Elie Wiesel 'not bitter' about losing millions to Madoff

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel spoke out Thursday about his losses in disgraced financier Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, saying that he was not bitter about losing his personal investments and millions of dollars of his foundation's money.

The Holocaust survivor, who at Chabad's invitation was visiting in Hungary for the first time since the end of the Second World War, said he was grateful for hundreds of donations that have helped his Foundation for Humanity stay active. The foundation promotes tolerance and equality to youth.

"It was heartwarming to see the response and, of course, we have decided not to give in," Wiesel said. "I decided I will not to let anyone destroy what I have done with my life ... I am not bitter."

Wiesel said he does not expect to recover any of the lost money.

The writer met with Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom and Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai, and urged Hungary to legally ban Holocaust denial.

He also called on Hungary to consider laws to curb hate speech as "extremist voices become ever louder," the local news agency MTI reported.

Hungary's far right increased in prominence in June when the nationalist party Jobbik won three seats in Brussels with almost 15 per cent of the national vote in the European Union elections.

"It must be made clear to the whole of society that racist, anti-Semitic expressions are unacceptable," Wiesel told reporters.

Several attempts in the past few years to toughen laws against hate speech and a push by the government in April to amend the Constitution to make Holocaust denial a crime have failed in parliament or have been rejected by the courts, mainly because of fears about restricting free speech.

Wiesel also said he had received a pledge from Bajnai to allow access to historical archives thought to include lists of the Hungarian Jews who were deported to Auschwitz during World War II. Some 550,000 Hungarian Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

"I would like to see the list about the Jews from Maramarosziget, my hometown," Wiesel said, using the Hungarian name of Sighetu Marmatie, a Romanian town that was part of Hungary until World War I and again, for a few years, in the 1940s. "The list must be somewhere in Budapest."

The previous day, Wiesel discussed Jewish-Hungarian relations in a symposium in the Hungarian parliament.

In 1944, at the age of 15, Wiesel was one of thousands of Jews transported to Nazi death camps from a Romanian town then known as Sighet, which was under Hungarian rule at the time.

Wiesel has written dozens of books, of which his best known, "Night", deals with his experience of the Holocaust. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.

	Elie Wiesel: It must be made clear that racist, anti-Semitic expressions are unacceptable
	Photo by: (Archive / AP)