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.

Criticism

Despite Wiesenthal's achievements in locating many former Nazis, aspects of his work and life were very controversial.

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According to Peter Novick and Yehuda Bauer, Wiesenthal fabricated the number of "non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust", five million.{{ref|fab}}

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A 7 May 1991, article in the Jerusalem Post said that former Mossad chief Isser Harel had written an unpublished manuscript which claims that Wiesenthal, "not only 'had no role whatsoever' in Eichmann's apprehension, but in fact had endangered the entire Eichmann operation and aborted the planned capture of Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele." {{ref|JPost}} Harel said that "ll the information supplied by Wiesenthal, and in anticipaton of the operation, was utterly worthless, and sometimes even misleading or of negative value."http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-1789575_2,00.html

Related Topics:
7 May - 1991 - Jerusalem Post - Mossad - Isser Harel - Auschwitz - Josef Mengele

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Harel claimed that he wrote the manuscript out of frustration at the amount of credit Wiesenthal was claiming for the capture of Eichmann. Harel declined to publish his manuscript, saying that "Nazis and antisemites will be only too happy to read this about Nazi fighter Wiesenthal."

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In a subsequent opinion piece, Haim Mass argued that many of Harel's specific allegations against Wiesenthal could be disproved and that Wiesenthal had initiated the hunt for Eichmann by providing the first photograph of the SS Colonel. Wiesenthal himself questioned Harel's motivation for not publishing his manuscript, asking "if he is afraid that 'Nazis and antisemites will be only too happy to read about this Nazi-fighter Wiesenthal,' why does he not hesitate to indulge in discrediting me unreservedly in the media? Does he think Nazis and antisemites read only books, not newspapers?" {{ref|JPost2}}

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Fellow Nazi hunter Tuviah Friedman, who has known Wiesenthal since 1946, accused him of numerous self-aggrandizing lies and of making himself rich from the Eichmann affair.{{ref|friedman}} Another Nazi hunter, the famed Serge Klarsfeld, characterized Wiesenthal as an egomaniac.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/21/international/europe/21wiesenthal.html

Related Topics:
Tuviah Friedman - Serge Klarsfeld

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OSI head Eli Rosenbaum wrote in his study of the Kurt Waldheim affair, Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up:

Related Topics:
OSI - Eli Rosenbaum - Kurt Waldheim

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:"In sum, Wiesenthal's roles in the biggest Nazi cases of all - Mengele, Martin Bormann, and in all likelihood, Eichmann as well - were studies in ineptitude, exaggeration, and self-glorification."

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Rosenbaum described Wiesenthal as "a congenital liar" to Wiesenthal's biographer, Hella Pick. http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/11/2/256?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=wiesenthal&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1120901548741_96&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=1&journalcode=holgen

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Rosenbaum's predecessor at OSI, Neal Sher, in response to Wiesenthal's demand that the OSI investigate suspected war criminals living in the United States, wrote that:

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:"few of your allegations have resulted in active ongoing investigations the bottom line is that ... no allegation which originated from your office has resulted in a court filing by the OSI". http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/11/2/256?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=wiesenthal&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1120901548741_96&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=1&journalcode=holgen

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The controversialhttp://www.daily-chronicle.com/articles/2005/02/03/news/news01.txt Ukrainian-American writer Myron B. Kuropas decried Wiesenthal's statements about the Ukrainians: "The Bolshevik troops were bad, but the Ukrainian cavalry bands were worse" and "The native Ukrainian population cooperated actively with the Gestapo and the SS", because allegedly he offered little substantiation or documentation for them http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1986/188613.shtml.

Related Topics:
Ukrainian - Bolshevik - Cavalry

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Simon Wiesenthal has also been criticized in relation with his handling of the Frank Walus case.http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/w/walus.frank/press/toronto-star.0483

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