An Appeal to Students at Boston University
Oct 2010
NOTE:
This send went to Boston University President Brown and the folk listed at the
bottom of the page. When Carolyn Yeager did not get any interesting responses,
we sent it to faculty and student organizations at BU. This reached some 500
students affiliated with student organizations. We then got an interesting,
threatening response from our Topica mailing service. Our account was suspended
for "spamming." We had never had a problem with Topica before. Lack of that
service compromised the work for a good week until we came to an agreement.
We did nothing at BU that we have not done on many university campuses over
years, but this time we hit a firewall named Elie Wiesel. It's not really Elie,
but those who administer and teach on the university campus who are unwilling to
face the shame of what they have done here with regard to this man and this
man's story.
==========
Robert E. Brown, President of Boston University: "Elie Wiesel is a man of
integrity and would not stoop to fabrication."
With this statement, Dr. Brown replied to my September 23rd email message and
snail-mail letter to him, and to those copied, which I am publishing here.
Robert A. Brown
Office of the President
1 Silber Way, 8th Floor
Boston Ma 02215
September 23, 2010
Re: Prof. Elie Wiesel
Dear President Brown:
I recognize that Boston University has a long and admirable tradition of support
for the humanities. One of your most prominent, most politically conspicuous
faculty members is Elie Wiesel, who is associated in the public mind with a host
of worthy, even noble causes, including being the recipient of the Nobel Peace
Prize.
Particularly because of the honored position Professor Wiesel holds at BU, the
questions that are being raised about his Holocaust testimony bother me, and I
think if you were aware of them they would bother you, too. First is the lack of
evidence that he has an Auschwitz tattoo, though he repeatedly claims to have
one. As recently as last March, at Dayton University in Ohio, a student asked if
he still has his concentration camp number, and he said, “I still have it on my
arm.” However, his own 1996 video*, in which his bare forearms are exposed to
the camera, reveals no tattoo on his left arm, where it should be.
This, along with archival documents* primarily from Buchenwald that show a Lazar
Wiesel born in 1913, not 1928, who was there with his brother Abram, put his
entire account of his concentration camp experiences of 1944-45 into question.
No documentation for Shlomo Wiesel/Vizel, Elie’s father, or of a Lazar/Eliezer
Wiesel with Elie Wiesel’s birth date of Sept. 30th, has been revealed.
Still other questions being raised concern his authorship* of the original
Yiddish version of Night. The brief description he gives of when, where and how
he wrote And the World Remained Silent contain contradictions and
improbabilities. In addition, there are major factual differences between key
passages in Night, the English derivative of the original Yiddish language book,
and Prof. Wiesel’s memoir All Rivers Run to the Sea. To mention just one—in the
former, his foot is operated on before the evacuation to Buchenwald in January
1945, while in the latter it becomes his knee that is operated on! These are
just a few of the red flags that are raised when studying Prof. Wiesel’s
testimony with a critical eye.
I realize it is not my responsibility, but rather yours, to maintain the
integrity of your faculty. However, I feel an obligation to bring this
information to your attention because it is information that is gaining the
attention of the world, and more importantly of your students, through various
venues and investigations, and may reflect poorly on your great university.
Respectfully yours,
Carolyn Yeager
PO Box 439016
San Ysidro, CA 92143
Email: ewtattoo@codoh.com
web:http://www.eliewieseltattoo.com/
cc: David K. Campbell, Provost
Virginia Sapiro, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
Daniel Dahlstrom, Chair, Department of Humanities
Aaron Garrett, Assoc. Chair, Dept. of Humanities
Walter Hopp, Director, Undergraduate Studies, Dept. of Humanities
David Roochnik, Director, Graduate Studies, Dept. of Humanities
Members of the Board of Trustees
Robert A. Knox, Chairman
John P. Howe III, Vice Chairman
Jonathan R. Cole
Richard C. Godfrey
Robert J. Hildreth
Eric S. Lander
Alan M. Leventhal
J. Kenneth Menges, Jr.
Christine A. Poon
Adam. W. Sweeting
==========
On September 27, I received a polite reply, which did not indicate whether Dr.
Brown had looked at any of the pages I linked to on the Elie Wiesel Cons The
World website.
Dear Ms. Yeager:
Thank you for your e-mail message of September 23, in which you express concerns
about the accuracy of Dr. Wiesel's testimony. I have no doubt that he is a
survivor of the Holocaust and he has, thoughout his adult life, been a most
eloquent witness to its atrocities. He is a man of integrity and would not stoop
to fabrication.
Sincerely,
Robert A. Brown
==========
We wanted to give the Boston University administrators fair warning of what we
are up to, and an opportunity to address the "Wiesel question" themselves.
Having done that, and after sending them a further reply suggesting that they
look into the matter, and with no further response, we now turn to the students
at BU. We want to inform BU students about the serious ethical questions
surrounding Elie Wiesel personally, and to assist students on campus to ask for
answers to these questions. We believe there are individuals and organizations
at BU who truly care about the ethical integrity of their university and its
faculty, and who want to know the facts about all things, no matter how
sensitive—not just accept what they are being taught by a timid, establishment
faculty.
We suggest there is a simple request that Boston University students can make of
Prof. Wiesel, that their administrators are apparently unwilling to make: they
can ask him to show his tattoo. He says he is a humble representative of the
survivors of the concentration camps. Many Auschwitz survivors prove their
presence in that camp by pointing to the number tattooed on their left forearm;
why not Elie Wiesel? Is he not one of them?
We urge you, the students of BU, to write or call the following persons asking
for their cooperation in a search for honesty. Thank you for your activism.
Carolyn Yeager
PO Box 439016
San Ysidro, CA 92143
Email: ewtattoo@codoh.com
Web: www.eliewieseltattoo.com
Department of Philosophy
745 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 516
Boston, Massachusetts 02215
Phone:617.353.2571 | Fax:617.353.6805
Department e-mail:casphilo@bu.edu
Department Chair: Professor Daniel Dahlstrom
Phone: 617.353.4583 | E-mail: dahlstro@bu.edu
Associate Chair: Professor Aaron Garrett
Phone: 617.358.3617 | E-mail: garrett@bu.edu
Director of Undergraduate Studies: Professor Walter Hopp
Phone: 617.358.4228 | E-mail: hopp@bu.edu
Director of Graduate Studies: Professor David Roochnik
Phone: 617.353.4579 | E-mail: roochnik@bu.edu
Director of Graduate Admissions: Professor Allen Speight
Phone: 617.353.3067 | E-mail: casp8@bu.edu
Administrator: Matthew Roselli
Phone: 617.353.2572 | E-mail: philda@bu.edu
Senior Program Coordinator: Lesley Moreau
Phone: 617.353.2571 | E-mail: casphilo@bu.edu
Elie Wiesel: University Professor, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities
and Professor of Philosophy and Religion / E-mail:
jhoberer@bu.edu
The full Dept. of Philosophy faculty addresses can be found on our website. Go
to www.eliewieseltattoo.com; click on Projects on the menu bar, then click on
Boston University.
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