Nazi-Hunter
Born to a rich family in Buczacz, Galicia (now in the Ukraine), he studied architecture in Prague. At the statrt of WWII, he lived in Lvov, Poland (now in the Ukraine), an area that was incorporated into the Soviet Union.
With the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union (1941), Wiesenthal was arrested and passed the war years among different Nazi concentration camps. He was released from the Mauthausen concentration camp by the American forces (1945), and started working for the American Forces. He collected material on different war criminals with the aim of bringing them to justice. After two years he established, together with others, the Center for Jewish Documentation in Linz, Austria (1947). After sometime this Center was closed, as the Americans and Russians stopped to be involved in putting ex-Nazis on trial. Wiesenthal continued alone hunting ex -Nazis. According to his own testimony, he was involved in finding Adolf Eichmann’s hiding, which was refuted by Isser Harel, the Head of the Mossad at that time. After the Eichmann trial, Wiesenthal opened a new Center for Jewish Documentation, this time in Vienna. He became famous after finding and arresting the Gestapo officer Karl Zilberbauer, who was responsible for arresting Anne Frank and her family. His arrest proved that Anne Frank’s diary was true and not fabricated. Wiesenthal was instrumental in finding and arresting many war criminals, however, Wiesenthal never caught a war criminal himself, but collected material in order to prove the guilt of alleged war criminals and passed the material to the authorities, who arrested the suspects.
In 1977 a new center after Wiesenthal’s name was opened in Los Angeles, in gratitude for his work. At the age of 94 (2003), Wiesenthal retired from hunting ex-Nazis. He declaired that his work was completed, and that those Nazis who remained at large were too old to be put on trial.
Wiesenthal published 12 books and was awarded several medals, including the U.S.Congressional Gold Medal, the French Legion of Honour, and he received an honorary knighthood by Queen Elisabeth II of UK.
There were also some people who criticised Wiesenthal, among them Isser Harel, Tuviah Friedman, Bruno Kreisky and others.