He Never Did Forget
Early on Tuesday morning Simon Wiesenthal finally was able to say the words he had waited decades to utter. On that day, Wiesenthal, at the age of 96, left this world to make his way to the next. "I didn't forget you," are the words he once declared he was planning to say when he made his way to the after-life and met the millions of Jews who died in camps during the Second World War. Wiesenthal himself narrowly escaped being a member of those ranks.
During the war, Wiesenthal himself was imprisoned in a series of camps and narrowly escaped being one of the six million.The single-minded pursuit he undertook after the war is what will have entitled him to say that he never did forget. That pursuit earned him nicknames like "the deputy of the dead", and "the avenging archangel of the holocaust". It also earned him both fame and the enmity of many who wanted to stop the unease created by a man who would not still his conscience or allow them to subvert theirs. Martin Mendelsohn, a Washington lawyer who helped establish the Nazi-hunting Office of Special Investigations within the U.S. Justice Department, said that Wiesenthal "kept the memory of the Holocaust alive when everyone wanted it to go away."
He claims for himself the distinction of having contributed to the arrest of 1,100 war criminals. One of his most famous cases involved Adolf Eichmann himself, who was finally brought to trial in Israel in 1964, and was hanged. The collection of concentration camp testimony and dossiers on Nazis that he amassed at his Jewish Documentation Center was used to help lawyers prosecute the cases against those responsible for the unspeakable horrors perpetrated against the Jews.
Wiesenthal has been honoured many times through the years. In 1977, Rabbi Marvin Hier named his Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights center after Wiesenthal. In 1980, he was presented with the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000, and an honorary British knighthood in 2004. He has been criticized as well, being called a publicity seeker and an egotist. It's true, he did say that if he were to be portrayed by Hollywood, he would want Paul Newman to do the honours, but tell me, please, compared to what Eichmann did, where is the harm in anything Wiesenthal ever did? It would be much easier instead to talk of the glory in what he did, and his selfless pursuit of justice on behalf of those to whom it had been denied during their lifetime.
Sleep well. Simon. The world was lucky to have had you for a while. Let eternity take you now.
During the war, Wiesenthal himself was imprisoned in a series of camps and narrowly escaped being one of the six million.The single-minded pursuit he undertook after the war is what will have entitled him to say that he never did forget. That pursuit earned him nicknames like "the deputy of the dead", and "the avenging archangel of the holocaust". It also earned him both fame and the enmity of many who wanted to stop the unease created by a man who would not still his conscience or allow them to subvert theirs. Martin Mendelsohn, a Washington lawyer who helped establish the Nazi-hunting Office of Special Investigations within the U.S. Justice Department, said that Wiesenthal "kept the memory of the Holocaust alive when everyone wanted it to go away."
He claims for himself the distinction of having contributed to the arrest of 1,100 war criminals. One of his most famous cases involved Adolf Eichmann himself, who was finally brought to trial in Israel in 1964, and was hanged. The collection of concentration camp testimony and dossiers on Nazis that he amassed at his Jewish Documentation Center was used to help lawyers prosecute the cases against those responsible for the unspeakable horrors perpetrated against the Jews.
Wiesenthal has been honoured many times through the years. In 1977, Rabbi Marvin Hier named his Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights center after Wiesenthal. In 1980, he was presented with the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000, and an honorary British knighthood in 2004. He has been criticized as well, being called a publicity seeker and an egotist. It's true, he did say that if he were to be portrayed by Hollywood, he would want Paul Newman to do the honours, but tell me, please, compared to what Eichmann did, where is the harm in anything Wiesenthal ever did? It would be much easier instead to talk of the glory in what he did, and his selfless pursuit of justice on behalf of those to whom it had been denied during their lifetime.
Sleep well. Simon. The world was lucky to have had you for a while. Let eternity take you now.
1 Comments:
Well said. I'm sure Wiesenthal wasn't perfect -- but which hero is? His life's work has more than made for anything he's every done. He's helped to send many monsters early to hell -- and that's a good thing. He sought justice -- he fought for justice -- even when justice for the dead was going out of fashion. And it's a good thing that Hollywood never chose Paul Newmann to portray him -- Ben Kingsley did a great job.
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