Simon Wiesenthal, 1908-2005

Simon Wiesenthal
1908-2005

"Wiesenthal spoke often of a Sabbath dinner he had spent at the home of another survivor of Mauthausen, who had become a wealthy jeweler. The man speculated that Wiesenthal could have become a millionaire if he had gone back to architecture instead of hunting Nazis.

"When we come to the other world," Wiesenthal said he responded, "and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps, and they ask us, 'What have you done?' there will be many answers.

"You will tell them, 'I became a jeweler.'

"Another will say, 'I smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.'

"Another will say, 'I built houses.'

"But I will say, 'I didn't forget you.'.""
- Quoted in his LA Time Obituary

"Simon Wiesenthal was the conscience of the Holocaust. When the Holocaust ended in 1945 and the whole world went home to forget, he alone remained behind to remember. He did not forget. He became the permanent representative of the victims, determined to bring the perpetrators of the history’s greatest crime to justice. There was no press conference and no president or Prime Minister or world leader announced his appointment. He just took the job. It was a job no one else wanted.

The task was overwhelming. The cause had few friends. The Allies were already focused on the Cold War, the survivors were rebuilding their shattered lives and Simon Wiesenthal was all alone, combining the role of both prosecutor and detective at the same time."

- Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simom Wiesenthal Center

• The Simon Wiesenthal Center
• Simon Wiesenthal: "The Conscience of the Holocaust, Dies in Vienna" at 96
• Biography And Photos of Simon Wiesenthal (1908-2005)