Talk:Simon Wiesenthal

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[edit] Featured Article

Simon Wiesenthal isn't a featured article anymore in The Netherlands, maybe someone can fix that?

[edit] Grammar

Somebody fix the grammar - there are multiple uses of second-person and other grammatical errors.

[edit] citation

News This page has been cited as a source by a media organization. The citation is in:
  • "[N/A Letters to the Editor.]", Toronto Sun, February 20, 2005. (details)
The letter in question:
(We can only hope)
IN HIS Feb. 13 column, "Sgro took last kick at the can," Peter Worthington quotes the Nazi war crime researcher and chronicler Simon Wiesenthal as having stated "prior to his death" that any Nazi war criminals of significance would now be too old and infirm to stand trial. I took the liberty of checking the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia for confirmation of this. Mr. Wiesenthal did say this in April 2003 upon his retirement. However, there is no mention of Mr. Wiesenthal having died.
Alan Tallmeister
Unionville

This article was also meta-referenced in http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26346, where they discussed the defacement by "Nazis" after Mr. Wiesenthal's death. nae'blis (talk) 18:29, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Immigration to US?

When did he immigrate to US? Immediately after his liberation in 1945? --Menchi 07:11, Aug 15, 2003 (UTC)

Wiesenthal never emigrated to the US. He has been living in Austria since the end of the war.
But there's another thing which has been recently added and should be improved: The Simon Wiesenthal Center was not really established "after the war" (according to the ikipedia entry, it was in 1977), and I don't think Wiesenthal himself founded it and named it after himself. Does anyone know details? --KF 16:45, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)
As best as I can tell, the Center was founded by Rabbi Marvin Hier with Wiesenthal's participation. GabrielF 19:23, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy

I have made some significant additions to this article. Please copyedit and comment. I also removed the Controversy section that User:Cautious put in. The Simon Wiesenthal Center's Operation Last Chance (or whatever its called) does not belong here because it was initiated by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, not Wiesenthal himself after Wiesenthal retired, a NPOV discussion belongs either in its own separate article or on Simon Wiesenthal Center. GabrielF 19:23, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Photos

GabrielF: Can you please cease erasing the information with photographic evidence of Wiesenthal's fraud? I know the source is biased but it still prevents photographic evidence with comparison to the drawing and photographs.

An even clearer image: http://www.ukar.org/lifeguy1.jpg

There is a difference between a "biased" source and a neo-nazi source. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for pushing propaganda, especially when the inclusion of such vile propaganda would deligitimize wikipedia. There have been many cases where links to neo-nazi websites have been removed from articles. GabrielF 16:27, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You don't care, if it is propaganda, as long as it promotes "the Holocaust". So please, a balanced view (including a revisionist one) would be helpful.
Please do not fall for the Ad Hominem fallacy. Whether or not the information is from a neo-nazi source does not mean the source is fake--by all means my sources provide photographic evidence of fraud that should not be dismissed outright. I know you are Jewish and the Holocaust is dear to you, but I am the son of a Polish survivor of the death camps and I try to remain as unbiased as possible in regards to the Holocaust--we should not censor Holocaust deniers but debate them.... After all, truth is on our side, correct? If there is misconduct on our side, we must highlight it as to not be liars and defamers.
Thank you for discussing this issue respectfully, unfortunately I don't have time to respond to this now - but I will say that the ukar.org site is no more pallettable than the last one. The author of the site has a pretty obvious anti-semitic agenda, I only poked around for a few minutes and found this:
From the beginning of the affair, it could not escape notice that this broadcast was not only an attack upon Ukrainians and upon the nation of Ukraine, but that it was a Jewish attack, this because every last person bearing responsibility for the broadcast, from the very top of the chain of command to the very bottom, was Jewish:
This site has shown no evidence of credabillity or legitimacy. It may surprise you to learn that I am no fan of Simon Wiesenthal but I believe that accusations against people must meet a certain standard of legitimacy before they can be included on wikipedia - every nasty thing someone has to say about someone is noteworthy enough to go into an article.

What a joke. Mr Prytulak is considered Bias, yet every and any slander made by a jew is justified and objective. Give me a break. He has a clearly anti-semitic agenda you say? I wonder if you even bothered reading the articles, the only thing that was clear to me was the continuing slander and libel of the Ukraine and Ukrainians by Mr. Weisenthal, among others, to which he obviously had personal feelings toward and wished to address, since the Ukraine doesn't have millions of dollars and countless organizations to defend their goodname, all they have is bulwarks like Mr. Prytulak, who is all too easilly delegitimized by heavy hitters like Mr. Wiesenthal, and apparently Wikipedia.

[edit] quotes regarding Serbs and Croats

http://www.hri.org/news/balkans/yds/1997/97-05-22.yds.html#02 says:

"Serbs saved Jews many times, Croats did not, i know that. We have always had sympathies for Serbs. They have written to me from the society of Serbian*Jewish friendship in New York, saying they could not understand why the whole world held only Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic responsible for crimes in Bosnia," Wiesenthal told [Sarajevo review Slobodna Bosna].
"The Serbian Army fought against nazis in World War Two, the majority of the Yugoslav partisans were Serbs. There were a few Croats. Nazis immediately created the "Independent state of Croatia" which was ruled by the ustasha and Ante Pavelic. They fought together with nazis against Serbs and Yugoslavia," Wiesenthal said in conclusion.

Some of these quotes would be patently wrong and rather insulting, given the hundred registered Righteous from Croatia, and the thousands of recorded Partisans from Croatia as well.

I've found quotes from this interview only at one other website and nowhere else. The newspaper [www.slobodna-bosna.ba Slobodna Bosna] allows access to the archive to subscribers only, so I can't verify the original article. Anyone else? --Joy [shallot] 20:02, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I did not vandalize

I just wanted to clear my name. I did not vandalize this page at all. I saw there was a swastika & I removed it. I then got a message on my screen asking me to stop. Was what I did wrong? I love Wikipedia & thought the swastika was an act of vandalism. I removed it. Was I not supposed to? My IP is 64.231.208.60

Looks like this was a misunderstanding, as the picture of Wiesenthal had evidently been replaced by a swastika and then you removed it from the page, prompting someone else to think you were just removing the picture of him. Thanks very much for removing the vandalism and our apologies if this has put you off Wikipedia at all. It's always very welcome when readers fix vandalism they come across, and occasionally mistakes are made by editors checking the edit history to see who was responsible for the vandalism and who fixed it. Thanks again. 86.134.215.88 19:23, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
    • I agree that placing the swastika there is smear and simply childish. But critical articles should be place on the page. I.e.: [http://www.vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/9/4/Weber439-452.html] . Or has anybody a problem with that.

I do and have removed it, SqueakBox 17:09, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

And what is your problem with this?

Looks on brief examination to be a pro Nazi type criticism, SqueakBox 17:29, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More references needed?

Hello, I just noticed that the only references listed refer to the criticism that Wiesenthal received. I'm not so well documented to comment on the relevance of these critics, but I cannot help to think that maybe a more balanced list of references would be useful. This way, one gets an impression of Wiesenthal being a controversial and possibly fraud figure, which should be adequately balanced, I think. It seems to me that he is usually credited with an higher moral position, or am I wrong??

Francesco

[edit] Article about vandalism of this article in The Age (Australia)

Does the story Website denigrates Wiesenthal, in the Sydney Morning Herald, refer to this article? - 129.94.6.28 04:09, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Bit disappointing to blame wikipedia for the vandalism. What do they want to do? Shut down wikipedia, ie ban open source editing in the name of respect, SqueakBox 04:19, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I have nopted it at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Newspaper report on vandalism at Simon Wiesenthal, SqueakBox 04:26, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia's own main page discusses the dangers of slander and libel. Insulting someone's memory in such disgusting fashion would be tantamount to defamation of character, and knowing Australia's laws protecting personal integrity, it could make that editor a target for a suit. --Michaelk 04:44, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Relax.
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald (which share content) ran an article talking about the vandalism. They didn't suggest that Wiki's editors were involved, just that the vandalism occured, that it was fixed by other users and that a Jewish organisation complained about it. They then go on to mention the vandalism of that pope dude and quote Jimmy Wales: "Such pranks are a little disappointing, but given how insane the whole idea is in the first place - that you could let anybody edit any page - it's a miracle that so little vandalism goes on," (sic). Nothing to be concerned about, SqueakBox - BlackPawn@e2 --203.97.27.126 05:36, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, but look at th headline; it's not "Vandals denigrate..." it's "Website denigrates..." The insinuation that it's somehow the Wikipedia's fault is in the headline.--82.152.177.71 17:08, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Rather strange but I could find no reference to the edits referred to in The Age article. As one might expect this article has been very heavily edited over the last two days with changes every few minutes. I was curious to see if such a version of the page existed and how long it stayed. I appreciate a sysop may have permanently removed the edit. It would be nice if a message was left on the talk page that the edit history had been tampered with.--User:AYArktos | Talk 09:24, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
For the record, and in the interests of transparency, the edit complained of was added by an anon, 66.99.233.35 (talk · contribs), at 00:15, 21 September 2005 and was reverted three minutes later by another anon, 151.205.126.213 (talk · contribs), at 00:18, 21 September 2005, with the comment Reverting vandalism. The edit was deleted by Mindspillage at 04:20, 21 September 2005, with the comment removing one revision upon request. (All of these times may be BST (essentially UTC+1) rather than UTC.)
So the journalist either spotted the edit within those three minute, or was surfing the edit history in the subsequent 4 hours, or someone else was and sent them the screenshot. Someone it not a friend of Wikipedia, I think :-/ There is some commentary at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Newspaper report on vandalism at Simon Wiesenthal. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:15, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
I've had an email exchange with Josh Landis, who is quoted in the article. I've posted it at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Newspaper report on vandalism at Simon Wiesenthal and I'm curious to her people's comments. GabrielF 12:22, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia has done far more than any other general-interest internet resource in documenting human rights abuses and countering neonazi disinformation. It has done this by trusting ordinary people from around the world, the vast majority of whom are decent, honest, caring, thoughtful folk, who must contend with the handful that are hateful bigots.--Pharos 19:46, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I have also written to Landis, pointing out that he is attacking the wrong target, SqueakBox 19:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

(removed)

Hence the above contributor's need to hide behind anonymity to preotect themselves from the evil forces of "Z.O.G."? Lisiate 23:31, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

You are wrong Lisiate. Anonymity would involve creating an account, leaving your IP address on your edits leaves a trail which in the case of static IP's can lead directly back to the contributor, and will in any case give their location away. I removed the comment anyway because we don't have to tolerate racial abuse, SqueakBox 23:50, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps but the anon didn't even sign with an IP address. Lisiate 00:23, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Nevertheless, all edits are logged in the history, so the IP address of the person who added the comment can be determined. Creating an account provides more, not less, anonymity. Signing is just a help to readers, it is the revision history that defines who wrote what. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:42, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why not mention the case of Frank Walus?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Wiesenthal+Walus&meta= Shouldn't that be added!?

As Golbenz just said on the incidents page, if they are going to sue for anti-semitism they need to start with Google. Maybe wikipedia should sue the website for claiming that wikipedia has denigrated Weisanthal when we have done nothing of the kind, SqueakBox 17:38, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

The Walus case has been added, i.e. the link now works. I think the link to the Toronto Times is better placed on the Walus link itself, as it adds nothing to the sentence (the story as outlined in the link itself is actually inaccurate). As so, I have removed it again. 158.42.10.44 12:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Objectivity?

I'm concerned that this section (in Early Life) isn't up to Wikipedia's standards of objectivity. Anyone want to rewrite, or should I remove it completely?

"Sadly, that fact is generally ignored by those who have made Ukrainophobia a going concern, including more than a few obituary writers. Everyone should mourn the passing of a Ukrainian of Jewish heritage righteous enough to insist that the many millions of non-Jews who perished in the Holocaust deserve to be remembered no less than its Jewish victims."

-Nick

  • Yes, I already removed this exact passage a while ago. The writer had made their point better in adding the fact about the Ukrainian auxiliary policeman who had helped save Wiesenthal's life.--Pharos 21:10, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
  • <REMOVED>
    • It is notable that the above slimy piece of s**t in human form didn't even care to read the article. :-)
      • What was on the article about? if it relates to Wiesenthal, I'd be interested.

[edit] Discussion moved from my talk

What's wrong with my contribution? However, he was never prosecuted for his self supposed role in the crime of the Eichmann kidnapping and his alleged cooperation with the Mossad which is a crime under Austrian law. I find this fact worth mentioning.

  • —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.13.176.205 (talk • contribs) 15:02, December 27, 2005
  • It is clearly not WP:NPOV. ...crime of the Eichmann kidnapping.... ...alleged cooperation with the Mossad which is speculation. If it can be made NPOV, I have no real issues with it. Wikibofh(talk) 21:52, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, kidnapping and crime is redundant anyway, and there is no doubt that he cooperated with the Mossad in some way, only if the information he provided was helpfull to the Mossad remains unclear. So let's say: However, he was never prosecuted for his self supposed role in the Eichmann kidnapping and his cooperation with the Mossad which is a crime under Austrian law.

  • —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.13.176.205 (talk • contribs) 13:29, December 29, 2005
    • I think this belongs on the article talk page. I'll create a copy there. Personally I don't think discussion of a prosecution that never happened is encyclopedic. Wikibofh(talk) 17:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I think non-prosecution is worth mentioning when you would expect prosecution under normal circumstances. Cases of mentioned non-prosecutions in Wikipedia can be found in articles about Heinrich Gross and Ante Gotovina and certainly in many others. --195.34.133.69 01:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Both of those you mentioned were prosecuted or are being prosecuted. Failing to be caught or being prosecuted and aquitted are different than charges never even being filed. Wikibofh(talk) 03:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Gotovina's non-prosecution in Croatia is mentioned in the article. Of course Gotovina, unlike Wiesenthal, was prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. It's also true, that Heinrich Gross was prosecuted and even condemned for his crimes in 1950. The time of non-prosection for the next 55 years is unfortunately only mentioned implicitly in the german wikipedia. The prosecutor dropped the case which - in legal terms - means that he was not prosecuted after 1950.

The difference between those cases and Wiesenthal is that they were prosecuted sometime by someone, while Wiesenthal was NEVER prosecuted by anyone for the Eichmann kidnapping. But this does not mean that it is not worth mentioning by whom, all three of them, were NOT prosecuted altough law would require prosecution or it is hard to understand why somebody is not prosecuted. Of course there is no second case Wiesenthal with exactely the same story. So I searched for articles about people who were NEVER PROSECUTED and for who this is mentioned in wikipedia. I found the following articles: Frank Vandenbroucke Lud Ullman Antonia Rachbauer Jane Bernigau Eleonore Poelsleitner Betty Hanneschlaeger --217.13.176.205 10:38, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

  • See this is all original research and conjecture. We are neither Austrian prosecutors nor lawyers. This strikes me a simply a thinly veiled attempt to be anti-Wiesenthal. One reason he could have not been prosecuted is that he did not break the law. Given that we simply don't know, unless someone has documentation from the appropriate prosecutors for the time, I don't think it belongs. Wikibofh(talk) 15:04, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nazi hunter

The article Nazi hunter is currently being considered at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nazi hunter. Perhaps a category would be more appropriate? --Aleph4 17:53, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Simon Wiesental

Wiesenthal, Simon (1908-2005), was an Austrian Jew who helped bring more than 1,100 Nazi war criminals to justice. In 1961, he founded the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna, Austria. The center, which Wiesenthal directed until 2003, collected evidence about the murders of approximately 6 million Jews and millions of other persons by the Nazis during World War II (1939-1945). It also gathered information on the location of Nazis who had avoided capture. Wiesenthal helped bring to trial such former Nazi officers as Adolf Eichmann, who directed the removal of Jews to concentration camps, and Karl Silberbauer, who arrested Anne Frank (see Frank, Anne). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.215.27.209 (talk) 00:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] NPOV?

I know hindsight is 20/20, but to me, contemporarily, this guy sounds like he was just a rogue kid with political exemption running around ganking nazi's to take them to be clipped at Neuremberg. I only say it in this way on the grounds that every war that's happened in my life has had a crapload of blatent lies, propaganda, and the eventually mass capture and execution of randoms with aggrandized roles to satiate the blood lust of the masses for 'justice'. The good old eye for an eye mentality. However, that being said, I found this article to be extremely POV in one direction and that it didn't address the .. eccenstricity and abnormality of his actions as a whole. I'd never say he did a good thing, but I can see where he'd be coming from having gone through everything he did. But addressing perhaps the fact that in contemporary society stalking, abducting, extraditing and trying under an ad hoc kangaroo court then finally executing 80 year olds is kind of whack. I don't care if they're ted bundy, there comes a time when you do yourself a dishonour by hauling them in rather than leaving them to the creator as the final judge, jury and executioner. I dunno, this article just didn't sit right with me. Jachin 12:45, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wiesenthal was again treated as a second class citizen

Any details? Xx236 14:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] the section Criticisms

this section, particularly the second half seems a bit disjointed, and the quote at the end seems rather long and doesn't really add very much, as it begins by stating that he isn't familiar with the exact criticism.

I have had a go creating a Frank Walus stub, which gives details about the case, and its use as a cause celebre. It should be added in a day or two. It can replace the link to the denier rubbish, as outlined in the link in an earlier section on this page. Paul haynes 15:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] His studies

According to SW he didn't obtain his degree in Prague, he was accepred into third yesr in Lwów where he got his degree.Xx236 14:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Spelling Error?

Why are there two different spellings of the same name?

"Another Head SS man named Kohlrautzgave him two pistols to hide in his office and kept them a secret."

"At the Front of the camp stood Kohlrauts. He was saved, again."

Are these two different individuals, or the same individual spelled two different ways?

Count of Cascadia 17:44, 30 November 2007 (UTC)