Simon Wiesenthal, Nazi Hunter, dies at age 96

I actually considered starting a thread on this very subject.

Thanks for saving me the work, k.

Gus, glad to do it. I was surprised that there wasn't a thread already.

As am I, but I also find it hard to believe that a woman of your intellect had never heard of Simon Wiesenthal.

My memory is terribly sporadic, so I may have heard of him and forgotten. I do recall hearing about Nazi Hunters, in general, maybe his name was there, but didn't stick.

Have you ever heard of a guy called Hitler?

Rings a bell.

short fellow, charlie chaplin mustache, that hitler?

Re: Simon Wiesenthal, Nazi Hunter, dies at age 96
Thanks for starting this thread, littlek! I ought to have started one yesterday, but didn't. It's good you beat me to it.

The great thing about Simon Wiesenthal is that he hunted down some of the worst Nazi criminals, not "for authorities" as you say. That's what he did immediately after the war, in the late 1940s. His great achievement is that he continued to hunt them down in the 50s and 60s, even though most authorities had lost interest in Nazi-hunting; even though they sacrificed it to fighting the cold war, in many cases hiring old Nazis for the purpose. I think this is true for all non-Israeli authorities that are relevant to the problem: German, Austrian, American, you name it.

In these days, acting mostly by himself with some help of Israeli diplomats and secret service people, he brought down Adolf Eichmann, the 'CEO' of the holocaust; Franz Stangl, the commander of the Treblinka concentration camp; Franz Silberbauer, the Gestapo officer who arrested Anne Frank; and, as you say, about 1100 others by his own account.

Ths Simon Wiesenthal center has a website which offers a cornucopia of information about Wiesenthal and his cause. This man has done a great service to us all.

He was an amazing man, ,working from conviction, and living proof that tenacity trumps everything.

If I was running from the law he'd be the last guy I'd want on my tail.

Didn't he also uncover Mengele's bones?

Or was that Dan Quayle's wife he found?

A sad passing, indeed.

The BBC has an excellent site about "Vienna bids goodbye to Wiesenthal" online.

Wikipedia has some good information here[/color].