Elie Wiesel called the Holocaust a “one-time event.” The
Nobel laureate and Auschwitz survivor gave Israel Radio an interview to mark Monday’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day. Asked if he
thought the Jews could again be subject to an orchestrated genocide on a
scale like that perpetrated by Nazi Germany, Wiesel said, “No.”
“I think that the Holocaust was a one-time event,” he said. “Imagine
a country where there is a law to murder all Jews, with camps, with barbed
wire, with gas chambers. That won’t happen.”
But Wiesel cautioned against Iran, whose nuclear program, combined
with the Holocaust denial and anti-Zionist rhetoric of President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have stoked fears for the existence of the Jewish
state.
“I am waging a battle against Ahmadinejad. He is the No. 1
Holocaust denier in the world,” Wiesel said, enumerating international
conferences he has organized in a bid to isolate the Iranian leader. We’ve
learned something from history: to put more trust in the enemy’s threats
than in the promises of the friend.”
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