Simon Wiesenthal

the long version

Simon Wiesenthal has been fighting against the tyranny of Nazism for more than fifty years. Born in 1908 in the small town of Buczacz in Galicia, he was a successful architect before Hitler came to power. During the Nazi regime he survived thirteen concentration camps including Plaszow, the notorious Polish death camp depicted in Schindler's List. Liberated from Austria's Mauthausen camp in 1945, Wiesenthal vowed to avenge the horrors of the Holocaust by searching for Nazi perpetrators and bringing them to trial. Revered by some as a Jewish hero and condemned by others as an egomaniac and a liar, Wiesenthal has provoked admiration and sharp criticism. Hella Pick's compelling biography provides a comprehensive and objective portrait of this highly controversial and enigmatic public figure. In this well-researched volume she chronicles Wiesenthal's early life and vividly describes his survival in the camps. Pick's gripping accounts of his major hunts for Nazi criminals - including Adolf Eichmann, Franz Stangl, Franz Murer, Josef Mengele, and Hermine Braunsteiner-Ryan - illustrate the methods Wiesenthal uses in his searches and illuminate the difficulties he has encountered, not least from other Nazi hunters.