He refused to forgive
During famed Nazi hunter's very
long life, guilty could never rest
This week, Austria, the homeland of Adolf Hitler, lost Simon Wiesenthal, the world's most famous Nazi hunter. To the horror of Europe's worst fugitive mass murderers and their sympathizers, Wiesenthal was almost 100 years old, a tough old man who had chosen to never let sleeping, and rabid, dogs lie in comfort.
Wiesenthal made a great contribution to our understanding of the hard blue facts.
First, he survived. If the Nazis had had their way, Wiesenthal, being Jewish, would not have seen the end of World War II; he would have been reduced to a murdered corpse in some place made despicable by genocidal actions. Or he would be blowing in the wind with the ashes of those millions who went up the chimneys of the crematoriums.
Wiesenthal dedicated his life to the principle that some things should not be forgotten and that some people should not be forgiven. That principle also brought with it the recognition that some people owe debts to the world that cannot be written off or redefined in the interest of simplicity and comfort.
There were many who did not want to hear from Wiesenthal when a number of Nazis were still on the run or making new lives for themselves. Since both the United States and Russia made use of captured German scientists in their nuclear and space programs, neither world power was too happy to have bloodhounds snooping around. All things were considered fair if they appeared to have the potential for creating an advantage in weaponry.
Nothing swayed Wiesenthal, who felt that he owed a debt to the murdered. He was not seeking revenge; he wanted justice, which is more difficult to understand in some circumstances than it is in others. Because of our long tradition of Christian forgiveness and its having developed into the concept of rehabilitation in our penal system, there are some who believe that a crime, no matter how terrible, should be forgiven over time.
That is absurd. If we have learned anything since World War II, it should be that the Germans may have been caught in circumstances, part of which was a long legacy of European anti-Semitism, but they were not unique when it came to killing those among them who had been defined as innate enemies of the society. We saw this happen in Cambodia and we saw it in Rwanda. Perhaps most sobering is the fact that we all witnessed Europe sitting on its hands while Bosnia became a target for Serbian butchers who showed no mercy to man, woman or child. They even previewed their intentions with the term "ethnic cleansing."
Throughout his career as a hunter of Nazi war criminals, Simon Wiesenthal made it hard for those on the run to sleep peacefully. The feeling that one just might be caught, or that any staring person could know that one is wanted, may not be as good as an arrest and a trial, but those feelings are a potent aspect of justice. People guilty of committing or aiding and abetting murder should never feel safe.
If he had done no more than that, Simon Wiesenthal would be a great man whose work and whose cause should never be forgotten.
Originally published on September 22, 2005
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