Become a Member
Deborah Lipstadt

ByDeborah Lipstadt, Deborah Lipstadt

Opinion

He spoke truth to power - that was his greatness

July 7, 2016 10:42
At the National Press Club in Washington, 2006
4 min read

Elie Wiesel's life as a Holocaust educator and peace activist are best encapsulated in the stories of his direct challenges to Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

He stood up to Mr Carter when the then president wanted to change the official figure on the number of people murdered during the Holocaust from six million to 11 million. That supposedly included six million Jews and five million non-Jews.

The problem was that the second figure was bogus. Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted non-Jews to care about the Holocaust, had created it. He assumed that the only way they would care was if they felt that they, too, had lost a large number of co-religionists. He crafted the number so that it would be large but not quite as large as the Jewish death toll.

Mr Carter was under pressure from Lithuanian, Ukrainian and other Eastern European groups, who wanted to be included as "victims" at this proposed memorial. Mr Wiesel was appalled because these groups were never targets of genocide and, more disturbingly, some were actually collaborators in the killings. Mr Wiesel knew this was an attempt to universalise or, more properly put, de-Judaise this genocide.