Simon Wiesenthal Dies at 96
Simon Wiesenthal - , the survivor of five death camps, the Nazi hunter who refused to let Nazi murderers die in peace, and the man who dedicated his life to making Never Again and Never Forget genuine resolves rather than hollow words - died quietly in his Vienna home. Meryl has a roundup of obits. The New York Times is particularly good (despite the weasel phrase "he said" in "keep the spotlight on a hideous past that he said too much of the world was disposed to forget"):
He wrote grippingly of the German killing industry, cataloging a list of property sent to Berlin from the Treblinka death camp between October 1942 and August 1943: "Twenty-five freight cars of women's hair, 248 freight cars of clothing, 100 freight cars of shoes," along with 400,000 gold watches, 145,000 kilograms of gold wedding rings and 4,000 karats of diamonds "over 2 karats." Of the 700,000 people known to have been taken to Treblinka, he wrote in the 1960's, "about 40 are now alive." He suggested that train stations in Europe should get plaques reading: "Between 1942 and 1945 trains passed through here every day with the sole purpose of taking human beings to their annihilation."
In a world where Al Jazeera and Iran regularly push the line that the Holocaust never happened, where the Palestinian Prime Minister is a Holocaust denier, and where anti-Semitic violence has resurfaced throughout Europe, it is more urgent than ever that people take up the sacred task of remembrance and justice that he hallowed.
He wrote grippingly of the German killing industry, cataloging a list of property sent to Berlin from the Treblinka death camp between October 1942 and August 1943: "Twenty-five freight cars of women's hair, 248 freight cars of clothing, 100 freight cars of shoes," along with 400,000 gold watches, 145,000 kilograms of gold wedding rings and 4,000 karats of diamonds "over 2 karats." Of the 700,000 people known to have been taken to Treblinka, he wrote in the 1960's, "about 40 are now alive." He suggested that train stations in Europe should get plaques reading: "Between 1942 and 1945 trains passed through here every day with the sole purpose of taking human beings to their annihilation."
In a world where Al Jazeera and Iran regularly push the line that the Holocaust never happened, where the Palestinian Prime Minister is a Holocaust denier, and where anti-Semitic violence has resurfaced throughout Europe, it is more urgent than ever that people take up the sacred task of remembrance and justice that he hallowed.
