Voices From the Holocaust

Simon Wiesenthal

SIMON WIESENTHAL Simon Wiesenthal was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp for over four years. He has helped to establish important survivor organizations. Before founding the world-famed Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna, he established a similar institution in Linz, Austria, which flourished from 1947 to 1954. Their objective was to bring war criminals to justice. He also established the Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies in Los Angeles. Born in Galicia, he attended the Universities of Prague and Lemberg in Poland, where he was an architect before the war broke out. When he regained his freedom he was employed by the War Crimes Commission, the U.S. Office of Strategic Service, and the Counter-Intelligence Corps (1945-1947). From 1954 to 1961 Wiesenthal directed several Jewish welfare agencies in Linz. He has served as president of the Association of Jews Persecuted by the Nazis and as vice-president of both the Union International des Resistent et Deportes (Brussels) and the Federal Association of Jewish Communities of Austria. His books published in English include The Murderers among Us (1967), The Sunflower (1976), the novel Max and Helen (1982), and Every Day Remembrance Day (1986). Wiesenthal has received much world-wide recognition , including the Congressional Gold Medal, the Diploma 30 Voices from the Holocaust of Honour from the League of Nations, the Jerusalem Medal, the Freedom Medals of the Netherlands and Luxembourg. He was also named Commandeur of Orange-Nassau and Commentatore de la Republica Italiana. Wiesenthal has been awarded a number of honorary degrees from such institutions as Hebrew Union College, Colby College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, and Hebrew Theological College. HJC Why are you engaged in tracking down Nazi criminals ? SW There is a great danger that young people-and I mean young men and women in general, not just those who are Jewish-think that our disaster began with Hitler. I feel that we should look at the Holocaust as the end of perhaps a two thousand-year process. In my work I am not only trying to find Nazis and bring them to justice; I am also looking for answers for myself. I went back through the centuries, every century of our existence, to try to find out what was done to us. From this examination Ihave established six components of our tragedy. I believe that this holds true not only for the Jewish tragedy but for the massacres of other innocent people , like the Armenians, the Gypsies, and religious and racial minorities. HJC The components each became a chapter heading in the book you have just completed, I believe. SW Yes. Firstis hatred. Thatis obvious and does not need elaboration. Dictatorship is second. Over the centuries this has been a variable-it could be a king, an emperor, a pope, archbishop or bishop, a general, a president. In other words, people of power. Componentnumber three is bureaucracy. By this I mean not only people sitting behind desks. For me it's men in execution squads, those who operate gas chambers, the murderers. I call them bureaucrats because they follow orders. Without them dictatorship and hatred could not have strong "value.11 Next is technology. Hatred needs technology for the annihilation of people. I believe that if those who implemented the Spanish Inquisition had had the technol2 .79] Project MUSE (2024-04-18 13:38 GMT) SIMON WIESENTHAL 31 ogy that was available to Hitier, the Jews would not have been offered the alternative to be baptized or die, [or] to be baptized or emigrate in some cases. In the religious persecutions, no Jew would have survived in Spain, no Protestant would have escaped France, perhaps no Catholic would have remained alive in England. Component number five is a period of crisis. Looking through history we find that genocidesmassacres -happen in times of war, of crisis. The Turks could slaughter the Armenians only during war. In war a country is closed, everything is kept secret. Believe me, Hitler had studied the holocaust of the Armenians very carefully . In a time of crisis there is a need for scapegoats. A diversion has to be made from those who are actually guilty for the unhappy situation. Throughout the centuries Jews have been the number one scapegoats of nations in trouble. The final component, the sixth, is the need for a minoritywhether it be a social, ethnic, religious, political, or racial group. HJC You have completed another book recently, have you...