Simon Wiesenthal

Simon Wiesenthal, honorary KBE, (31 December, 1908 – 20 September, 2005), was an Austrian-Jewish architectural engineer who became a Nazi hunter after surviving the Holocaust.

Austrian politics and later life

In the 1970s he became involved in Austrian politics when he pointed out that several ministers in Bruno Kreisky's newly formed Socialist government had been Nazis when Austria was part of the Third Reich. Kreisky, himself Jewish, responded by attacking Wiesenthal as a Nestbeschmutzer (someone who dirties their own nest). In Austria, which took decades to acknowledge its role in Nazi crimes, Wiesenthal was ignored and often insulted. In 1975, after Wiesenthal had released a report on FPÖ party chairman Friedrich Peter's Nazi past, Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, suggested Wiesenthal was part of a "certain mafia" seeking to besmirch Austria and even claimed Wiesenthal collaborated with Nazis and Gestapo to survive, a charge that Wiesenthal labeled ridiculous.

Related Topics:
Bruno Kreisky - Socialist - Third Reich - FPÖ - Friedrich Peter - Gestapo

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Over the years Wiesenthal received many death threats. In 1982, a bomb placed by German and Austrian neo-Nazis exploded outside his house in Vienna, Austria. Even after turning 90, Wiesenthal spent time at his small office in the Jewish Documentation Center in central Vienna. In April 2003, Wiesenthal announced his retirement, saying that he had found the mass murderers he had been looking for: "I have survived them all. If there were any left, they'd be too old and weak to stand trial today. My work is done." According to Simon Wiesenthal, the last major Austrian war criminal still alive is Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann's right-hand man, who is believed to be hiding in Syria under the protection of the Bashar Al-Asad regime. However, Wiesenthal was also believed to be working on the case of Aribert Heim, one of the most notorious and wanted Nazi concentration camp doctors, prior to his retirement. Heim is reported to be still alive and in hiding.

Related Topics:
1982 - Vienna - Austria - April 2003 - Alois Brunner - Adolf Eichmann - Syria - Bashar Al-Asad - Aribert Heim

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Wiesenthal spent his last years in Vienna, where his wife, Cyla, died on 10 November 2003, at the age of 95 from natural causes. Wiesenthal died in his sleep at age 96 in Vienna on September 20, 2005, and was buried in the city of Herzliya in Israel on 23 September. He is survived by his daughter, Paulinka Kriesberg, and three grandchildren.

Related Topics:
10 November - 2003 - September 20 - 2005 - 23 September

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In a statement on Wiesenthal's death, Council of Europe chairman Terry Davis said, "Without Simon Wiesenthal's relentless effort to find Nazi criminals and bring them to justice, and to fight anti-Semitism and prejudice, Europe would never have succeeded in healing its wounds and reconciling itself... He was a soldier of justice, which is indispensable to our freedom, stability and peace."

Related Topics:
Council of Europe - Terry Davis

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