Posted on September 11, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Signatures prove Lázár Wiesel is not Elie Wiesel
by Carolyn Yeager
copyright 2010 carolyn yeager
What can be simpler than to compare two signatures of the same name to determine whether they are indeed the same or two different individuals? Fortunately, we have available not only the signature of Elie Wiesel, but also that of Lázár Wiesel. The latter is on the “Military Government of Germany Concentration Camp Inmates Questionnaire.” This Questionnaire (Fragebogen in German) can be seen among The Documents pertaining to the Lazar Wiesel/Elie Wiesel question.
The importance of this lies in the fact that we only have one Lazar Wiesel at a time at Buchenwald, according to the records. Lazar Wiesel, born Sept. 4, 1913 arrived at the camp on January 26, 1945, along with his brother Abram, born Oct. 10, 1900, in a large transport from Auschwitz. They both have Buchenwald registration (or entry) numbers.
After the liberation in April, a questionnaire is filled out by a Lázár Wiesel who accents his name in the Hungarian style, giving a birth date of Oct. 4, 1928, and this Lazar is listed on the “childrens” transport to France in July. Neither of these Lazar Wiesel’s fit Elie Wiesel with his birth date of Sept. 30, 1928, and now I find his signature doesn’t match either.
On the left, Elie Wiesel’s well-known signature; on the right, the signature of Lázár Wiesel (last name is written first).
Two more examples of Elie’s book signing. The same style of open, very loose script is also found on the form he filled out for the Yad Vashem Central Database of Shoah Victims, testifying to his father Shlomo’s death at Buchenwald in January 1945. You can view it on their Internet site. Shlomo Vizel is on page 4 of the names.
I suggest that this signature comparison leaves little doubt that the two men are not the same person. Elie Wiesel is NOT the Lázár Wiesel who was liberated from Buchenwald, or who traveled to France with the “Buchenwald Orphans.”1 The young Lázár Wiesel, born Oct. 4, 1928 according to these Buchenwald documents, and whose name and birth date appear on the transport list of “orphaned children” sent from Germany to France in July 1945 (see #14 on The Documents page) has such a visibly different style of writing from the Elie Wiesel who falsely claims to be on that list,2 that the two cannot be confused.
DATES OF ARREST DON’T MATCH
There is more evidence that they are not the same person in the form of the date of arrest shown on the same questionnaire. The date of arrest of Lázár Wiesel is given as April 16, 1944. That is the same day Samuel Jakobovits was arrested. Samuel and Lázár gave each others name as one of three references on their questionnaires, suggesting they were probably friends, or at least acquaintances, that had arrived at the same time.
Myklos Grüner’s date of arrest on his questionnaire is also 16 April 1944, from the city or surrounding area of Nyiregyhaza, Hungary. This can raise a question about the use of April 16 as some kind of “standard” date used by the military authorities in charge of the questionnaires. However, in his book Stolen Identity, Grüner does specify that on April 14, Hungarian gendarmes evacuated the entire population in the ghettos around the city of Nyiregyhaza, approximately 17,000 people. Six days later, “we too were driven from our homes” in Nyiregyhaza to a “holding area” leading to a railway track with a large loading platform, whereupon they boarded a “goods train.” Their destination was Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they would have arrived sometime between April 24 and April 30, 1944 (depending upon how long they stayed in the “holding area” before starting the 3 to 4-day journey).3
By contrast, we know by the authority of Elie Wiesel’s book Night that his family was not arrested on that date. In the “revised and updated” new translation of 2006, Wiesel gives his family’s date of deportation to the “small ghetto” as May 17, 1944. I arrive at this date because Wiesel writes that it was “some two weeks before Shavuot” (Shavuot fell on May 28 in 1944 4) that the deportation order was announced to his family and neighbors. [Remember, Sighet had 90,000 residents, at least one-third of them Jews, while Wiesel makes it sound like he lived in a little village.] Departures were to take place “street by street” starting the next day. That would be May 15. But the Wiesel family was scheduled to leave in the 3rd group, which left two days later, on May 17. After being marched to the “small ghetto,” they stayed there “a few days.” On a “Saturday,” they boarded trains.5 The 20th of May, 1944 was a Saturday
Thus, according to official concentration camp documents and Elie Wiesel’s own testimony, we can demonstrate that Lázár Wiesel was arrested approximately one full month prior to Elie Wiesel being arrested. Elie Wiesel is not the Lázár Wiesel of the Buchenwald documents.
Footnotes:
- Ken Waltzer will present on his book-in-progress, The Rescue of Children and Youth in Buchenwald, at James Madison College on April 11, 2007. In this book, Waltzer explores why, when the U.S. Third Army liberated Buchenwald, April 11, 1945, there were 904 children and youth still alive to be liberated. Among these were Elie Wiesel, a 16-year-old youth from Transylvania, (later Nobel Peace Prize winner) and also Israel Meir Lau, an 8-year-old child from Poland (later Israel Prize winner. http://www.jmc.msu.edu/faculty/show.asp?id=32
- It may be that Elie Wiesel has not made such claims himself, but they have been made by others to support the thesis that he is the one referred to. These others include Ken Waltzer, director of the Jewish Studies Program at Michigan State University, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
- Nikolaus Grüner, Stolen Identity, Stockholm, 2005-2006, pg. 18-19
- “On the second day of Shavuot, 1944 (29 May 1944)” http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Vamospercs/
- Elie Wiesel, Night, Hill & Wang, New York, 2006, pg.12-21.
Categories Featured | Tags: Buchenwald liberation, Miklos Grüner, military govt. questionaires, Night, Wiesel signatures
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14 Comments to Signatures prove Lázár Wiesel is not Elie Wiesel
by kenwaltzer
On November 14, 2010 at 10:34 am
Contrary to Carolyn Yeager’s wishful thinking, Eli Wiesel was indeed the Lazar Wiesel who was admitted to Buchenwald on January 26, 1945, who was subsequently shifted to block 66, and who was interviewed by military authorities before being permitted to leave Buchenwald to go with other Buchenwald orphans to France. Furthermore, there is not a shadow of a doubt about this, although the Buchenwald records do erroneously contain — on some pieces — the birth date of 1913 rather than 1928. A forthcoming paper resolves the “riddle of Lazar” and indicates that Miklos Gruner’s Stolen Identity is a set of false charges and attack on Wiesel without any foundation.
by Carolyn
On November 16, 2010 at 10:52 am
Hello Ken Waltzer. I welcome your comments.
It is strange that you would say “there is not a shadow of a doubt” and at the same time admit that the Buchenwald records for the admittance of Lazar Wiesel under the Germans show the birth date of 1913. Will you simply dismiss that as a mistake?
I will be interested to see how you turn Abram Vizel [Wiesel] into Shlomo Vizel [Wiesel] also. Quite a trick you are preparing, I am sure, with the help of the folks at Bad Arolson.
You have been working on this for quite some time, having had to postpone the publication of your book on the Buchenwald children, while you worked on this problem. Obviously, until revisionist publicity was given to it, you were simply ignoring it. That is part of the value of the work we do — forcing you to work harder. :-)
And by the way, I’m also wagering that you will drop your identification of the round-headed boy in the marching column leaving the Buchenwald camp as being Elie Wiesel. Will I be proven correct?
by Norbert Essing
On January 3, 2011 at 6:40 am
Outstanding blog, pls contiune your work and keep us update with more storys
by Tom Holzel
On January 10, 2011 at 7:41 am
As some one who has studied graphology for many years as an amateur and examined 1000’s of “scripts” (handwriting samples), my opinion is that the Wiesel signiture CANNOT have been made by the same hand of the Hungarian signiture. To strengthen this clue even further, I would get the opinion of a professional handwriting expert.
by Carolyn
On January 12, 2011 at 9:30 am
Tom, Thank you for this educated opinion. Yes, we should get a few handwriting experts to weigh in on this. Can you recommend some? Perhaps you could send the samples to a professional of your choosing. We always encourage participation from our interested readers.
by Raymond Rice
On May 1, 2012 at 2:45 am
Just a comment. My late friend, Dr. Walter May studied music for two years in Paris. I was at that time in the US Army in Japan. Walter and I met for a month in our home town before I went to Paris to study French at the Sorbonne. Walter gave me a list of his friends to visit, incuding Lazare Wiesel. In Paris I went to the address, it was a shack in back of a larger house, the door was padlocked shut. Unfortunately, I never got to meet Mr. Wiesel. Many years later I read that Mr. Wiesel had worked in Paris as a journalist for some years before coming to the US..An Israeli friend here in Vienna, explained that the Hebrew hame ”Elias” could be rendered either way, Lazare in French, Elie in English. Walter played chess almost daily with Lazare in a cafe in Paris.
by Carolyn
On May 1, 2012 at 9:35 am
Raymond:
This sounds like a real cock and bull story. You give no details, including no dates, that can be checked. There are quite a few Dr. Waler May’s — which one is your friend? If he played chess almost daily with Lazare in a cafe in Paris, he could surely tell you (and us) a lot about him, like what he looked like, how old he was, what was the name of the cafe, etc. We have never heard Elie Wiesel say that he played chess almost daily in a Paris cafe. Have you read Wiesel’s memoir?
As to the name — “Elias” is associated with Elijah, but Wiesel was named Eliezer, a different name, after his grandfather. It is also a very common Hasidic Jewish name. Yes, it can be shortened to Lazare or Leizer, but it is not “Elie” in English. Elie is simply the form that Wiesel chose for himself; there is no evidence that his family, prior to his adopting that name after the war, ever called him that.
If you have any real evidence for anything you said, please send it to me. Like, what is the hometown you and Dr. May shared? What year(s) did you study at the Sorbonne? Do you by any chance work, in Vienna, for the Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies?
by Bud2
On June 14, 2012 at 9:46 am
The signature comparison is striking. Any serious historian would have to admit that this at least needs an explanation. I wonder what documents Mr. Waltzer can produce as a foundation of his thesis, until now I see merely claims and not a single answer or at least different interpretation to the documents provided here.
by Carolyn
On June 14, 2012 at 8:44 pm
Bud – Ken Waltzer has not come up with any documents or explanation for the questions I have raised about Elie Wiesel not being at Buchenwald. He has not yet published his promised book either. He seems to have gone quiet on the entire affair.
At one time he bragged in comments at Scrapbookpages Blog and on this Blog that he was shortly coming out with “proof” that the documents for Lazar and Abraham Wiesel actually belonged to Eliezer and Shlomo Wiesel, but this “proof” has still not been presented, and is no longer mentioned.
He also wrote another comment (#3):
Big talk from Ken Waltzer, but no goods. **See my articles “Night 1 and Night 2 – What Changes Were Made and Why” and also Part Two, following, to explain how careless Waltzer is. He is no scholar! Unfortunately, even revisionists don’t grasp or don’t appreciate the meaning of the research I’ve put together here.
I think others than just me should be writing to and about Waltzer, and holding his feet to the fire. Bud, I would like to work with you on a documentary.
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