Simon Wiesenthal’s death is not just the Jewish people’s loss. He should be sincerely mourned by the entire civilized world — by anyone still dedicated to justice, unafraid to acknowledge humanity’s dark past and determined to learn its lessons.
Today, 60 years after history’s single greatest premeditated crime, it’s not only the inexorable march of time that dims universal memories but concerted efforts to diminish or altogether deny the Holocaust. Even immediately after the wholesale industrialized slaughter, the world wasn’t in a mood to remember, much less punish. Indeed the great powers, embroiled in their Cold War, facilitated the escape of prominent henchmen.
It was this indifference that Wiesenthal took on, almost quixotically. He was alone, without money or power, himself the surviving inmate of several concentration camps, who lost 89 members of his own family. The Galician-born architect could have understandably, like many survivors, devoted his energies to rebuilding his personal life.
Instead Wiesenthal appointed himself advocate of the tortured, the starved, the degraded and the slain. He vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice and not allow the world to forget. It was an enormous undertaking for a single, unsupported individual.
It is estimated that the Holocaust was perpetrated by at least 600,000 Germans and very willing collaborators from other nations. To date only 7,000 executioners have been tried. Of them 5,000 got away with punishment grossly inadequate for the magnitude of their crimes.
To measure Wiesenthal’s achievement, we need recall that of the 7,000 prosecuted, he discovered and brought to justice 1,100. Most notably, he is credited with leading the Israeli government to Adolf Eichmann’s whereabouts.
It wasn’t easy, especially in the early days. America, where the Wiesenthal Center has made inroads in the battle against apathy, was consumed with anti-Communist zeal and Israel with a grave existential struggle. Austria, where Wiesenthal set up his center of operations in 1947, abhorred him (despite later accolades).
Even death in his sleep at a ripe of old age must be counted as part of Wiesenthal’s revenge. He not only eluded the Nazi murder-machine, he kept pursuing Nazis relentlessly into his early 90s.
But his departure also marks the effective end of his era. Like him, most other survivors who were adults during the Holocaust are gone. It’s no coincidence that the memorial torches at Israel’s recent Holocaust Day ceremonies were lit by survivors who were children during WWII.
As the numbers of survivors decline, so do the mass-murderers. Hardly any war-criminals remain to be apprehended.
The fight against the legacy of Nazism, even as its initial phase continues, must begin to be re-directed. With the passing of actual witnesses, there will be greater impetus to deny the Holocaust.
A few years ago when the massacres in Kosovo were likened to the Holocaust, Wiesenthal protested, arguing that "this trivializes the Holocaust. What happened to the Jews has no parallel. An open-ended, undated death sentence was issued against every single Jew, of any age, anywhere." This death sentence remains a living goal for those who harbor — and carry out — genocidal aims against the Jewish state. Terrorism, which is unacceptable by anyone in pursuit of any cause, becomes genocidal when seeking the destruction of entire state, which is certainly true in the case of Israel’s enemies.
Wiesenthal’s war against Nazism must be continued through the fight against Holocaust-denial or belittlement, and against the anti-Semitic onslaught on the Jewish state.
This state was always close to Wiesenthal’s heart, though he resided abroad.
Indeed, he requested to be interred here. Israel, the national home built by and for Jewish survivors, owes Wiesenthal unique gratitude. He was respected here but never fittingly honored.
The time has come for at least a posthumous payment of the debt. We must rise above our daily preoccupations and crises and establish suitable national commemoration for a man who devoted himself to this nation.
Iran News
