An
Unofficial but Very Public Bearer Of
Pain, Peace and Human Dignity
ELIE WIESEL was in pain, but not for the usual reasons that distress a Nobel Peace Prize winner: massacres in Rwanda, human-rights abuses in Bosnia, repression in China. This time, Mr. Wiesel was in physical pain.
He had a bad knee. A stress fracture from long ago had suddenly flared up, forcing him one recent evening in Manhattan to hobble into the restaurant Primola on a crutch. After easing into a seat at a corner table, he explained that the problem went back to 1956, when he was hit by a taxi in Times Square. Not just hit, but sent into low orbit.
''I flew an entire block,'' Mr. Wiesel recalled. ''I was hit at 45th Street and Broadway, and the ambulance picked me up at 44th. It sounds crazy. But I was totally messed up."
ELIE WIESEL was in pain, but not for the usual reasons that distress a Nobel Peace Prize winner: massacres in Rwanda, human-rights abuses in Bosnia, repression in China. This time, Mr. Wiesel was in physical pain.
He had a bad knee. A stress fracture from long ago had suddenly flared up, forcing him one recent evening in Manhattan to hobble into the restaurant Primola on a crutch. After easing into a seat at a corner table, he explained that the problem went back to 1956, when he was hit by a taxi in Times Square. Not just hit, but sent into low orbit.
''I flew an entire block,'' Mr. Wiesel recalled. ''I was hit at 45th Street and Broadway, and the ambulance picked me up at 44th. It sounds crazy. But I was totally messed up."
