Simon Wiesenthal is an internationally renowned Nazi hunter, a Jew originally from Austria-Hungary. Education - engineer-architect, graduated from the Czech Technical University in Prague. During World War II, Simon experienced all the horrors of the ghetto and concentration camp. 87 relatives of Wiesenthal and his wife became victims of the Holocaust during the war.
Biography
Wiesenthal was born on December 31, 1908 in Austria-Hungary, in the city of Buchach (now the city of Buchach is part of the Ternopil region of Ukraine). Simon's father died during the First World War. Simon and his mother lived in Vienna for some time, but then returned to their hometown.
In 1928, Wiesenthal completed his studies at the gymnasium and tried to enter the Lviv Polytechnic Institute, but was refused admission because of his nationality. Then Simon leaves for Prague and enters the Czech Technical University.
After graduating from the Prague Technical University in 1932, he moved to Lviv and got a job as an architect. At that time, this Ukrainian city was part of Poland. In 1936, Simon married the Jewess Tsilah.
In 1941 Lviv was occupied by the German fascist invaders. Simon's family was sent to the Lviv ghetto, the third largest after the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos. After some time, Wiesenthal and his wife fled the ghetto, but in 1944 he was again captured and imprisoned in a concentration camp. Subsequently, he often changed concentration camps, successively visiting 12 different camps. Simon spent the longest time in the Mauthausen camp in Germany.
He was liberated from the concentration camp in 1945 by American troops. Simon was carried out of the dying barracks by American soldiers. He was extremely emaciated and weighed only 40 kg.
He died in 2005 at the age of 96 in Vienna, Austria.
Post-war activities
After the end of World War II, Wiesenthal decided to devote the rest of his life to finding Nazi criminals who managed to escape and thereby escape punishment. To this end, he created the organization "Center for Jewish Documentation" with headquarters first in Linz and then in Vienna. The organization included 30 volunteers on a voluntary basis.
This organization distinguished itself in the search and capture of many influential figures of the Third Reich. One of the most famous cases is the location and capture of Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible for the mass extermination of the Jewish population by the Gestapo.
The hunt for him began in 1948. It was possible to establish that he managed to escape to Buenos Aires. After several unsuccessful operations to capture him, in 1960 he was still caught and secretly delivered to Israel. In 1961, Eichmann was tried, convicted of mass murder, and executed by hanging.
In the 70s, Wiesenthal entered into a personal and political confrontation with Bruno Kreisky and Friedrich Peter. This story was widely known in Austria as the Kreisky-Peter-Wiesenthal Case.
Bruno Kreisky, leader of the Austrian Socialist Party, created a new cabinet after the party he led came to power. Simon publicly opposed this cabinet, in which five ministers had a Nazi past, and one of them was even a neo-Nazi after the war.
Friedrich Peter, leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, according to Wiesenthal's investigation, was an SS officer with the rank of Obersturmbannführer during the war years. The unit in which he served became famous for having shot hundreds of thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe.
In 1967, under the authorship of Wiesenthal, the famous book "Killers Among Us" was published, in which he tells about the New York housewife Hermine Ryan, who during the Second World War served in the Majdanek concentration camp and killed hundreds of children with her own hands.
In 1977, the Center for Jewish Documentation was transformed into a larger non-governmental organization called the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The headquarters of the center was located in Los Angeles. The main activities of the new organization were: studying and preserving the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, combating anti-Semitism and terrorism, protecting human rights. This organization is currently considered the most important organization in the world dealing with the Holocaust.
The Jewish Documentation Center was closed. At the time of the closure, the file on Nazi criminals numbered more than 22,500 people. All documents were transferred to the archives of Israel.
Simon considered his biggest failures to be that he had never been able to locate and catch the Chief of the Gestapo Heinrich Müller and the murderer doctor Jolzef Mengele.
The governments of many countries, including the USA, Great Britain, France and many others, have repeatedly noted the work of Simon Wiesenthal with high state awards. In addition, Simon Wiesenthal has won a UN prize.
Cooperation with Israeli intelligence
There is a possibility that Wiesenthal maintained close ties with the Mossad, Israel's political intelligence. According to some sources, Simon began cooperation with the Mossad in 1948, according to others, he became an agent of Israeli intelligence in 1960. There are official documents confirming this fact, but the leadership of the Mossad categorically denies their cooperation with Simon.
There are official documents that Wiesenthal, in the late 40s and 50s, helped the Mossad in locating and capturing Adolf Eichmann, as well as in secretly transporting him to Israel. According to these documents, Wiesenthal was an employee of the Mossad, received a salary of $ 300 a month and funding for the Center for Jewish Documentation.
At the same time, the documents do not disclose the role played by Simon in the capture of Adolf Eichmann. Isser Harel's report denied any involvement with Wiesenthal.
After Wiesenthal's death
After Simon's death in 2005, there were those who decided to declare the Nazi hunter a liar.
English journalist Guy Walters published a book based on Wiesenthal's memoirs in 2009. This book argues that the facts presented in Simon's memoirs do not correspond to official documents and generally contradict each other.
His compatriot, journalist Daniel Filkenstein, in collaboration with the director of the Wiener Library (engaged in the study of the Holocaust), on the basis of their data, fully supported Walters' conclusions.
American historian Mark Weber, famous for his revisionist views and Holocaust denial, accused Wiesenthal of illiteracy, financial fraud, libel and self-promotion.
Simon Wiesenthal in the cinema
Many films have been made about the activities of Simon Wiesenthal. The most famous of them are:
- 1967 "Memorandum"
- "In Search" 1976-1982
- "Yellow Star" 1981
- "Genocide" 1982
- "Majdanek 1944" 1986
and many others, including those filmed after the death of the world famous Nazi hunter.
