Simon Wiesenthal

Sourced

• You're a religious man. You believe in God and life after death. I also believe. 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. You will say, 'I became a jeweler.' Another will say, 'I smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.' Still another will say, 'I built houses,' but I will say, 'I didn't forget you.'
  • New York Times Obituary, 9/20/2005

Attributed

• I have survived them all. If there were any left, they'd be too old and weak to stand trial today. My work is done.
  • on his retirement

• When history looks back I want people to know the Nazis weren't able to kill millions of people and get away with it.
  • quoted in AP story on his death

• There is no freedom without justice.
  • quoted in AP story on his death

• We are living in a time of the trivialization of the word 'Holocaust,' What happened to the Jews cannot be compared with all the other crimes. Every Jew had a death sentence without a date.
  • AP interview in 1999

• The most important thing I have done is to fight against forgetting and to keep remembrance alive. It is very important to let people know that our enemies are not forgotten.
  • AP interview in 1999

Quotes about Wiesenthal

• I think he'll be remembered as the conscience of the Holocaust. In a way he became the permanent representative of the victims of the Holocaust, determined to bring the perpetrators of the greatest crime to justice.
  • Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center

• [Wiesenthal] brought justice to those who had escaped justice. He acted on behalf of 6 million people who could no longer defend themselves.
  • Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev