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Simon Wiesenthal: The Nazi Hunter

When the ideological persecution against Jews began, his mind and body was
hunted and imprisoned. When he was physically liberated, his emotional pain converted
him into a predator. He began a hunting mission by listing and following the members
of the once omnipotent Nazi movement; the old trackers. His strong attitude and life
experience in the concentration camps had taught him he had to make a change to fight
for justice and to remember the victims. He was known as Simon Wiesenthal. He was
an adroit man who once was a Jewish architect turned into Nazi hunter and who refused
to be a silent victim of the Jewish Holocaust by dedicating his entire life after World
War II to hunting his tormentors.
Born in Buczacz, Galiciacurrently what is today Ukraineon December 31,
1908, Wiesenthal was raised in a lenient, limited, and tragic family devoted to the
Jewish culture. During World War I Simon faced the catastrophic events of the war and
later his fathers and step fathers deaths. However, as he grew older, instead of falling
back, he developed a strong and matured attitude. When he graduated at his secondary
school Gymnasium he sent his admission to the Polytechnic Institute in Lvov where he
was not accepted since there was a growing feeling of anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, his
intelligence gave him a position as a student in the Czech Technical University
(H.E.A.R.T, 2012). After he received his degree in 1932, he was quickly hired by
wealthy Jewish families for his cleverness as an architectural engineer. This, though,
didnt last for long. Once again, he was limited by reforms and tendencies. The anti-
capitalist movement aroused as Stalin took power of Lvov. Wiesenthal didnt have the
right to become an entrepreneur. He was oppressed by the new laws. As a result, he had

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to assent to a job in a mattress factory. In 1941, the Nazi forces invaded the Galicia
territory and the worst part of Wiesenthals nightmare had just begun (BBC, 2005).
The Nazi wave of terror tormented and traumatized Simon Wiesenthal from 1941
to 1945. Every day, at every camp, he encountered sadistic assassins that were
inhumane and unmerciful. During these four years he spent at three different camps. He
was frightful of losing his wife and life. His growing desperation became part of a
trauma that persecuted him forever. It chased him when he carried corpses at the Lackie
Wielkie slave labor camp, when he had to escaped from being almost executed, and
when he attempted to commit suicide twice.
The terror and disturbance he owned were products of the fearing idea he was no
one, in life or in death. In his book The Sunflower he narrates how insignificant he felt
during the Jewish Holocaust. He said:
I noticed on the left of the street there was a military cemetery . . . and on each grave there
was planted a sunflower . . . I stared spellbound . . . Suddenly I envied the dead soldiers.
Each had a sunflower to connect him with the living world, and butterflies to visit his
grave. For me there would be no sunflower. I would be buried in a mass grave, where
corpses would be piled on top of me. No sunflower would ever bring light into my darkness
and no butterflies would dance above my dreadful tomb (Wiesenthal 1989).

This quote, indeed, demonstrates how miserable and dour a prisoners life was at
a concentration camp, as well as in their deaths. However, the conditions of
Wiesenthals ashen and defamed life didnt permit his self to disappear after World War
II. He decided to re-born into a different and stronger Simon Wiesenthal.
After World War II ended, Simon Wiesenthal became one more victim of the
Jewish Holocaust. Why? He was taught by a macabre life experience he should be the
mouthpiece of eleven million victims of Nazi attacks to be able to keep their
memory alive; to make sure the dead live in that memory (Wiesenthal, 1989).

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He began working on his mission twenty days after his liberation by joining the
U.S. War Crimes Unit, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, and the Counter
Intelligence Corps. In 1947, he even started his own small corporation called the Jewish
Documentation Center, which was compiled by 30 members. He abandoned his
occupation as an architect to become a professional as a Nazi hunter. His efforts and
skillfulness were astonishing because he started with a list of 91 names and he finalized
with the capture of 1,100 Nazis. He hunted famous Nazi criminals, including the
predator of Anne Frank, Karl Silberbauer, and the commandments of Treblinka, Franz
Stang, responsible for 700,000 deaths. Wiesenthal claimed he captured Adolf Eichmann
and Joseph Mengele. However, critics argue until today Wiesenthal had the attempt of
stealing credit from the Israeli agents. As he became a stronger Nazi hunter, this was
not the only critique he had to face. Wiesenthals support to the Austrian ex-president
Kurt Waldheim, follower of the Nazi movement, created disputes. For this reason he
couldnt win the Nobel Peace Prize. These were only a few controversial examples
Simon Wiesenthal was challenged to live with. He did become "the bad conscience of
the Nazis because he dedicated his entire life destroying those who had annihilated his
past (Simon Wiesenthal Archive, 2012). His strong attitude was not easy to kill with
critics. He could easily write books to defend his position or fight eyeball-to-eyeball
against his enemies. As a result, he became a symbol of defense and protection.
After all the years of pain, destruction, and killing during the Holocaust, Simon
Wiesenthal wanted to be the one who could still speak (The Economist, 2010) for all
the victims. He wanted to preserve intact the memory of the Jewish Holocaust by
claiming for the justice that Nazis criminals had to pay with imprisonment or death (The
Encyclopedia, 2004). What helped him fulfill this goal was the knowledge and
experience he gained as a victim. For this reason after his liberation, he decided to

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abandon his profession as an architect to dedicate his entire life to hunting those that
disquieted his tranquil existence. He, then, became a symbol of empathy and justice
thanks to the image he once remembered of a girl he had seen being marched towards a
mass grave whose desperate look seemed to say Dont forget us (The Economist,
2010).


BIBLIOGRAPHY

BBC (1999, December 28). Simon Wiesenthal: Nazi-hunter. Retrieved May 26, 2012
from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/581109.stm

BBC (2005). Obituary: Simon Wiesenthal. Retrieved May 26, 2012 from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1170395.stm

Blueenthal, Ralph (2005, September 25). Simon Wiesenthal, Nazi Hunter, Dies at 96.
Retrieved May 21, 2012 from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/international/europe/20cnd-
wiesenthal.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Encyclopedia (2004). Simon Wiesenthal. Retrieved May 21, 2012 from:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Simon_Wiesenthal.aspx

H.E.A.R.T. (2012). Simom Wiesenthal The Nazi Hunter. Retrieved May 21, 2012
from: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/wiesenthal.html

IHR (2004). Wiesenthal Re-Confirms: 'No Extermination Camps on German
Soil.'Retrieved May 26, 2012 form: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n3p-
9_Staff.html

PaperBackSwap (2004-2012). List of books by Simon Wiesenthal. Retrieved May 26
from: http://www.paperbackswap.com/Simon-Wiesenthal/author/

SWC (2012). Simon Wiesenthal Center. Retrieved May 21, 2012 from:
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=6212365

TheEconomist (2010). The pursuit of Evil. Retrieved May 26, 2012 from:
http://www.economist.com/node/16886073

Wiesenthal, Simon (1998, April 17). The Sunflower. Edicin Paids.


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Wikipedia (2012). Simon Wiesenthal. Retrieved May 21, 2012 from:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wiesenthal

WorldBiography (2006). Szymon Wiesenthal. Retrieved May 26, from:
http://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2006-Ra-Z/Wiesenthal-
Simon.html