenneth Waltzer promised, with a lot of bombast, that he would produce proof that Elie is Lazar and that Shlomo is Abraham, but for a year now he has failed to produce it, or even say anything more about it. He has also failed to come out with his promised book, “The Rescue of Children and Youths at Buchenwald,” which was to include Elie Wiesel. In the opinion of this writer, Waltzer is as big a fraud as Wiesel, selling emotion and sentimentality instead of factual history. They are both supported with professorships at well-funded universities.

So, back to the main question: Was Elie Wiesel in Auschwitz and Buchenwald?  As I said, my answer is still no … and no one should accept that he was without some further explanation from him, during which he subjects himself to questions. If he’s genuine, he can certainly withstand questions. That, however, is not going to happen because … fill in your own answer.

Elie Wiesel has kept the details of his life before 1955 vague. He has managed to prevent unwanted questions from being asked of him. He hides behind a stated aversion to “holocaust deniers” so that anyone who is not a 100% believer is not welcome in his company. He gets away with the ‘moral outrage’ he professes toward anyone who doubts, thus no interviewer, reporter, writer, academic, student or even President dares to doubt in his presence. It works like a charm.

Endnotes

1.  Danuta Czech,  Auschwitz Chronicle: 1939-1945.  New York: Henry Holt, 1997

2.  APMO, D-Bu 3/17, pp. 18-85, 87 (transport list as cited by Czech in Auschwitz Chronicle)

3.  Hilda was obviously unaware that the march itself was only 24 hours, probably because she had heard so many false and exaggerated stories about “endless days of marching” that proliferate in survivor stories.

4.  Harry James Cargas, ed.  Voices from the Holocaust, Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1993.  pp. 116-22.

 

 

Night #1 and Night #2—What Changes were Made and Why, Part One

Friday, February 17th, 2012

By Carolyn Yeager
copyright 2012 Carolyn Yeager

On Tuesday, January 17, 2006, Amazon.com announced that it was changing the categorization of a new translation of Elie Wiesel’s Night from novel to memoir.

Amazon would also revise the editorial description of the original edition to make clear that they consider the book a memoir, not a novel. “We hope to make these changes as quickly as possible,” said Jani Strand, a spokeswoman for the online retailer. The day before, Oprah Winfrey had announced that Night was her latest book club choice, displacing her previous selection, James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces.

The sudden switch from fiction to non-fiction caused some discussion and questions, which Strand brushed away by saying,  “Amazon.com’s data source for the Oprah Book Club edition of Night inaccurately classified the book as fiction.” She declined to offer details. The book, re-classified as “Autobiography” and blessed by Oprah, was already No.3 on Amazon.com as of that Tuesday afternoon! Wiesel, interviewed later with his literary agent Georges Borchardt, insisted they had never portrayed it as a novel.

But the publisher did.1 There has been confusion about the question for so long—even Wiesel’s defenders have to admit it. Ruth Franklin, in her 2011 book, A Thousand Darknesses, wrote: “Unfortunately, Night is an imperfect ambassador for the infallibility of the memoir, owing to the fact that it has been treated very often as a novel—by journalists, by scholars, and even by its publishers.”2  On Night’s Wikipedia page it has long been described as autobiography, memoir, novel—yes, all three. How long will that continue? As long as there are editions of Night that still sport those labels, one assumes.

Left: Oprah Winfrey and Elie Wiesel pose together at the  Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Award Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on May  20, 2007.  Winfrey was honored  with  the  Humanitarian   Award for “positively impacting people all over the world, especially children.”  One year earlier, she had selected Wiesel’s “Night” for her popular book club “pick” which sent it immediately to the top of the national bestseller lists.

As for Wiesel and Borchardt, they answered questions about differences in the text of the new edition by saying they were not significant enough to justify raising questions. The next day, Wiesel’s wife Marion, the translator of the new edition of Night, said in an interview that among the changes was a reference to the age of the book’s narrator when he arrives in 1944 at Birkenau, the entry point for Auschwitz.

“At no point did this change the meaning and the fact of anything in the book,” Marion Wiesel said. She explained it this way:  The narrator tells a fellow prisoner that he is “not quite 15.” But the scene takes place in Spring 1944. Mr. Wiesel, born on Sept. 30, 1928, would have already been 15, going on 16. So in the new edition, she changed it to “15.” Whaaaa? She changed the age of Eliezer as it was written in the Yiddish book to fit Elie Wiesel, who was fifteen and a half at that time. What is written in the Yiddish original, Un di velt hot geshvign, we also find in the original Night, so that can only be called unethical. Marion tried to joke it away, telling reporters “I kidded Elie and told him, ‘I don’t think you can add.'”

But that particular change, rather than insignificant, was one of the major reasons that a new translation was undertaken. There are other quite significant changes in the new edition that will be enumerated in this article. When you learn what they are, you can decide for yourself if you think they are insignificant.

Right: Marion Wiesel is the translator of the 2006 edition of  Night. Here, in 2010, she attends an after party at The Monkey Bar for Oliver Stone’s new “South of the Border” New York premiere at Cinema 21.

Wiesel wrote a Preface to the New Translation, something he didn’t have in the original La Nuit or Night.

In his preface, Wiesel begins: “Why did I write it? … so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness …”

He continues in this vein—typical Wiesel mystical-religious style. However, in his only description of the writing process of this book—the typing of the 862 pages which he titled Un di velt hot geshvign, according to his later memoir—it is hard to believe that he was in such a state of mind. He writes in All Rivers Run to the Sea that during this time in Paris he is busy with his newspaper job and contacts; also involved in a love affair with a woman named Hanna. He embarks on a major journalistic assignment in Brazil, sent by his editor, taking along a friend to keep him company on the ship’s crossing. They both get free tickets from a “resourceful Israeli friend”—these benefactors are usually unnamed. As the voyage begins, he says his mind is dwelling on Hanna and whether he should take the marriage step that she had asked for.

I can’t imagine an atmosphere less conducive to writing about what he describes as “the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history.” But he continues very matter-of-factly in All Rivers, “During the crossing I wrote my testimony …” and in one short paragraph tells us all he thought important to say about it. Moreover, he has never elaborated on it since!

In the new preface, Wiesel writes that in retrospect he doesn’t know what he wanted to achieve with his words, but then he comes up with something: “I knew that I must bear witness. I also knew that, while I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them.” He needed to “invent a new language.” He is not speaking of an actual language, like German, French or English—but a language of survivors, or for survivors. Wiesel writes that common words like “hunger—thirst—fear—transport—selection—fire—chimney … all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times, they meant something else.” Really? He does not explain how that is so. But Wiesel has tried to create the idea of holocaust survivors as a special class, set apart, who know things others do not know, and can never understand—”Only those who experienced Auschwitz know what it was. Others will never know.”

Wiesel describes his writing as slow!  “Writing in my mother tongue (Yiddish) … I would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again. I would conjure up other verbs, other images, other silent cries. It still was not right.” This contrasts totally with his description in his memoir All Rivers Run to the Sea (p. 238-40)  that he wrote the original Yiddish manuscript fast and feverishly without re-reading!

Why a new translation of Night after 45 years of success with the old one?

Here again, Wiesel hedges in the preface and doesn’t have a convincing answer. He says his wife Marion has translated other books for him, and “knows his voice better than anyone else.” He says he didn’t pay enough attention to the original English translation by Stella Rodway—after his first reading of Night from the publisher, he never read it again. As for Mrs. Wiesel: “Fluent in French, she had never read the English version,” she said. But good news! Elie Wiesel Cons The World has found a translator and now has large portions of the Yiddish book translated into English. We can compare the real 245-page original to both the 1960 English translation from the French by Stella Rodway and the 2006 English translation done by Marion Wiesel.

In doing so, we have made two important discoveries.

First, Stella Rodway’s 1960 English translation of Night is an accurate rendition of the French text of La Nuit, as originally published in 1958.  That means that if there are any “errors” in the Night story, they weren’t put there by Stella Rodway.

Second, when we compare the three texts—the original version of Night, as translated by Rodway, the “corrected” 2006 translation by Marion Wiesel, and the 1955 Yiddish original of Un di velt hot geshvign—we find that the “errors” brought up by Marion Wiesel are for the greater part what was actually written in the original Yiddish book, though usually in more detail there.

In other words, the 1955 Yiddish version, the 1958 French version, and the 1960 English version generally agree—only the “corrected” 2006 translation is different.  So, are these really errors of translation that Marion Wiesel is fixing for us?  Or are they not simply problems for Elie Wiesel?  Under close scrutiny, the Elie Wiesel narrative has huge holes which bring up embarrassing questions, and this is what Marion Wiesel’s new translation was meant to head off.

Left: Original Night cover, 1960, features the title, while the author’s name is exceptionally small and insignificant. Francois Mauriac’s forward is featured.  In 2006, the author becomes the “title,” i.e. the main selling point, and Mauriac is no longer mentioned, although his forward remains in the book.

A Comparison of the 1960 original with the 2006 new version.

Following are the most “significant” differences I have found between the Stella Rodway 1960 translation and the Marion Wiesel 2006 translation. To make as clear a case as possible, I begin with the Yiddish [UdV] and its French translation La Nuit [LN], followed by the Stella Rodway English translation [SR]. Finally, Marion Wiesel’s revised translation [MW]. The word or phrase being compared is in boldface. Number one has already been written about in When Did Elie Wiesel Arrive at Auschwitz?

1.  The Saturday before Pentecost … or two weeks before?

UdV Page 22: Geshen iz dos Shbth far Shbw’wth. A friling-zun hot oysgegosn ir likht un varemkeyt iber der gorer velt un oykh iber geto …  /  It happened Saturday [Sabbath] before Shavuot. The springtime sun had spread its light and warmth over the whole world, and even over the ghetto. . . .

LN Page 29: Le samedi précédant la Pentecôte, sous un soleil printanier, les gens se promenaient insouciants à travers les rues grouillantes de monde / The Saturday preceding Pentecost …

SR Page 23:  On the Saturday before Pentecost, in the Spring sunshine, people strolled carefree and unheeding, through the swarming streets.

MW Page 12:  Some two weeks before Shavuot (Pentecost). A sunny spring day, people strolled seemingly carefree through the crowded streets.

The Yiddish, the French and the original English versions agree—it was the Saturday before the festival of Pentecost/Shavuot—but Marion Wiesel’s new edition sets that date back by two whole weeks. This is very significant because, as the story continues, it was later on the following day that the Jews of Sighet were forced to leave their homes in preparation for their eventual deportation:  “The ghetto was to be liquidated entirely. We were to leave street by street, starting the following day.”

So Mrs.Wiesel was NOT correcting errors in the English translation, but changing the text to fit the reality of when the Hungarians from Sighet arrived at Birkenau.  Pentecost was on Sunday, May 28, 1944. The “Saturday before Pentecost” is thus May 27. Some two weeks before is May 14.

Un di velt hot geshvign, La Nuit and the Rodway translation all have Eliezer’s family leaving on the final journey to Auschwitz around June 2nd, six days after Pentecost/Shavuot, which was a Friday. However, they also agree that “Saturday, the day of rest, was chosen for our expulsion.” So it’s necessary for us to add another day to the family’s stay in the small ghetto to make the chronology work.  On Saturday, then, the Jews are marched to the synagogue and spend the night there; in the morning, Sunday June 4, they board the train: “The following morning [Sunday], we marched to the station, where a convoy of cattle wagons was waiting. [… ] We were on our way.”  Four days and three nights on the train (according to the description in Night) makes their arrival date June 6, 1944, around midnight.

But this is not only long after the prisoner number A7713—which Elie Wiesel supposedly received at Auschwitz, and still (again, supposedly!) has tattooed on his left arm—had been given out, but also long after the last transport left from Sighet.  Indeed, there were no transports from the town after May, according to official records.

Marion Wiesel did not mention this one to the reporters; nor did Elie speak of it in his preface to his wife’s translation. But it was discovered by our translator. Marion Wiesel’s arbitrary “correction” allows Eliezer’s family to leave on May 21 and to arrive  by May 24 (just before midnight!) thus making it possible for Eliezer to receive the registration number A7713. This is a very significant change, probably the most significant in her entire new English translation.

An added note: This interesting passage is on page 27 of Un di velt, but is not included in the shorter French or English Night:

We had opportunities and possibilities to hide with regular goyim and with prominent personalities. Many non-Jews from the surrounding villages had begged us, that we would come to them. There were bunkers available for us in villages or in the mountains. But we had cast aside all proposals. Why? Quite simple: the calendar showed April 1944 and we, the Jews of Sighet, still knew nothing about Treblinka, Buchenwald and Auschwitz.

Now we have April as the general time of deportation!  So according to the timeline we find in Un di velt, Eliezer and his family left Sighet some time in June, while the calendar on their wall still said April . . .  and in the meantime, we know from official Auschwitz records that the deportations actually occurred in the last two weeks of May.  The person who wrote this knew nothing about the real deportation dates for the Sighet Jews.

2.  Copulating on the train … or just caressing?

UdV Page 47:  Tsulib der engshaft hobn a sakh instinktn zikh dervekt in kerper.  Erotishe instinktn, un untern forhang fun der nakht hobn yungeleyt un froyen zikh gelozn bahersht durkh di oyfgereytste chwshym zeyere.

Ot der ershter rezultat fun umglik: erotishe freyheyt.  Di shpanung fun di letste teg hot itst gezukht a veg vi oystsulodn zikh un der leychtster iz geven – an erotisher.

Di erotishe stsenes hobn nisht dervekt keyn protestn mtsd di eltere Yidn.  Zey hobn farmakht oyern un oygn, zikh gemakht nisht zen un nisht hern.  In moment fun schnh faln avek di keytn fun der konventsioneler moral.  Mentshn hobn zikh getrakht: ver veys vos der morgn iz “lwl tsu brengen?  Zol yugnt oysnutsn dem heynt, oystsapn fun im dem letstn hn’h-tropn . . .

In English: Because of the crowding, a host of instincts awoke in [people’s] bodies.  Erotic instincts – and beneath the curtain of night young men and women let themselves be ruled by their aroused senses.

And so the first result of misfortune: erotic freedom.  The stress of the last days now sought a way to discharge itself, and the easiest was – an erotic one.

The erotic scenes did not arouse any protests from the older Jews.  They closed their ears and eyes, and forced themselves not to see and hear.  In the moment of danger, the chains of conventional morality fall away.  People thought to themselves: who knows what the morning is likely to bring?  Youth must seize the day, squeeze from it the last drops of pleasure . . .

LN Page 45: Libérés de toute censure sociale, les jeunes se laissaient aller ouvertement à leurs instincts et à la faveur de la nuit, s’accouplaient au milieu de nous, sans se préoccuper de qui que ce fût, seuls dans le monde.  Les autres faisaient semblant de ne rien voir.

SR Page 34:  “Free from all social constraint, the young people gave way openly to instinct, taking advantage of the darkness to copulate in our midst, without caring about anyone else, as though they were alone in the world. The rest pretended not to notice anything.”

MW Page 23:  “Freed of normal constraints, some of the young let go of their inhibitions and, under cover of darkness, caressed one another, without any thought of others, alone in the world. The others pretended not to notice.”

Elie Wiesel did not mention this change in his preface to the new English translation by his wife, but he did give quite a lengthy explanation (humorous to us) in the preface he wrote for the new French edition. This is what he said there:

Thanks to her, it was possible for me to correct an incorrect expression or impression here and there.  An example: I describe the first night-time voyage in the sealed cars, and I mention that certain persons had taken advantage of the darkness to commit sexual acts.  That’s false. In the Yiddish text, I say that “young boys and girls allowed themselves to be mastered by their excited erotic instincts.”  I have checked among many absolutely trustworthy sources.  In the train, all the families were still together.  A few weeks of the ghetto could not have degraded our behavior to the point of violating customs, mores and ancient laws.  That there may have been some clumsy touching, that is possible.  But that was all.  Nothing went any further.  But then, why did I say that in Yiddish, and allow it to be translated into French and English?  The only possible explanation: it is myself I am speaking of.  It is myself that I condemn.  I imagine that the adolescent that I was then, in the throes of puberty even if profoundly pious, could not resist such erotic imaginings, enriched by the physical proximity between men and women.

The original French : Grâce à elle, il me fut permis de corriger çà et là une expression ou une impression erronées. Exemple : j’évoque le premier voyage nocturne dans les wagons plombés et je mentionne que certaines personnes avaient profité de l’obscurité pour commettre des actes sexuels. C’est faux. Dans le texte yiddish je dis que « des jeunes garçons et filles se sont laissés maîtriser par leurs instincts érotiques excités. » J’ai vérifié auprès de plusieurs sources absolument sûres. Dans le train toutes les familles étaient encore réunies. Quelques semaines de ghetto n’ont pas pu dégrader notre comportement au point de violer coutumes, moeurs et lois anciennes. Qu’il y ait eu des attouchements maladroits, c’est possible. Ce fut tout. Nul n’est allé plus loin. Mais alors, pourquoi l’ai-je dit en yiddish et permis de le traduire en français et en anglais? La seule explication possible: c’est de moi-même que je parle. C’est moi-même que je condamne. J’imagine que l’adolescent que j’étais, en pleine puberté bien que profondément pieux, ne pouvait résister à l’imaginaire érotique enrichi par la proximité physique entre hommes et femmes.

Is this convincing, dear readers? Consider that the narrator of Un di velt says exactly the opposite of what Wiesel tries to present in his new French preface: the first result of a few weeks in the ghetto was erotic freedom, which was acted out in front of everyone in the train. And the “erotic instincts” that the youths let themselves be “ruled by” clearly must have involved sexual intercourse—why else would everyone have needed to shut their eyes and ears so tightly?

The Elie Wiesel of 2006 (and perhaps the Hasidic rebbes had something to do with this?) wants us to believe in the inviolable sanctity of the Jews’ “customs, mores and ancient laws,” and also in their innate respect for their elders and one another. But he is directly contradicted by what are, we are told, his own words of fifty years ago : “In the moment of danger, the chains of conventional morality fall away.”  Which Wiesel do we believe?

And Ruth Franklin, senior editor at The New Republic,  has the temerity to insist (toward the end of her 2006 review article) that “his [Elie’s] original suggestion that couples “copulated” in the cattle cars on the way to Auschwitz  . . .  was always a gross mistranslation of the original Yiddish.”  We’ve shown you here that it isn’t.

3.  Not yet fifteen … or fifteen?

UdV Page 63 : Yingl, vi alt bistu? fregt mir a heftling.  Zeyn pnym iz geven in der fintster, ober zeyn kol iz geven a mids, a varems. Nokh nisht keyn 15 yor, hob ikh geentfert.

“Kid, how old are you?” a prisoner asked me.  His face was in darkness, but his voice was tired and warm. “Not yet 15 years,” I answered.

LN Page 54:  Hé, le gosse, quel âge as-tu?  C’était un détenu qui m’interrogeait.  Je ne voyais pas son visage, mais sa voix était lasse et chaude.  “Pas encore quinze ans.” / Not yet 15 years.

SR Page 39: “Here, kid, how old are you?” It was one of the prisoners who asked me this. I could not see his face, but his voice was tense and weary. “I’m not quite fifteen yet.”

MW Page 30:  “Hey, kid, how old are you?” The man interrogating me was an inmate. I could not see his face, but his voice  was weary and warm.  “Fifteen”

This very important passage was discussed above. I think the reader would agree that “not yet 15″ can mean even farther from the age of 15 than “not quite fifteen.” What is clear is that Marion Wiesel has changed the author’s original words to fit them to her husband’s age in Spring 1944.

4.   April … or May?

UdV Page 83:  A sheyner April-tog iz es geven. A frilings-rich in der luft.  In English:  It was a beautiful April day. A scent of spring in the air.

LN Page 69: C’était une belle journee d’avril.  Des parfums de printemps flottaient dans l’air.  Le soleil baissait vers l’ouest.

SR Page 49:  It was a beautiful April day. The fragrance of spring was in the air. The sun was setting in the west.

MW Page 40:  It was a beautiful day in  May. The fragrances of spring were in the air. The sun was setting.

(See again When Did Wiesel Arrive) Once more, the original Night as translated by Stella Rodway agrees with the Yiddish and the French; Marion Wiesel arbitrarily changed April to May, yet said her translation did not “change the meaning or the fact of anything in the book”  … what she calls a “significant change.” Well, this is a significant change, and for the same reason as given in number 1 above.

5.  Himmler … or “Reichsfuehrer Himmler?”

UdV Page 124-5:  “In nomen fun Himler . . . der heftling num’ . . . hot gegnbet . . . bsh”thn luft-alarm . . . loytn gezets, paragraf . . . iz der heftling num’ . . . farurteylt tsum toyt!  Zol dos zeyn a lere un a beyshpil far ale heftlingen . . .”

“In the name of Himmler . . . prisoner number . . . stole . . .  during the air raid . . . according to the law, paragraph . . . prisoner number . . . is condemned to death.  May this be a lesson and an example for all prisoners.”

LN Page 100:  “Au nom de Himmler ... Le détenu N^o… a dérobé pendant l’alerte… “

SR Page 68:  “In the name of Himmler … prisoner Number … stole during the alert … According to the law … paragraph …prisoner Number … is condemned to death. May this be a warning and an example to all prisoners.”

MW Page 62:  “In the name of  Reichsfuehrer Himmler … prisoner number … stole during the air raid … according to the law … prisoner number … is condemned to death. Let this be a warning …..”

Again, the Yiddish and the original Night agree.  However, no trained member of the SS, or even the Wehrmacht, would ever have shown such disrespect as to use Himmler’s name in such a formal context without his full title: Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler.  Marion Wiesel tried to fix the error by adding “Reichsfuehrer,” but she still gets it wrong: you don’t drop the “SS.”  On its own, this tells us that the speech was an imaginary one  invented by the author (whoever that is), someone who was never present at such a scene. Indeed, lack of knowledge about how the SS functioned in the camps is evident throughout the book. For example, the SS did not normally go inside the barracks; everything inside was handled by the kapos.

6. Ten days and ten nights … or just “days and nights”

UdV Page 207:  Tsen teg un tsen nekht hot gedoyert di reyze. / Ten days and ten nights the trip lasted.

LN Page 155:   Dix jours, dix nuits de voyage.  Il nous arrivait de traverser des localités allemandes.

SR Page101:  Ten days, ten nights of traveling.  Sometimes we would pass through German townships.

MW Page 100:  There followed days and nights of traveling. Occasionally we would pass through German towns.

In January of 1945, as the advancing Red Army approached Auschwitz, a decision was made to evacuate, sending the prisoners to other camps in Germany.  Evacuation of the Monowitz (Auschwitz III) camp, to which Eliezer and Father had previously been transferred, began at 6 p.m. on January 18. The prisoners were given extra clothing and food—bread to carry with them. They also had whatever food they had saved up. After marching all night during a snowfall, they rested in the morning in an old brick factory. In late afternoon, they began again and reached Gleiwitz camp in a few hours [night, Jan. 19]; they then remained in Gleiwitz barracks for three days. On the 22nd  they went to the train stop and waited until evening. They were brought bread for the journey. The convoy set out

From there, as we see above, the Yiddish, the 1958 French and 1960 English versions agree on the trip lasting ten days and nights. But Marion Wiesel removes the number ten because it makes Eliezer’s timeline for the death of his father on Jan. 28/29 completely impossible. Another very significant change. Ten days and nights from the night of Jan. 22nd is the night of Feb 1, 1945.

This shows that the author of Un di velt knew nothing about the transport that arrived at Buchenwald on January 26 with 3000 prisoners from Auschwitz. This is the transport that, according to existing official records, brought Lazar and Abraham Wiesel to Buchenwald, who were registered at the camp there on  . . . January 26, 1945! (See Buchenwald Archivist Cannot ID Elie Wiesel, How True to Life is Wiesel’s description of Buchenwald, and Gigantic Fraud Carried Out.)

7. Fifteen … or sixteen?

UdV Page 213:  I was fifteen years old then. Do you understand—fifteen? Is it any wonder that I, along with my generation, do not believe either in God or in man; in the feelings of a son, in the love of a father. Is it any Wonder that I cannot realize that I myself experienced this thing, that my childish eyes had witnessed it?  (This passage from Moshe Spiegel’s stand-alone translation of Chapter Six of Un di velt hot geshvign, published as “The Death Train” in the 1968 volume Anthology of Holocaust Literature.)

LN Page 158:  J’avais quinze ans. / I was fifteen.

SR Page 103:  I was fifteen years old.

MW Page 102:  I was sixteen.

In the original versions, Eliezer repeats that he is fifteen years old in January 1945. Elie Wiesel’s birth date is Sept. 30, 1928 so on that day in 1944 he became sixteen years old, making him 16 years and 4 months when this particular event on the train to Buchenwald occurred in late January 1945. Once again, Marion Wiesel simply changes the age as she did before — if Elie was actually sixteen at that time, then Eliezer, the character in the book, must be too!

In Part Two, I will construct the timeline of the events in Buchenwald following the arrival of Eliezer and his father, and other details about Buchenwald. What will we find out?  Stay tuned.

Endnotes:

1. On the back cover of the original hardcover Night,  with the black & white striped jacket (as pictured here), it is printed “Literature” as the classification.  

2.  Ruth Franklin,  A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction, Oxford University Press, 2011,  pp 71-72.

Unfortunately, Night is an imperfect ambassador for the infallibility of the memoir, owing to the fact that it has been treated very often as a novel—by journalists, by scholars, and even by its publishers.  Lawrence Langer, in his landmark study The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination, notes that Night “continues to be classified and critically acclaimed as a novel, and not without reason.” . . .

Nonetheless, in 1997 Publishers Weekly columnist Paul Nathan had to issue a correction apologizing for referring to the book as an “autobiographical novel”; he had been misled, he said, by the entry on Wiesel in The International Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Biography.  In response, the correction itself was challenged by the director of Penguin Reference Books, publishers of the biography dictionary, who cited half a dozen sources to the effect that Night was in fact a novel.  Together with most critics, Gary Weissman, who recounted the above history in his book Fantasies of Witnessing: Postwar Efforts to Experience the Holocaust, seems to concur with Ernst Pawel’s remark in an early magazine survey of Holocaust fiction, that “the line between fact and fiction, tenuous at best, tends to vanish altogether in autobiographical novels such as Night.”  The hybrid terms used to describe it include “novel/autobiography,” “non-fictional novel,” “semi-fictional memoir,” “fictional-autobiographical memoir,” “fictionalized autobiographical memoir,” and “memoir-novel.

GO TO PART TWO