Nikolaus Grüner shows his tattoo. Where’s Elie’s?

By Carolyn Yeager

New! at  Elie Wiesel Cons The World

In this video,  Nikolaus or Miklos (Michael) Grüner is being interviewed by the Modesto (Calif.) Bee while the photographer films him pointing out the tattoo on his left arm.  This is shown in the very beginning of the video; right after that we see  the famous “Buchenwald Liberation” photograph we’ve become so familiar with, and 16-year-old Grüner is in the lower left hand corner. Is Elie in the photo? No.

 In 2008, Grüner traveled to California from his home in Sweden. While there, this very important bit of video was produced but has not been given the attention it deserves. I wonder why. Notice I didn’t form that as a question since I think the answer is apparent:  If Grüner has a tattoo, why doesn’t Wiesel?

According to Elie Wiesel, he and his family were deported to Auschwitz in the same time period that Grüner and his family were–in May/June of 1944. They both tell a similar story of arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the men being separated from the women whom they never saw again. After a period of adjustment, they were transferred to Monowitz-Buna where they lived and worked until January 1945, when both say they were transferred to Buchenwald. They also both say in their respective books that they were given a tattoo on their left forearm while at Birkenau – Wiesel the number A-7713 and Grüner A-11104. 

 Gruner’s tattoo looks like a real tattoo to me. It looks very similar to the one in this picture at right of Sam Rosenzweig’s arm, which I have posted previously and is the best example of an Auschwitz tattoo I have found. According to George Rosenthal, writing for the Jewish Virtual Library, and accepted by the USHMM, Sam’s tattoo represents the “regular” series of numbers used at Auschwitz from 1940, while the “A” series was first issued  in May 1944.

So we have evidence from Grüner and the photograph above of what Elie Wiesel should have on his arm, but doesn’t. There is no point in “Wiesel Believers” continuing to make excuses or look for reasons why their hero Elie won’t come clean about his bare arms. We know he has no tattoo where it is supposed to be … or anyplace! Just look at the top of this website. Or the photo below … from the 1996 documentary film “Elie Wiesel Goes Home.” We see his left arm in bright sunlight; clearly there is nothing on it. In the film we can see his right arm too, many times, which also has nothing on it. What more is there to be said? It’s a slam-dunk, and there is nary a word coming from the Wiesel camp about it. Isn’t it about time? Yes, but nothing happens unless people demand it.

Remember, on March 25, 2010 at the  University of Dayton, a student asked Wiesel if he still has his concentration camp number and if it serves as a reminder of those terrible experiences.  “I don’t need that to remember, I think about my past every day,” he responded. “But I still have it on my arm – A7713.

Robert A Brown, President of Boston University (Wiesel’s employer) wrote to me on Sept. 27, 2010, after receiving all this evidence,  “I have no doubt that he is a survivor of the Holocaust and …  a man of integrity and would not stoop to fabrication.“

What do you think?