[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 245 Agreed to Senate (ATS)]








109th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 245

     Recognizing the life and accomplishments of Simon Wiesenthal.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           September 21, 2005

Mr. Schumer (for himself, Mr. Coleman, Mrs. Boxer, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. 
   Reid, Mr. Bingaman, Mr. Wyden, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Lautenberg, Ms. 
 Mikulski, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Stabenow, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Johnson, Mr. 
 Harkin, Mr. Kohl, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Feingold, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Brownback, 
Mr. Smith, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Voinovich, Mr. Biden, Mr. Corzine, Mr. 
 Allen, Mr. Inhofe, Mr. Carper, Mr. Graham, Mr. DeWine, Mr. Nelson of 
Florida, Mr. Levin, Mr. Grassley, Mr. Burr, Mr. Alexander, Mr. McCain, 
Mr. Nelson of Nebraska, Mrs. Hutchison, Mr. Sarbanes, Mr. Salazar, Mr. 
Cornyn, Mr. Hagel, Mr. Talent, Mr. Conrad, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Santorum, Mr. 
 Durbin, and Mr. Leahy) submitted the following resolution; which was 
                        considered and agreed to

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
     Recognizing the life and accomplishments of Simon Wiesenthal.

Whereas Simon Wiesenthal was born on December 31, 1908, to Jewish merchants in 
        Buczacz, in what is now the Lvov Oblast section of the Ukraine;
Whereas after he was denied admission to the Polytechnic Institute in Lvov 
        because of quota restrictions on Jewish students, Simon Wiesenthal 
        received his degree in engineering from the Technical University of 
        Prague in 1932;
Whereas Simon Wiesenthal worked in an architectural office until he was forced 
        to close his business and become a mechanic in a bedspring factory, 
        following the Russian army's occupation of Lvov and purge of Jewish 
        professionals;
Whereas following the German occupation of Ukraine in 1941, Simon Wiesenthal was 
        initially detained in the Janwska concentration camp near Lvov, after 
        which he and his wife were assigned to the forced labor camp serving the 
        Ostbahn Works, which was the repair shop for Lvov's Eastern Railroad;
Whereas in August of 1942, Simon Wiesenthal's mother was sent to the Belzec 
        death camp as part of Nazi Germany's ``Final Solution'', and by the end 
        of the next month 89 of his relatives had been killed;
Whereas with the help of the Polish Underground Simon Wiesenthal was able to 
        help his wife escape the Ostbahn camp in 1942, and in 1943 was himself 
        able to escape just before German guards began executing inmates, but he 
        was recaptured the following year and sent to the Janwska camp;
Whereas following the collapse of the German eastern front, the SS guards at 
        Janwska took Simon Wiesenthal and the remaining camp survivors and 
        joined the westward retreat from approaching Russian forces;
Whereas Simon Wiesenthal was 1 of the few survivors of the retreat to 
        Mauthausen, Austria and was on the brink of death, weighing only 99 
        pounds, when Mauthausen was liberated by American forces on May 5, 1945;
Whereas after surviving 12 Nazi prison camps, including 5 death camps, 
        Wiesenthal chose not to return to his previous occupation, and instead 
        dedicated himself to finding Nazi war criminals and bringing them to 
        justice;
Whereas following the liberation of Mauthausen, Simon Wiesenthal began 
        collecting evidence of Nazi activity for the War Crimes Section of the 
        United States Army, and after the war continued these efforts for the 
        Army's Office of Strategic Services and Counter-Intelligence Corps;
Whereas Simon Wiesenthal would also go on to head the Jewish Central Committee 
        of the United States Zone of Austria, a relief and welfare organization;
Whereas Simon Wiesenthal and his wife were reunited in 1945, and had a daughter 
        the next year;
Whereas the evidence supplied by Wiesenthal was utilized in the United States 
        Zone war crime trials;
Whereas, after concluding his work with the United States Army in 1947, Simon 
        Wiesenthal and others opened and operated the Jewish Historical 
        Documentation Center in Linz, Austria, for the purpose of assembling 
        evidence for future Nazi trials, before closing the office and providing 
        its files to the Yad Vashem Archives in Israel in 1954;
Whereas despite his heavy involvement in relief work and occupational education 
        for Soviet refugees, Simon Wiesenthal tenaciously continued his pursuit 
        of Adolf Eichmann, who had served as the head of the Gestapo's Jewish 
        Department and supervised the implementation of the ``Final Solution'';
Whereas in 1953, Simon Wiesenthal acquired evidence that Adolf Eichmann was 
        living in Argentina and passed this information to the Government of 
        Israel;
Whereas this information, coupled with information about Eichmann's whereabouts 
        in Argentina provided to Israel by Germany in 1959, led to Eichmann's 
        capture by Israeli agents, trial and conviction in Israel, and execution 
        on May 31, 1961;
Whereas following Eichmann's capture, Wiesenthal opened a new Jewish 
        Documentation Center in Vienna, Austria, for the purpose of collecting 
        and analyzing information to aid in the location and apprehension of war 
        criminals;
Whereas Karl Silberbauer, the Gestapo officer who arrested Anne Frank, Franz 
        Stangl, the commandant of the Treblinka and Sobibor concentration camps 
        in Poland, and Hermine Braunsteiner, who had supervised the killings of 
        several hundred children at Majdanek, are among the approximately 1,100 
        war criminals found and brought to justice as a result of Simon 
        Wiesenthal's investigative, analytical, and undercover operations;
Whereas Simon Wiesenthal bravely forged ahead with his mission of promoting 
        tolerance and justice in the face of danger and resistance, including 
        numerous threats and the bombing of his home in 1982;
Whereas the Simon Wiesenthal Center was established in 1977, to focus on the 
        prosecution of Nazi war criminals, commemorate the events of the 
        Holocaust, teach tolerance education, and promote Middle East affairs;
Whereas the Simon Wiesenthal Center monitors and combats the growth of neo-Nazi 
        activity in Europe and keeps watch over concentration camp sites to 
        ensure that the memory of the Holocaust and the sanctity of those sites 
        are preserved;
Whereas the Simon Wiesenthal Center played a pivotal role in convincing foreign 
        governments to pass laws enabling the prosecution of Nazi war criminals;
Whereas throughout his lifetime, Simon Wiesenthal has had many honors and awards 
        bestowed upon him, including decorations from the Austrian and French 
        resistance movements, the Dutch Freedom Medal, the Luxembourg Freedom 
        Medal, the United Nations League for the Help of Refugees Award, the 
        French Legion of Honor, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal, 
        which was presented to him by President James Carter in 1980;
Whereas President Ronald W. Reagan once remarked, ``For what Simon Wiesenthal 
        represents are the animating principles of Western civilization since 
        the day Moses came down from Sinai: the idea of justice, the idea of 
        laws, the idea of the free will.'';
Whereas President George H. W. Bush has stated that Simon Wiesenthal, ``is our 
        living embodiment of remembrance. The two pledges of Simon Wiesenthal's 
        life inspire us all--`Never forget' and `Never again'.'';
Whereas President William Clinton has remarked of Simon Wiesenthal, ``To those 
        who know his story, one of miraculous survival and of relentless pursuit 
        of justice, the answer is apparent. From the unimaginable horrors of the 
        Holocaust, only a few voices survived, to bear witness, to hold the 
        guilty accountable, to honor the memory of those who were killed. Only 
        if we heed these brave voices can we build a bulwark of humanity against 
        the hatred and indifference that is still all too prevalent in this 
        world of ours.''; and
Whereas, at the end of a life dedicated to the pursuit of justice and advocacy 
        for victims of the Holocaust, Simon Wiesenthal passed away on September 
        20, 2005, at the age of 96: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) expresses its most sincere condolences to the family 
        and friends of Simon Wiesenthal;
            (2) recognizes the life and accomplishments of Simon 
        Wiesenthal, who, after surviving the Holocaust, spent more than 
        50 years helping to bring Nazi war criminals to justice and was 
        a vigorous opponent of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, and racism; 
        and
            (3) recognizes and commends Simon Wiesenthal's legacy of 
        promoting tolerance, his tireless efforts to bring about 
        justice, and the continuing pursuit of these ideals.
                                 <all>