Simon Wiesenthal

Last night I saw The Murderers Among Us, a 1989 made-for-tv movie about Simon Wiesenthal, based on his book of the same name. It tells the story of his lifelong investigations and exposures of Nazi war criminals, not for revenge, as he said, since revenge for six million was out of the question, but for justice. While the screenplay feels a bit unfinished, there are some moving scenes and a fine, convincing performance by Ben Kingsley in the lead role. Wiesenthal, who lived in Vienna, died this past September 30 at the age of 96, and his obituary in the New York Times is worth reading.

One thing that stands out about Wiesenthal as portrayed in the movie is the absence of any of the usual liberal notes. He never talks about tolerance or brotherhood or the need for all people to accept each other. He never whines about discrimination and racism. His concern is always with truth and justice. These terrible crimes had been committed (all 89 of his and his wife’s relatives had been killed), the world had ignored them and was ignoring them still, and his transcendent object was to bring the criminals to account, not necessarily to send them to jail, since that was not always possible, and not with any notion that what he was doing meant full and complete justice in this world, but to establish for the record, as much as was humanly possible, that such and such persons had done such and such things, and to make them morally answerable before the world. Wiesenthal’s lifelong devotion to truth was a quality that shines through this wonderful photograph.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 09, 2005 11:10 PM | Send