Elie Wiesel and other gods in Haute-Normandy

This summer I was invited to the most special marriage I ever was. My wife's cousin, a male Tunesian Jew, married his Moroccan boyfriend, from a Muslim family. It was a very big family reunion, in Menesqueville in Haute-Normandy, where they live. During a long weekend, when the Israeli army slaughters Palestinians in Gaza, we are celebrating love between all the people, whatever the background is, whereever they come from, and one day I visited with new and old friends Ecouis, just four kilometers from there. It has a very nice church, 700 years old, with marvelous vitrages. And on the right side of the entrance there is a marble panel with the names of the people the Nazis killed. One young man of 22 years was deported. I found out, later, that last year (2013) died one of the last resistence fighter, Albert Delacour, and in this church there was a ceremony for his sake, because he was born in the little village Rosay-sur-Lieure, right next to Ecouis and Menesqueville. Delacour took part in many combats against the Nazis, one was in Mortemer, also very close there, from August 23 to 25, 1944, where eleven important fighters were killed, perhaps somebody betrayed and informed the Nazis. (http://www.limpartial-andelys.fr/2013/05/31/rosay-sur-lieure-deces-dalbert-delacour-ancien-resistant-et-rescape-de-mortemer and http://serge.ollivier.pagesperso-orange.fr/martyr.htm.)

After the war, more than 400 boys from Buchenwald were brought to Ecouis, for their first treatment after the horror of this camp. Outside of the church, on the wall of the next house, I found this:

Elie Wiesel, the "Knight Commander of the Most Excellent", is the most celebrated holocaust survivor, ever. But there are many people who doubt the biography he tells about himself. You cannot find his name on the lists of Buchenwald and not on the lists of the Ecouis-boys. There are some who think, that he was perhaps a part of the Jewish personnel there and learned the boys' stories. (http://www.eliewieseltattoo.com/tag/ecouis)

He said once:

“I cannot and I do not want to forgive the killers of children; I ask God not to forgive.”

But when it comes to children of Gaza, he has another voice: At the same day I was there in Ecouis, Eli Wiesel launched an attack against Gaza and in favor of the IDF-attack.

Two weeks ago was published a letter of Holocuast survivers, against him, and in favor of Gaza:

http://ijsn.net/gaza/survivors-and-descendants-letter/

Does it matter, if Eli Wiesel actually was in Buchenwald or not? I don't know. Anyway, i am telling you: I was at this marriage in the Normandy this summer. I really was there. Many French (from Franch or Tunesian or Moroccon or what-so-ever background), Americans, Netherlandish, Swedish, Japanese people and the mayor of Menesqueville can testify it. And i tell you, it was full of love. And i don't want to have any contact with children's killers. But i don't want Eli Wiesel to forgive them or not to forgive them or to tell God what to do about it. I don't believe, the killers themselves can forgive themselves.

But I hope they can, one day, forgive their victims.

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Uri Shani, August 26, 2014