Wiesenthal, << VEE zehn `tahl,` >> Simon (1908-2005), was an Austrian Jew who helped bring more than 1,000 Nazi war criminals to justice after World War II (1939-1945). He helped bring to trial such former Nazi officers as Adolf Eichmann, who was instrumental in planning the Holocaust, and Karl Silberbauer, who arrested Anne Frank (see Frank, Anne ). In 1961, Wiesenthal founded the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna, Austria. The center, which Wiesenthal directed until 2003, gathered information on, and evidence against, suspected Nazi war criminals.
Wiesenthal was born on Dec. 31, 1908, in Buczacz, Austria-Hungary (today Buchach, Ukraine). He studied architectural engineering at the University of Prague and worked as an architect before World War II. During the war, most of Wiesenthal’s family died or were killed in Soviet and German concentration camps. Wiesenthal spent most of the war in German slave labor camps.
Wiesenthal wrote a number of books, including his memoir, The Murderers Among Us (1967). He received honors from many countries in recognition of his work. Wiesenthal died on Sept. 20, 2005.
