JERUSALEM: HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS AND YAD VASHEM MUSEUM PAY TRIBUTE TO DEAD NAZI- HUNTER SIMON WEISENTHAL

Record ID: 646766

  • Title: JERUSALEM: HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS AND YAD VASHEM MUSEUM PAY TRIBUTE TO DEAD NAZI- HUNTER SIMON WEISENTHAL
  • Date: 20th September 2005
  • Summary: (BN11)JERUSALEM (SEPTEMBER 20, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF PRESS CONFERENCE HELD BY HOLOCAUST MUSEUM "YAD VASHEM" DIRECTOR AVNER SHALEV 2. VARIOUS OF PICTURES OF WIESENTHAL IN BOOK 3. (SOUNDBITE) (English) AVNER SHALEV, YAD VASHEM DIRECTOR, SAYING: "He (Simon Wiesenthal) made a decision to establish his own documentation centre in the city of Linz (Austria). This centre was established and he started to collect information and documents about the Nazi activities and he gathered a lot of important documents about the planning of the "final solution" and about the process of killing and mainly about the war criminals, leading war criminals, like (Franz) Stangl. Who was the commander of Treblinka and Sobibor (concentration camps in Poland). And he tried his best to convince the authorities from that period to take the legal steps which were needed to bring them to court and to make a bit of justice after the war and he was active and I think along the way he brought the information and made a lot of activities and pressures he used to convince states and allies in the beginning to bring to court more then 1000 war criminals." 4. WIDE OF NEWS CONFERENCE 5. EXTERIOR OF THE WIESENTHAL CENTER BUILDING WHERE HOLOCAUST RESEARCH AND DOCUMENTS HAVE BEEN COLLECTED THROUGHOUT THE YEARS (5 SECONDS) 6. SIGN READING 'WIESENTHAL CENTRE' (4 SECONDS) 7. VARIOUS OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS SEATED AT MEETING TO DISCUSS WIESENTHAL'S DEATH 8. (SOUNDBITE) (English) YOHANNAH GOTESFELD, DIRECTOR OF THE JERUSALEM AM CHA- CENTRE FOR PSYCHO SOCIAL TREATMENT FOR SECOND GENERATION HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS, SAYING: "I asked a little bit you know the survivors today who were here how they feel and for many of them the organizations that he (Simon Wiesenthal) founded were very important and they saw this as a very important task somebody who dedicated his entire life for something which in the beginning was very controversial and which no body wanted to do. Which entailed the dirtying of his hands and it was avery important enterprise that he created and he gave his entire life for it." 9. VARIOUS OF SURVIVORS TALKING ABOUT WIESENTHAL'S ACTIVITIES THROUGHOUT THE YEARS AND IMPORTANCE OF HIS OPERATION 10. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MIRA KNAIPASS, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR, SAYING: "For me personally and for us as a group as Holocaust survivors it should mean quite a lot. We are the survivors but he performed the task of pursuing those he persecuted and I really think that his name should be commemorated and lets hope that he will have devoted followers because there must be some hidden nazis who must come to trial." 11. WIDE OF SURVIVORS MEETING 3.18 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 5th October 2005 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JERUSALEM
  • City:
  • Country: Israel
  • Reuters ID: LVA575B8KKI26RAMZCNVNWEMCOXT
  • Story Text: Holocaust survivors hope for followers of Nazi hunter
    Wiesenthal as Yad Vashem museum pays tribute.


    Jerusalem's Holocaust Museum "Yad Vashem" paid tribute to
    Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal on Tuesday (September 20).

    Wiesenthal died at the age of 96 on Tuesday morning in the Austrian
    city of Vienna.

    Wiesenthal, the veteran Nazi hunter who tirelessly tracked down Nazi war criminals for more than six decades, died in Vienna at the age of 96, the Simon Wiesenthal Center confirmed on Tuesday.

    In a campaign aimed at ensuring the world did not forget the terrors of the Third Reich, Wiesenthal brought 1,100 Nazi fugitives to trial. Among them was Adolf Eichmann, the man entrusted by Adolf Hitler with carrying out the Nazi genocide programme against the Jews.

    "He (Simon Wiesenthal) made a decision to establish his own
    documentation centre in the city of Linz (Austria). This centre was
    established and he started to collect information and documents about the Nazi activities and he gathered a lot of important documents about the planning of the "final solution" and about the process of killing
    and mainly about the war criminals, leading war criminals, like (Franz)
    Stangl. Who was the commander of Treblinka and Sobibor (concentration camps in Poland). And he tried his best to convince the authorities from that period to take the legal steps which were needed to bring them to court and to make a bit of justice after the war and he was active and i think along the way he brought the information and made a lot of activities and pressures he used to convince states and allies in the beginning to bring to court more then 1000 war criminals,"
    said Avner Shalev, director of the Yad Vashem Holocaust
    memorial museum in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

    Altogether the Nazis are estimated to have murdered 11 civilians,
    including 6 million Jews.

    "For me personally and for us as a group as Holocaust survivors it
    should mean quite a lot. We are the survivors but he performed the task of pursuing those he persecuted and I really think that his name should be commemorated and lets hope that he will have devoted followers because there must be some hidden nazis who must come to trial," said Mira Knaipass, a Holocaust survivor, at a meeting to discuss Wiesenthal's death in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

    Wiesenthal died in his sleep, Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon
    Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, told Reuters by phone.

    Wiesenthal, born in 1908 in what is now Ukraine, travelled the world into his old age, lecturing on the Holocaust and as director of the Jewish Documentation Centre collecting data on the whereabouts of the last unpunished villains of Nazi Germany.

    Himself a Jew and former concentration camp inmate, Wiesenthal founded the Jewish Documentation Centre in his post-war home Austria. There he built up an information network which he used to uncover and pin evidence on those responsible for World War Two atrocities.

    He maintained that his motivation was not anger but justice. "I am
    someone who seeks justice, not revenge," Wiesenthal said.


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