SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - The Anti-Defamation League is now involved with the investigation of the San Francisco attack on Elie Wiesel, a world-renowned author and Holocaust survivor. As The Examiner first reported Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning author was dragged out of an elevator at the Argent Hotel on Feb. 1 by an alleged Holocaust denier who had been trailing him for weeks.

Wiesel, who was in town to speak at the RockRose Institute’s World Conference 2007, was not badly hurt, and was immediately escorted by police to the San Francisco International Airport.

The league, which regularly tracks the activities of known Holocaust deniers and extremists, has assigned staffers to determine whether Eric Hunt, the man claiming responsibility for the attack, is using an alias to slip past authorities and to post messages online, according to Jonathan Bernstein, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s San Francisco chapter.

In a posting Tuesday on the anti-Zionist Web site ZioPedia, a visitor by the name of Eric Hunt took credit for the attack on Wiesel. Since then, police have tracked Hunt back to the East Coast, according to Bernstein.

“We’ve spent some time seeing if it’s an alias,” Bernstein said. “That’s what we’ve been doing since Friday, but we’re not turning anything up.”

Activity has increased among Holocaust deniers in recent years, according to Bernstein. Some groups have begun purchasing advertising space in college newspapers asking students to question the history of the events that lead to the deaths of approximately 6 million Jews.“It’s important for us to educate people about the motives (for Holocaust denial), because now more than ever it’s being used as a tool to advance anti-Semitism,” Bernstein said.

bwinegarner@examiner.com