The collaboration charge was repeated by Bruno Kreisky, the Socialist chancellor of Austria, whom Wiesenthal often singled out for the ex-Nazis serving in his cabinet. They traded slurs over many decades and, in the end, Wiesenthal won a slander suit against Kreisky.
Neither Wiesenthal nor the World Jewish Congress (WJC) gained anything during the ugly public relations battle over the disputed war record of Austrian statesman Kurt Waldheim. Waldheim, the former United Nations secretary-general running for the presidency of Austria in the early 1980s, had served in the German army during World War II.
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Simon Wiesenthal Dies At 96
Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal, who helped track down Nazi war criminals following World War II, then spent the later decades of his life fighting anti-Semitism and prejudice against all people, died in Vienna, Austria on Sept. 20, 2005. He was 96.
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The WJC accused Waldheim of participating in Nazi atrocities. Wiesenthal's brief investigation turned up nothing, though he called Waldheim a "world-class liar." Wiesenthal said he lacked evidence to prove Waldheim was culpable for mass killings or deportations.
The WJC launched a massive campaign to discredit Wiesenthal. Eli M. Rosenbaum, a U.S. Justice Department Nazi-hunter and former WJC general counsel, wrote a book called "Betrayal" (1993) that criticized Wiesenthal for his alleged "cover up" of Waldheim's wartime activities as Waldheim went on to win the presidency.
While the accusations against him stung, Wiesenthal found his reputation greatly enhanced in his adopted country of Austria, which had long viewed him as a meddler, according to Pick.
To many, his name had long been a symbol of human conscience. Wiesenthal's honors included the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal (1980), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000) and an honorary British knighthood (2004).
In 1977, Rabbi Marvin Hier named his Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights center after Wiesenthal. Wiesenthal remained officially unaffiliated with the California center, but Hier agreed to send him a modest monthly stipend as Wiesenthal kept his Austrian office open, mostly hoping to outlive the surviving handful of Nazi war criminals.
Wiesenthal wrote prolifically to provide some income for his work. Besides his memoirs, his books included "The Sunflower" (1969), part-memoir, part-parable of forgiveness; and "Sails of Hope" (1973), in which he studied the possibility that Christopher Columbus was Jewish. He joked that American Jews might celebrate three holy events: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Columbus Day.
Wiesenthal was described as a man who accepted material sacrifice but craved name recognition. In many ways, he won his wish. Some felt this aspect of his personality diminished him, including Holocaust memoirist Elie Wiesel, who found Wiesenthal boorish and covetous of his Nobel Prize.
Ever image-conscious, Wiesenthal once said Paul Newman would be the ideal man to play him onscreen. When told the actor disliked portraying the living, Wiesenthal said: "Give him also my regards, but for his comfort I wish not to die."
