Elie Wiesel Returns President Iliescu the Medal

Elie Wiesel, the Romanian born Jewish laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize, said in a letter addressed yesterday to President Ion Iliescu that he is returning him the "National Order the Star of Romania," in rank of grand officer.

Wiesel received the title from Iliescu in 2002. Wiesel was upset because Iliescu gave the same title to Corneliu Vadim Tudor, only two days ago. Tudor is the leader of the nationalist Greater Romania Party.

"With sadness and disappointment I read that the man who decided to create the International Committee for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania [Iliescu] also decided to bestow this order upon two people whose poisonous ideas are opposing [the Committee’s] higher goals. Corneliu Vadim Tudor and Gheorghe Buzatu are well-known for their constant anti-Jewish stance and denial of the Holocaust. Vadim Tudor printed offensive, ugly and slanderous words about the Jewish people, its culture, its traditions and its commitment to moral values and preservation of history," Wiesel wrote to explain his decision.