Simon Wiesenthal
Nazi hunter and Holocaust survivor
Simon Wiesenthal was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who spent his life tracking down fugitive Nazi war criminals. He also wrote The Sunflower.
1 summary 15 min of listening
Born 1908 in Buchach, Ukraine Died 2005
About Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal (1908 to 2005) was born in Buchach, Ukraine, and studied architecture. He was living in Lviv when World War II began, and he survived several concentration camps, including Janowska, Plaszow and Mauthausen. After the war he did not go back to architecture. He collected evidence about Nazi criminals who were still at large, hoping to see them put on trial. In 1947 he co-founded the Jewish Historical Documentation Centre in Linz, Austria, and he later opened a documentation center in Vienna. In The Sunflower, he wrote about an experience from his time in the camps that changed his life. He died in Vienna at the age of 96. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles is named in his honor.