The death of Simon Wiesenthal

international | crime and justice | news report

Tuesday September 20, 2005 10:08

by iosaf .:.

Simon Wiesenthal has died in Vienna at 96 years of age.

"When history looks back I want people to know the Nazis weren't able to kill millions of people and get away with it."

Wiesenthal survived the Holocaust ( he had been held in Mauthaussen along with hundreds of thousands of other jews and the spanish republican prisoners) but never returned to his career as architect, instead he became the most effective and well known hunter of nazi war criminals.

Simon Wiesenthal 1908 - 2005

his biography as prepared by the Wiesenthal centre
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=242921

some of his words:-

Discovering witnesses is just as important as catching criminals.
(Quoted in the introduction to The Sunflower)

The schools would fail through their silence, the Church through its forgiveness, and the home through the denial and silence of the parents. The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it.
(Quoted in the introduction to The Sunflower)

The only value of nearly five decades of my work is a warning to the murderers of tomorrow, that they will never rest.
(Quoted in an interview in The Jerusalem Post International Edition, February 5, 1994)

For your benefit, learn from our tragedy. It is not a written law that the next victims must be Jews. It can also be other people. We saw it begin in Germany with Jews, but people from more than twenty other nations were also murdered. When I started this work, I said to myself, 'I will look for the murderers of all the victims, not only the Jewish victims. I will fight for justice.'
(Quoted in an interview in Penthouse Magazine, 1983)

The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat. So information is a defense. Through this we can build, we must build, a defense against repetition.
(Baltimore Jewish Times, February 24, 1989)

Justice for crimes against humanity must have no limitations.
(from Vienna Documentation Center)

We need partners. We cannot fight against the neo-Nazis alone. We need friends. We can win them by telling them their history, by talking about the others, the millions of people other than the Jews, that the Nazis killed. The Holocaust began with the Jewish. But it did not end with the Jews.
(from an interview in the Baltimore Jewish Times, April 3, 1981)

There is no denying that Hitler and Stalin are alive today...they are waiting for us to forget, because this is what makes possible the resurrection of these two monsters.
(from a meeting with President Jimmy Carter reported in The Washington Post, August 6, 1980)

From Justice not Vengeance (London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989):

Survival is a privilege which entails obligations. I am forever asking myself what I can do for those who have not survived. The answer I have found for myself (and which need not necessarily be the answer for every survivor) is: I want to be their mouthpiece, I want to keep their memory alive, to make sure the dead live on in that memory. (p. 351)

I don't think there is any other solution than constantly coming to terms with the past, and learning from it. There is no point in minimizing guilt in order to make it easier for sons and daughters to bear the failure of their fathers and grandfathers, their mothers and grandmothers. (p. 357-8)

Hatred can be nurtured anywhere, idealism can be perverted into sadism anywhere. If hatred and sadism combine with modern technology the inferno could erupt anew anywhere. (p. 358)

The combination of hatred and technology is the greatest danger threatening mankind. (p. 358)

Violence is like a weed--it does not die even in the greatest drought. (p. 359)

http://www.wiesenthal.com/
other link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wiesenthal

_________________________________________

may he rest in peace .:.

The Kaddish will be sung worldwide for him.

Yithgadal vyithkadash shmeh raba b'alma di-vra chir'utheh vyamlich malchutheh bkhayechon uvyomechon uvkhaye dchol-beyt yisra'el, ba'agala uvizman kariv, v'imru: amen....

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Comments (20 of 20)

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We lack yet another brave and courageous man

by righteous pragmatist

Tue Sep 20, 2005 11:40

Today the work of Simon may become undone as the West once again embraces Anti-semitism in the shameful support for the Islamic fundementalist jihad against the Jewish State.
There must be newcomers who will take up the fight against the new fascists of the PA, Hamas and Islamic jihad and their mother organistation Al-Qeada

Al Qaeda Would Turn That Around

by Mark C - Teacher

Tue Sep 20, 2005 11:46

Interesting you say that the west is backing Anti-Semitism but supporting the so-called Jihad against Israel. This is exactly the opposite of what Al Qaeda accuse the west of doing. Isn't Al Qaeda on a quest to to destroy the "infidel west" and Ziionist Crusaders?

Some books you might find interesting on issue:

Ali, Tariq, The Clash of Fundamentalisms,

Bergen, Peter L. Holy War Inc.: Inside The Secret World of Osama Bin Laden,

Burke, Jason, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam (as recommended by Noam Chomsky),
Gray, John, Al-Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern.

Mark Conroy.

Chomsky and the far right

by Rob

Tue Sep 20, 2005 12:06

Interesting that you should mention chomsky in this thread. chomsky is a supporter of Dr. Robert Faurisson, a holocaust denier.

But then again facts were never chomksy's strong point.

a wee reminder

by iosaf

Tue Sep 20, 2005 14:22

There were over 90,000 wanted nazi war criminals.
Wiesenthal was credited with finding 1,100.

Almost all but significantly not every SS officer was tatooed.

Argentina alone is credited with 58 files relating to war criminals who settled there in the post war period. In 2002 the Argentine government in Buenos Aires refused calls from the Wiesenthal Center for the release of 58 files dealing with the escape of Nazi war criminals to Argentina. In July 2003, two months after the passing of US House Resolution 235, (calling on Argentina to co-operate) two of the files were opened.

Though Wiesenthal said when he retired in 2000 that he felt the few men left were too old be chased, there are still warm trails.

Germany offered a reward this year of $159,000 for the arrest of Aribert Heim, 91 one of Mengele's protegées. He has been at large since the charges were brought in 1962. He is thought to be in hiding now in Spain somewhere between alicante and valencia though there was reported sighting this summer in Ibiza which led to the almost sensational news that he had finally been specifically located. (how difficult is it to find a 91 year old german in Ibiza?) Well the accent goes, and you'd be surprised how many old gentlemen with murky pasts are to be found in the mediterranean. Heim is number 2 on the global list, number 1 is Alois Brunner - born 1912 he was believed to live in Damascus using the alias Dr. Georg Fischer, until a few years ago, and had in his nazi years been a close associate of Eichmann and in the post war period one of those many hundred criminals "requisitioned" by the CIA, which brought bya long and murky route to intelligence work in the middle east. Germany has posted 333,000$ reward for his arrest, France sentenced him to death in absentia in 1953 and 1954 and are still preparing cases on his policy of sending children to Auschwitz. Germany applied for extradition which failed and the EU parliament has petitioned Syria to release him. He's still at the hotel, and an easy to spot old man, the mossad blew off some of his fingers and an eye in a letter bomb attack. which brought him far right sympathy and magazine interviews in the USA.

There were many criticisms of Wiesenthal, but to understand him and his work, is to appreciate that he grew up suffering ethnic quotas, his family punished simply for being "jewish" in the Soviet Union, then the nazis came and 12 camps later he did his best to bring those responsible to justice. & in so doing his activities overlapped with the overt and covert concerns of many states on many continents.

Those states which prosecuted and tried nazi war criminals included Germany, Austria, Israel, France and Italy. To date the only civilian execution in Israel was that of Eichmann whose ashes were scattered at sea so that no nation allow him rest.

Crime and Justice means the bringing of the stories of those responsible for the Holocuast to public awareness, and the setting of standards, for though the crimes of ww2 were inarguably the most systematically henious they were not the last, and for the most part they led very normal and banal lives thereafter and some did not, and their stories for the sake of Justice must be known.

There are many war criminals now in many states who are kept safe from prosecution and by that mock the attempts to prosecute those few who have faced the proper international criminal tribunal - The Hague.

It is essential that the USA recognise and play its full part in the Hague, the just ought have no fear of justice. Darfur, the Balkans, Cambodia, Vietnam, the list of war crimes seems endless.
If Wiesenthal deserves nothing else, it is to be acknowledged as the "stubborn conscience" and the man who made sure that all victims were remembered, ensuring the inclusion of gypsy groups and inspiring so many of latter generations.

It is interesting.

Tue Sep 20, 2005 14:27

"Interesting you say that the west is backing Anti-Semitism but supporting the so-called Jihad against Israel. This is exactly the opposite of what Al Qaeda accuse the west of doing. Isn't Al Qaeda on a quest to to destroy the "infidel west" and Ziionist Crusaders?"

Al-Qeada know exactly where centre left and hard left sentiments lie - they believe ultimately that there is a capitalist conspiracy against the underdog. They believe essentially that the state of Israel was established in order to create a colonial foothold in the Middle East to oppress the Arabs and keep oil supplies safe.
Al-Qeada knows all to well the political climate developed post WW2 after the disastrous attempts by Europeans at empire building (Britain and France) and racist fascist utopia (Germany and Italy). A minority of the political and intellectual establishments invested in soft socialism or else hard Marxism using a rosy image of the Soviet Union. Jealous of American power liberal capitalist democracy became taboo.

In America communism or communist sympathy was dominant among the wealthy bohemian Greenwich Village, Hollywood and Democratic Party elite who felt quilty for being the sons of the 19th century captains of industry.

For both trans-atlantic movements the fall of communism in 1989 and the end of the Cold War with the emergence of a evermore dominant US without a nuclear holocaust was a terrible shock to the former baby boomer post-flower-power-hippy i-voted-for-Jimmy- Carter-because-I-hated-Reagan Democrats . They had always dreamed and believed in peaceful coexistence and detante with the nuclear armed Soviets before Communism would catch on in the Mid-West USA.

For much of the 90's they sulked without an alternative to triumphant capitalism until 2001 when they rejoiced in the 911 attacks on the hated US.

Al-Qeada have calculated coldly and clincally that if they protray themselves as the oppressed Arab fighting a class struggle against the imperialist West then they will recieve uncritical support from liberal intellectuals robbed in the past of their own revolution.

When Al-Qeada are victorious they will behead the anti-war anti-imperialist cheerleaders who march against Bush and Blair and Sharon along wth rest of us who are pro-democrcy pro-peace pro-women pro- gay pro-choice pro-freedom pro-music pro-cinema pro-literature pro-art pro-drugs pro-beer pro-sex and pro-fun.

RIP

by Will Lynch

Tue Sep 20, 2005 14:49

Will.Lynch at gmail dot com

Chomsky and the far right
by Rob Tuesday, Sep 20 2005, 11:06am

>>nteresting that you should mention chomsky in this >>hread. chomsky is a supporter of Dr. Robert >>Faurisson, a holocaust denier.

This is simply untrue Rob and you are either ignorant or are being deliberately deceptive.

Faurisson is a contemptuous Holocaust denier, in the mould of David Irving. Chonsky supports the right to free specch, as it is enshrined in the US Constitution. Whilst their was a chorus of disapproval in even allowing Faurisson to be published, Chomsky stood up for his RIGHT to be published, even though he disagreed with him.

This is a profound distinction and is an intellectually lazy way of name-calling THE greatest academic, thinker and political analyst of the 20th century.
If anyone even bothered to read Chomsky, it is blatantly clear that he repeatedly alludes to the Holocaust, recognises it and condements it.

He also reminds his readers that US corporations thought that Nazi Germany was a great place to do business and that many companies( like Coca-Cola who invented Fanta for the Wehrmarcht) had no qualms in making an honest buck whilst millions burned int the death camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka.

Finally, Simon Wiesnthal is an inspiration to us all. A great man that shows that you cannot run from justice, war crimes and crimes against humanity. And he did so much to draw attention to the Shoah.

Oh, "Righteous Pragmatist" - there is a crucial difference betwenn the Nazis and the Islamic Groups. The former were idealogically anti-semtic, the latter, are fundamentally anti-Zionist , even Al- Queda are Anti-Zionist, not Anti-Semitic.

Anti-Semitiism was alient to the Middle East until the creation of Israel. Europe and Christianity is where the real, dyed-in the wool, pure, anti-semitism originated from. The Middle-Eastern variety is but a pale imitation to the killing fields of Chrisitan Europe over the past two millenia.

I Agree Totally

Tue Sep 20, 2005 14:52

Two very well put together articles above. I agree totally with you. My point above was not to show you to be wrong, I was merely highlighting what I perceive to be a middle-eastern attitude, and you managed to do so bettter than I could, mentioning how Al-Qaeda will eat the hand that feeds it, when it feels that the time is right.

Mark.

Chomsky and Facts

Tue Sep 20, 2005 15:04

Perhaps one of the problems is that Chomsky loves facts too much. I have read criticisms of him that say it is not that facts do not interest him but that he uses them to his own ends (very noble ones I must add), that he draws conclusions that may otherwise not have been there.

This is not my own opinion, but in the spirit of "Chomsky" I don't see why I wouldn't present the opinion (valid or not) of someone who does not agree with him.

Mark.

chomsky is the greatest intellectual phoney

by rob

Tue Sep 20, 2005 15:07

Lets hear it from the so called great man himself

"I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even denial of the holocaust. Nor would there be anti-Semitic implications, per se, in the claim that the holocaust (whether one believes it took place or not) is being exploited, viciously so, by apologists for Israeli repression and violence. I see no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson's work ...|"

full text and context for Chomsky quote

by con text

Tue Sep 20, 2005 15:18

rob,

Its a bit intellectually dishonest to quote someone without attribution

heres the full quote and explanation...

http://www.chomsky.info/letters/1989----.htm

well that told me

Tue Sep 20, 2005 16:45

the link you provided does not contain the full text of the letter , just sleight of hand back pedalling.

http://www.wernercohn.com/Chomsky.html

I don't agree with your distinction.

Tue Sep 20, 2005 19:22

"Oh, "Righteous Pragmatist" - there is a crucial difference betwenn the Nazis and the Islamic Groups. The former were idealogically anti-semtic, the latter, are fundamentally anti-Zionist , even Al- Queda are Anti-Zionist, not Anti-Semitic.

Anti-Semitiism was alient to the Middle East until the creation of Israel. Europe and Christianity is where the real, dyed-in the wool, pure, anti-semitism originated from. The Middle-Eastern variety is but a pale imitation to the killing fields of Chrisitan Europe over the past two millenia."

Fundementalist Islam (as the distinct from mainstream Islam which is as tolerant as mainstream modern Christianity to otherview points) decrees that anyone who does not submit totally and abosolutely to its extreme interpretation of the Koran is an infidel and deserving of death. That means that in the fabled Caliphate encompassing the globe that only "true Muslims" and not Shia Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists or any other faith you can mention will be tolerated. That means that not only is Al-Qeada anti-zionist but anti-semitic. Their hatred of Jewishness of course is not exceeded by their hatred of everbody else who opposes them by their mere existence.

Nazism believed that only pure blood Aryans unpolluted by subhuman blood were destined to rule the weaker races (practically anyone who wasn't German including the Jews). The goal of extreminating all the Jews was only part of the Nazi goal of exterminating or enslaving all other subhumans from homosexuals, Jehovah's witnesses and gypsies to Slavs, Russians and Poles.

Fundementalist Muslims at the time of crusades slaughtered Jews and Christian and other faiths with the same fanatical hatred and in the same countless numbers as Christians killed one another, Muslims and Jews in turn.

Right now Al-Qeada and other fundementalist groups especially in Palestine not only dream and are trying to put into action the end of the State of Israel and a second holocaust of six million Jews. Pre-1948 Jews were attacked not only in what is now Istael but throughout the Middle East from Iran to Morroco from Kuwait to Yemen and everywhere in between.

I must say I not only disagree but I utterly diagree with your distinction between Nazism and Al-Qeada

Just another Holocaust Industry Crook

by Hilaal

Tue Sep 20, 2005 21:59

In the new religion of Zionism post 1967 he was a guru and mind shaper of all the new myths that explain and excuse Israeli murder in Palestine.

One of the greatest exploiters of Jewish suffering for the Zionist cause.

We were waiting for Hilal or someone similar to make that type of obituary comment.

Tue Sep 20, 2005 23:34

It poses the question why didn't Simon Wiesenthal live in Israel doesn't it?

He died an austrian Hilal.

Now you be a good troll and go read this article which was post at midnight CET before the Wiesenthal death announcement was made public by Mary La Rosa (the article its been moved from newswire to other press and the text reduced to url.)

its title "How To Succeed As A War Criminal"
its subject the work by palestinian and israeli activist to see the criminals of the intifada brought to justice
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=72069
the text being C&P of
http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/19690
a follow up to the story I wrote here:-
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=72054
which was first mentioned in a comment left on an Israeli thread by linking to the BBC report.
_______________________________________
Now If ye don't mind, I'm leaving the whole text of the Kaddish for the civilian Simon Wiesenthal Ukranian by birth, Russian subject turned Soviet citizen then holocaust prisoner then naturalised austrian who spent most of his life struggling against most terrible odds to bring war criminals to justice, after having witnessed their crimes and knowing what they did next.

ithgadal vyithkadash shmeh raba b'alma di-vra chir'utheh vyamlich malchutheh bkhayechon uvyomechon uvkhaye dchol-beyt yisra'el, ba'agala uvizman kariv, v'imru: amen. Yheh shmeh raba mvarach l'alam ul'almeh almaya. Yithbarach vyishthabach vyithpa'ar vyithromam vyithnaseh vyithhadar vyith'aleh vyithhalal shmeh dkudsha, brich hu. L'eyla (ul'eyla) min-kol-birchatha vshiratha tushbkhatha vnekhematha da'amiran b'alma, v'imru: amen. Yheh shlama raba min-shmaya vkhayim aleynu v'al kolyisra'el, v'imru: amen. Oseh shalom bim-romav, hu ya'aseh shalom aleynu v'al kol-yisra'el, v'imru: amen

by Philip

Tue Sep 20, 2005 23:52

I would just like to say that it is a sad loss, but also a victory that Simon did what he did. That he enabled the apprehension and the badgering of murderous nazi scum. Belittling him in anyway on the day he dies would show contempt, insensitivity and a lack of respect. He will be missed.

As for Chomsky being the best auther blah blah blah. Im sorry but that is bollox!! Just like Simon, Chomsky is just another man, he is as capable of mistakes as any other man. I do not agree with the hero worship of Chomsky that can go on, I am unaware of whether he appreciates or dislikes it, but I would imagine it is something he both hates and enjoys. Either way, i dont agree with him on alot of issues, but like Simon he has the guts to say it and put it out there and is not afraid if it gets cut off.

As for whether the Holocaust happened. Anybody who thinks that it seriously did not happen is a fucking idiot!!!

Ar dheis Dé....

by Duine

Wed Sep 21, 2005 16:21

Beannacht Dé le laoch seo na córa.

Hilal

by Someone involved with Palestine

Wed Sep 21, 2005 16:31

As someone involved in working for palestinian rights it is absolutely disgusting that the death of this man should be used to deny the holocaust.

The man deticated his life to bringing murderers to justice. He had nothing to to with zionism or the occupation of palestine and was solely dedicated to justice for the victims of nazism.

Right minded people no matter what the think of the current situation regarding palestine/israel will think badly of this man

May he rest in peace an may we continue to follow his example and work for justice throughout the world.

In memory of victims of Zion

by jac

Wed Sep 21, 2005 19:44

Yithgadal vyithkadash shmeh raba b'alma di-vra chir'utheh vyamlich malchutheh bkhayechon uvyomechon uvkhaye dchol-beyt yisra'el, ba'agala uvizman kariv, v'imru: amen.
For all murdered, maimed, tortured and displaced by the State of Israel in the name of Zion!

Jac, are you mad?

by ex-Brit

Fri Sep 23, 2005 14:47

Do you have the slightest clue what the words of the Kaddish mean? They are not "in memory" of anything, just glorifying G-d's name amongst Israel and asking for the Redemption to arrive "speedily in our days".

Why do you use a Jewish prayer, which is said to mourn Jews specifically, to lament the death of Israel's enemies? Why do you not say kaddish for all the Jews and Israelis killed in the murderous name of Islam?

You say: "For all murdered, maimed, tortured and displaced by the State of Israel in the name of Zion!" I don't think so. More likely, those killed because they used terrorism to promote their cause of destroying Israel and killing Jews.

he was buried today 23/9 in the town Herzliya named after Herzliya one of the founders of zionism.

by folding paper

Fri Sep 23, 2005 21:41

words are just words unless you know how to make them.

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