Simon Wiesenthal: A Man of the Generations

Simon Wiesenthal: A Man of the Generations
by Rabbi Marvin Hier

As soon as the news spread that Simon Wiesenthal had passed away, it was the lead story in every major newspaperand television station around the world. The New York Times had it on its front page and the Los Angeles Times devoted four full pages in the front section ofits newspaper to tell his remarkable story.

But who was Simon Wiesenthal, the man I had the privilege of working closely with since July 1977, when I beganthe Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles?

In the Talmud, there is a debate regarding the most important verse in the Bible. The sage Rabbi Akiva said thatit is the verse,

"Love thy neighbor as thyself," while another sage, Ben Azzai suggests another verse:

"These are the generations of man on the day G-d created him…"

When a good person passes away, a eulogist will undoubtedly try to console the bereaved from within the rubricof ‘having loved his neighbor,’ but few times in history are we given the opportunity to remember a man who spoke for ‘the generations’ who labored and toiled not only for thosehe knew, but for those he would never know and those not yet born. Whose calling was not merely Rabbi Akiva’s reverence for one’s neighbors, but Ben Azzai’s great challenge ofhaving an impact on "the generations of man."

Simon Wiesenthal was born in Buczacz, Poland in 1908. He had planned an entirely different life when he marriedhis high school sweetheart, Cyla. He studied at the Prague Technical University and looked forward to a career as an architect.

Instead, the Nazis invaded Europe and unleashed their plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews, forcing him and hiswife into the concentration camps, and a decidedly different role then he had planned. Instead of sketching homes, he began sketching the faces of the murderers who he watchedpractice their inhumanity daily, and he began compiling lists of names of those who had come, not to beautify communities but to destroy them.

When the war ended on May 8, 1945 and the whole world went home to forget, he alone remained behind to remember.He once told me why. Because soon after the end of the war, while accompanying a group of rabbis who were seeking to retrieve lost libraries, he came upon a book. Written on theinside of the siddur was the following: "Whoever finds this book, give it to my brother. The murderers are among us. Do not forget us and do not forget our murderers." For manyyears, Simon Wiesenthal kept this book on his night table, unable to shake its admonition.

He could not forget. He became the permanent representative of the victims of the Shoah. No one asked him toassume this role – no world body or leader announced his appointment. He just assumed the job. It was a job no one else wanted.

The task was overwhelming. The cause had few friends. The Allies were already focused on the Cold War, thesurvivors began rebuilding their shattered lives. Only Simon Wiesenthal would not go home, taking on the role of both prosecutor and detective on behalf of the victims of theShoah.

His wife would often remark that in addition to her, her husband was married to millions of dead people. She wasright. He just could not let go of those terrible memories of the night, the eighty-nine members of both their families wiped out without a trace. The unforgettable memory ofchasing after the cattle car that carted off his mother to the death camp. He wanted so much to say goodbye to her, but she never heard the desperate cries of her lovingson.

When Simon Wiesenthal began his work, tremendous amounts of information filtered in, most of which he followedup himself and when he couldn’t, he asked others for help. In the 1950s, he received information that Adolf Eichmann was working in Buenos Aires and all he needed was $500 to hiresomeone to check it out. He wrote to many prominent individuals and many Jewish organizations, but no one came up with the $500. On numerous occasions, he had to close his officebecause of a lack of funds. Fortunately, his prominent role in the Eichmann case in the early 1960’s brought him a few friends, which finally helped him re-open his office.

It is important to remember that this architect from Buczacz, had no background in intelligence orinvestigation, but with sheer determination alone, brought more than 1,100 Nazi war criminals to justice. Not just ordinary criminals, but mass murderers like Franz Stangel, thecommandant of Treblinka death camp, Gustav Wagner, the commandant of Sobibor death camp, Walter Rauff, the inventor of the mobile gas vans who counted amongst their victims theinfirmed and the handicapped, and Karl Silberbauer, the Nazi who had arrested Anne Frank .

Simon had little patience for formalities. When one looked into his eyes, you could see the sense of urgencywith which he lived his life, as if he could still hear the footsteps of the millions walking beside him, the parents who never had the opportunities to say their farewells, thechildren who would never reach adulthood, and the generations snuffed out by the flames of the crematoria.

Once I was a witness to the kind of emotionally draining life he led when we arrived at the Dulles Airport for aflight to Chicago. I went to check something at the desk. Suddenly, I heard a commotion behind me. I turned and saw a younger man butting up and shouting at Simon. The airportsecurity had separated the two. Before I could get to him, I heard Simon shouting, "The man standing in line in front of me is a suspected Nazi war criminal whose name I havegiven to the Justice Department and his son recognized me and began cursing me." Only after explaining the matter to the American Airlines’ representatives was the decision madethat Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust victim could proceed on his flight and the other two, the suspected perpetrator and his son, would have to take a different flight.

Yes, today if there is a place in our world for the memory of the Holocaust, Simon Wiesenthal was at theforefront of those who helped plant the seeds of that memory.

He has always said that the Holocaust was about evil and that evil has been with us since the dawn ofcivilization. Yet, we always seem to think we know when evil will cease. After the 19^th Century pogroms, we thought that the new age of enlightenment would preventit from happening again. But then in the 20^th Century came Hitler who turned the country of Bach and Beethoven into the country of Bergen Belsen and Dachau. Followingthe Holocaust, many said such a thing could never happen again, but then came Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo, the horrors of the Sudan, and since 9/11 the terrible threat ofinternational terrorism hangs over all of us.

No one did more than he in bringing the perpetrators of history’s greatest crime to justice. Even those who hadescaped, lived their lives in fear because of him. Perhaps one day the knock would come to their door. This too Simon felt was a small measure of justice. No person devotedhimself so absolutely, giving up all worldly, and material pursuits and placing his family in harm’s way for the singular purpose of forcing the world to remember the crimescommitted against the Jewish people by a so-called civilized society. For the victims of the Holocaust who perished, he returned to them the respect they were never accorded inlife. Every survivor walked a little taller and felt more secure because Simon Wiesenthal was out there defending their honor and the honor of all those who perished.

I was with him at all his meetings with four Presidents of the United States and I saw the great deference andrespect in which he was held. When President Carter presented him with the Congressional Gold Medal, he said, "Some think we are here today to honor him, but his presence herehonors us and this home, and the principles for which it stands."

President Clinton presented him with the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian recognition, rarelygiven to citizens of foreign countries, an honor I had the privilege of accepting on his behalf. President Clinton said, "… Only if we heed this brave voice can we build a bulwarkof humanity against the hatred and indifference that is still so prevalent in this world."

When he met President Reagan in the Oval Office and said, "Mr. President, I am honored to meet you," PresidentReagan replied, "Sir, the honor is mine, not yours."

He was a favorite of celebrities as well. At a Wiesenthal Center dinner in Los Angeles in 1978, Frank Sinatrasaid: "Simon, I would be honored just to be the pillow upon which you lay down to rest your head."

Yes, Simon, it is true that when you ran after the cattle car trying to say goodbye to your beloved mother, shecould not hear you. But it is also true that because of your life’s work, the whole world has heard you,

Each year Forbes Magazine lists the world’s richest men. Whenever I see that list, I am remindedof the story that Simon was fond of telling. It was at the end of the war in 1946 in Italy. He was spending Friday night with a group of friends, fellow survivors who could notunderstand why he decided to become a Nazi hunter. They argued ‘enough with the past, you should focus on the future.’ As Simon looked at the Sabbath candles whose flames wereaglow, he said, "My dear friends, do you know what I see in the glow of the candles? I see the souls of our six million brothers and sisters. And one day when our lives are over,they will come to all of us and they will ask us, what have you done? You, my dear friend, will tell them that you went into construction to build homes. And you will say you wentinto the jewelry business. And you became a manufacturer of clothes. But I will have the privilege of saying to them, "I have never forgotten you."

Now Simon, as you go to your eternal repose, I am sure there is a great stirring in heaven as the soul of themillions murdered during the Nazi Holocaust get ready to welcome Shimon Ben Asher, the man who stood up for their honor and never let the world forget them.