Remembering Simon Wiesenthal

REMEMBERING SIMON WIESENTHAL -- (House of Representatives - September 21, 2005)

(Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, I too rise to reflect on the life and contributions of Simon Wiesenthal who passed away 2 days ago at the age of 96.

Simon Wiesenthal is known by many to be the ``conscience of the Holocaust,'' for after the atrocities ended, he spent his entire life researching and locating former Nazis to bring them to justice.

Throughout the course of the Holocaust, Simon Wiesenthal and his wife lost a total of 89 family members. American soldiers liberated him from the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945. He was barely alive, weighing less than 100 pounds.

As a prisoner in 12 concentration camps, Simon Wiesenthal memorized the names of his perpetrators and later he embarked on his mission to bring them to justice. He created the Jewish Documentation Center to assemble evidence for trial. His most famous cases included the capture of Adolf Eichmann, the man who supervised the implementation of the ``Final Solution.'' Wiesenthal also helped locate the Gestapo officer who arrested Anne Frank. In total, he helped trace some 1,100 Nazis.

In a conversation with a former concentration camp inmate, Wiesenthal explained, when we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, What have you done, there will be many answers. But I will say, we did not forget you.

Now it is our turn to say to Mr. Wiesenthal, we will not forget you. We will honor his life and his work by continuing to bring perpetrators to justice and continuing to fight intolerance and anti-Semitism wherever it exists.

http://thomas.loc.gov