Henry Waxman: “I rise to pay tribute to Simon Wiesenthal, a tireless champion of justice for the victims of the Holocaust and for all…”

“I rise to pay tribute to Simon Wiesenthal, a tireless champion of justice for the victims of the Holocaust and for all humanity. As a survivor of the Holocaust, Simon Wiesenthal called his life a miracle. One often wondered whether it was by strength, providence or simple luck that he survived 12 gruesome concentration camps, but when he emerged from Mauthausen, liberated by American troops, he pledged to dedicate his survival to the fight for justice for Nazi victims. {time} 1645 He began with painstaking detective work in the War Crimes Section of the U.S. Army, gathering documentation to be used in the prosecution of the Nuremberg trials. His meticulous archival research became a key building block for the Yad Vashem archive in Jerusalem. And when the Iron Curtain fell and the allied powers tired of tracking Nazi war criminals, Simon Wiesenthal pressed on. He helped locate Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Final Solution, who was put on trial and hanged in Israel. His efforts also led to the capture of Nazi war criminals living here in the United States. His success inspired the creation of the Office of Special Investigations at the Justice Department to seek their denaturalization and deportation. For Mr. Wiesenthal, the pursuit of war criminals and hate groups was an integral part of Holocaust remembrance. The genocide of millions could not be mourned properly while the murderers walked free.…”