Simon Wiesenthal Quotes
I know I am not only the bad conscience of the Nazis. I am also the bad conscience of the Jews. Because what I have taken up as my duty was everybody's duty.
Levy, Alan. Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File. Constable, 1993, p. 11.
Schindler was a very wealthy industrialist who risked his own life and kept over 1000 Jews from being sent to the gas chambers during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem’s, Israel’s Memorial of the Holocaust has a duty to convey the gratitude of the State of Israel and the Jewish people to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. This mission was defined by the law establishing Yad Vashem, and in 1963 the Remembrance Authority embarked upon a worldwide project to grant the title of Righteous Among the Nations to the few who helped Jews in the darkest time in their history.
Ironically Germany and almost all Germans have repudiated the Nazi era and atrocities against the Jews and others. However, the Arabs many of whom were Nazi WWII allies still hold and spew false and dangerous Nazi propaganda. See {584354} for some of the earlier Arab Nazi activity.
The historical record that is available shows that while the Pope did not, actively or aggressively oppose Hitler, and he did not discipline Catholic prelates who were Nazi supporters, there is no specific evidence that shows the Pope conspired with Hitler, about the extermination of Jews or anything else. However, most of the relevant documents of the era are in the Vatican and the records have been sealed and have not been visible to historians. Apologists for the Pope’s passivity point out that a large percentage of Germans were Catholic and he had a duty to not antagonize Hitler who would retaliate against German Catholics and the German Catholic clergy and church property. Further, Fascist Italy was under Hitler’s control, and the Vatican itself could have closed and its property seized. The historical record is still very vague.
The non-violent resistance tactics of the White Rose were so threatening to the Nazi German regime that Sophia and other members were executed by guillotine beheading as a particularly harsh example. The graphic is a postage stamp that Germany has issued in her honor.
There were millions of refugees in Europe trying to escape the Nazi’s. When France fell and collaborators established the Vishey government, the French began rounding up Jews, Gypsies, and others for the concentration camps. They could escape France only if they had a transit visa from some nearby country. Salizar, the Portuguese strongman, currying favor with Hitler, prohibited the issuance of transit visas to Jewish refugees. Some unethical diplomats would only issue visas if large bribes were paid. Sousa Mendes, a devout Catholic, had seen all the desperate refugees in the streets of Bordeaux and decided to issue transit visas despite his government’s orders. He issued 30,000 taking no payments at all and saved tens of thousands of lives. Salizar investigated and demanded an explanation. Sousa Mendez was fired and was not even allowed to practice law. He died in poverty. Later he was posthumously awarded his country’s highest medal and a stamp was issued in his honor. See {67378}.
He was shot in 1944 for his involvement in an attempt to kill Hitler
Simon Wiesenthal KBE was a Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. He studied architecture and was living in Lwów at the outbreak of World War II. He survived the Janowska concentration camp (late 1941 to September 1944), the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp (September to October 1944), the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, a death march to Chemnitz, Buchenwald, and the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp (February to 5 May 1945).
