[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 124 (Thursday, September 29, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S10717]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO SIMON WIESENTHAL

  Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Simon 
Wiesenthal, the moral conscience of our generation and of generations 
to come. I was proud to cosponsor the resolution authored by my friend 
and colleague, Senator Schumer, that passed the Senate by unanimous 
consent, commemorating Mr. Wiesenthal's life and accomplishments.
  Mr. Wiesenthal died on Tuesday, September 20, 2005, at the age of 96. 
After surviving internment in 12 Nazi concentration camps, Mr. 
Wiesenthal took on a mission for the world--to ensure that through the 
crucible of the Holocaust we acknowledge and understand our common 
humanity.
  Simon Wiesenthal's name has become synonymous with the term ``Nazi 
hunter,'' the man responsible for bringing more than 1,100 Holocaust 
collaborators to justice. But as the noted author, Robert Lifton, has 
said, what defined Wiesenthal ``wasn't so much his identifying 
particular Nazi criminals, . . . it was his insisting on an attitude of 
confronting what happened and constantly keeping what happened in mind 
and doing so at times when a lot of people would have preferred to 
forget.''
  Simon Wiesenthal constantly made sure that we understood the 
Holocaust was not a discrete event relegated to a particular time and 
place, but that it was, and is, emblematic of the depths to which 
humanity can descend and the heights to which it can soar.
  Simon Wiesenthal survived the Nazi death camps through what some 
might call luck, some might call random acts of kindness or just 
indifference, or what some might call miracles. Whatever the reason, 
fathomable or unfathomable, Wiesenthal became our guide on a painful 
and essential journey through memory and consciousness, an examination 
of what we are and what we should be. That is a journey that is never-
ending by definition--it was not for him and should not be for us.
  He was a detective searching for criminals, and he was a philosopher 
seeking after truth and justice. He found and helped find many 
criminals. His search for truth and justice is passed on to us and to 
our children. It lives on in the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los 
Angeles, home to the Museum of Tolerance. It lives on in our assumption 
of responsibility.
  Mr. Wiesenthal died in his sleep at his home in Vienna, Austria, his 
body at peace, his spirit among us.

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