NEW YORK - Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel has said that the recent speech in the United Nations by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shows that the world has learned nothing from the Holocaust. "Ten years ago and less, the ruler of a country that announced its aspiration for Israel to be wiped off the map would not have dared appear and speak on the UN's podium," Weisel told Haaretz.

Wiesel was referring to an address that Ahmadinejad, who in the past called for Israel's destruction, delivered at the international body in late September. The Iranian president railed against "Zionist murderers" in his speech and dwelled on what he described as Zionist control of international finance.

"The era known as 'the period after Auschwitz' is over," Weisel declared, adding: "If you ask me whether the world has learned something - my answer is 'no.'"

Speaking from his Manhattan office, Wiesel added that his initial belief that "hatred had also been burned [in Auschwitz] along with the Jews" appeared to have been mistaken in light of the wickedness and suffering in the world today.

Wiesel, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, was born in Romania and survived the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. The Nobel laureate has written more than 40 books about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor. His first and most important book, "Night," which has sold over six million copies, details the Nazis' deportation of Wiesel's family from the northern Romanian town of Sighet to Auschwitz.

In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his life's work. Wiesel was also influential in the creation of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.

Copyright Ha'aretz News 2008