Europe - Ethnic & Race Relations, Holocaust Biographies, General & Miscellaneous Jewish Biography, General & Miscellaneous German History, Political Activists & Social Reformers - Biography, Western Europe - Politics & Government, German History - 1933 -

The Wiesenthal File

Name: The Wiesenthal File
Author: Alan Levy
ISBN: 9780802837721

by Alan Levy

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Overview

Simon Wiesenthal spent four and a half years in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Eighty-nine family members and relatives were exterminated, and he himself ended the war a living skeleton. Almost fifty years later, Wiesenthal remains undauntedly committed to the cause of justice for the Jewish people and to the pursuit of Nazi war criminals. The cases he has pursued are many - he has brought eleven hundred Nazis to trial - and his name has frequently hit world headlines in connection with such figures as Adolf Eichmann, Franz Stangl, Josef Mengele, and Kurt Waldheim. Of his enormous personal courage there is no doubt. But so long after the war, is Wiesenthal's work still important? Does it have meaning? Is he making a positive contribution to post-Holocaust Judaism? Wiesenthal's answer is resolute: "We live in a modern world. We know there is pollution. The air is bad, the water is bad, the skies are dirty. But there is another sort of pollution that people ignore. In many countries people are living between murderers, and that is the biggest pollution of all." This book by internationally known author and journalist Alan Levy - an acquaintance of Wiesenthal for many years - is the first critical examination of Wiesenthal's life and work. The story of Wiesenthal's pursuit of war criminals - often detailed in Wiesenthal's own words - offers reading as exciting as any thriller. But The Wiesenthal File is much more than that. It is an examination by an independent-minded Jew of the work of one of the greatest Jewish figures of our century.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Levy, an American who founded and edits the Prague Post , has known famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal since 1974. This moving account of his life and work is filled with Wiesenthal's outspoken comments and impromptu recollections. Levy's reconstruction of how the relentlessly determined survivor of Hitler's concentration camps brought Adolf Eichmann and other major Nazi criminals to justice packs in as much suspense and high drama as a thriller. Born in 1908 in Galicia (a region of the former Austria-Hungary), Wiesenthal tried to commit suicide after the Gestapo arrested him. His wife, Cyla Muller, also was sent to a concentration camp; he assumed she was dead until their postwar reunion in Poland. Levy offers a controversial analysis of Wiesenthal's role in the debate surrounding ex-U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, who became Austria's president. Wiesenthal called Waldheim a liar who concealed his knowledge of atrocities but concluded he was never a Nazi or war criminal. Levy praises Wiesenthal's ``principled stand,'' which possibly cost him a Nobel Peace Prize. Photos. Author tour. (Aug.)

Library Journal

Journalist Levy describes Simon Wiesenthal's pursuit of various Nazi war criminals such as Adolf Eichmann, Raoul Wallenberg, and Josef Mengele. During the Holocaust, Wiesenthal spent over four years in a concentration camp and lost all of his immediate family except his wife. Initially, he worked with Americans to locate war criminals, but he became disillusioned with the Americans and founded the Jewish Historical Documentation Center. He felt the center would be more concerned with the rights of the victims. During his career, Wiesenthal brought almost 1200 Nazi criminals to trial. Levy illustrates Wiesenthal's commitment to "justice, not vengeance" throughout the book, also offering a critical study of Wiesenthal and his writings. Levy has included historic research, comments from Wiesenthal, and an examination of the man and his mission. Recommended for public libraries.-Mary Salony, West Virginia Northern Community Coll. Lib., Wheeling

George Cohen

Simon Wiesenthal, a survivor of Mauthausen Concentration Camp, has spent the last 47 years searching for Nazi war criminals. Since 1947 he has brought nearly 1,200 Nazis to trial. His discovery of Adolf Eichmann's hideout led to the killer's abduction from Argentina by Israeli agents in 1960 and Eichmann's hanging in 1962. Wiesenthal's extradition of Franz Stangl, commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka, from Brazil to Germany led to Stangl's sentence of life in prison in 1970. Levy's impressive study of Wiesenthal's life and work, originally published in England, is well documented and balanced, tracing his life through his birth in Galicia in 1908, his imprisonment and suffering during the Holocaust, and his commitment after World War II to bringing Nazi criminals to justice. This is an important book about one of the most important Jewish figures of our time.

From Barnes & Noble

Written by an independent-minded Jew, this critical examination of Simon Wiesenthal's life & work scrutinizes his lifelong pursuit of Nazi war criminals & its relevance to post-Holocaust Judaism. A fascinating study of one of the greatest Jewish figures of our century.