Oprah Winfrey and Elie Wiesel

NOTE: This text went to student organizations, the student press, and faculty on campuses across the nation.

Oprah and Elie: One's a fool, and one's a fraud. Do you wonder which might be which?

Being a student, you probably do not watch Oprah Winfrey regularly, but you most likely hear about Elie Wiesel on your campus frequently.

Now Oprah has interviewed Elie again. This interview will air on "Super Soul Sunday"December 9 at 11:00 a.m. ET/PT on OWN. One segment of the interview deals with the opportunity to create new "witnesses" to the Holocaust, a matter that is of considerable interest to (as Norman Finkelstein has it) the Holocaust Industry.

At one point Winfrey asks: "You've said that Holocaust survivors are becoming an endangered species. Indeed, you all are. Yet you don't fear the memory of the Holocaust will ever be lost. Why?"

Wiesel replies: "I'll tell you why. Because, you know, all of us who went through that experience considered ourselves as witnesses. When the last witness will be gone, I don't want to be that one. It's too tragic. What will happen? So on one hand, you could become pessimistic that the last witness -- all the knowledge, all the experience, all the memories will be buried. Then what? So I came up with a theory which I think is valid.

"To listen to a witness is to become one... So therefore those who have listened to us, who have read my books and other survivors' memoirs, we have a lot of witnesses now. And they will protect not only our past, but also their future."

If you want to test how "valid" Elie Wiesel's theory is it will do you no good to ask your professor. She is committed to belief on this question, not to any kind of examination of the facts of the matter. Here I will give you only a couple suggestions. It's a start. See:

Irene Zisblatt (eyewitness) who says that when she was in Auschwitz she swallowed diamonds and shat them out daily for a year or so (video).

Abraham Bomba the Barber of Treblinka (eyewitness) who tells his demonstrably foolish lies to Claude Lanzmann, the demonstrably foolish creator of the universally applauded film Shoah. Applauded across the board, I might add, by the American professorial class.

I could go on, but these two links alone will introduce you to material that no professor will allow you to question in any classroom on your campus. Ask yourself why that should be.

Tell me if I'm wrong.

Bradley Smith

Email: [email protected]