ISRAEL/FILE: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unveils gravestone of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal

Record ID: 401121

  • Title: ISRAEL/FILE: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unveils gravestone of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal
  • Date: 23rd June 2006
  • Summary: (W3) JERUSALEM (FILE -1961) (REUTERS) MONOCHROME COURTROOM WITH ADOLF EICHMANN IN GLASS CAGE BEING SENTENCED
  • Embargoed: 8th July 2006 13:00
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  • Topics: People
  • Reuters ID: LVAEJG7DXA89P8VXQQG4ADXUV2KP
  • Story Text: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Friday (June 23) attended a Jewish unveiling ceremony for Simon Wiesenthal, the world's foremost Nazi hunter, who was hailed as the "conscience of the Holocaust" at his burial site in the Israeli coastal town of Herzliya.
    Dozens of officials, including foreign dignitaries and Holocaust survivors, crowded into a small, neatly manicured cemetery to honour the man who helped catch some of World War Two's most notorious war criminals.
    Olmert eulogised Wiesenthal: "They called him the Nazi hunter and he became national symbol of fulfilling the commandment 'Justice, justice you shall pursue'. This dear man, who since the day he was freed from the death camps dedicated his life to hunt those who committed the most terrifying crimes in the history of human life, also won a justified international glory," said Olmert.
    The Jewish unveiling is a ceremony in which a grave monument is erected for someone who passed away, usually twelve months earlier. The gravestone is erected at the end of a period of mourning.
    Mayor of Herzliya, Yael German, laid a wreath on the gravestone of Wiesenthal who now rests beside his wife Tzipra.
    Wiesenthal, a former concentration camp inmate, was known as a man who refused to let the horrors of the Holocaust go unpunished or be forgotten.
    Defying the fate that Adolf Hitler's executioners had decreed for him six decades before, Wiesenthal was 96 when he died in his sleep at his apartment in Vienna in september 2005.
    It may have seemed like sweet revenge for Wiesenthal, but he had always insisted his goal was justice, not vengeance. He once said all he wanted was to keep his promise to the six million Jews killed by Nazi Germany -- "I didn't forget you".
    Wiesenthal had asked to be buried in Herzliya, where his daughter lives.
    Wiesenthal was best remembered for his role in tracking down Adolf Eichmann, who directed the transport of Jews to concentration camps and was kidnapped by the Israelis from Argentina in 1960, then tried, convicted and hanged.
    Wiesenthal was also credited with unmasking the former SS officer who arrested Anne Frank and sent her to her death, a case that punctured neo-Nazi claims that the teenager's famed diary of hiding out in wartime Amsterdam was a fake.
    Wiesenthal always enjoyed the spotlight and some critics said his claims were at times exaggerated. But few people contest that, from his cramped office in Vienna, he helped bring as many as 1,100 Nazis to justice.
    Born in what is now Ukraine, Wiesenthal was captured by the Germans in 1941 and passed through 12 concentration camps.
    When U.S. soldiers freed him, he weighed 50 kg (110 pounds).
    Wiesenthal's Nazi hunting initially met resistance from some governments, including the Americans and Russians who were secretly recruiting German scientists for the Cold War. But eventually he was honoured by countries around the world.
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