Wiesenthal's War

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....

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.