r.i.p. simon wiesenthal

Simon Wiesenthal is one of my heroes, because he sought to make a difference after surviving the Holocaust. His quote, "there is no freedom without justice," resonates with me on so many levels.

Visiting the Museum of Tolerance at the Simon Weisenthal Center as an undergrad was a transformative and powerful experience. My 2002 visit to Terezin, a Nazi concentration camp outside of Prague, was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

Simon Wiesenthal, Who Helped Hunt Nazis After War, Dies at 96
Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor who helped track down Nazi war criminals following World War II, then spent the later decades of his life fighting anti-Semitism and prejudice against all people, died Tuesday. He was 96.

The Holocaust survivor devoted his life to tracking down Nazi war criminals and fighting anti-Semitism after World War II.

''I think he'll be remembered as the conscience of the Holocaust. In a way he became the permanent representative of the victims of the Holocaust, determined to bring the perpetrators of the greatest crime to justice,'' Hier told The Associated Press.

A survivor of five Nazi death camps, Wiesenthal changed his life's mission after the war, dedicating himself to tracking down Nazi war criminals and to being a voice for the 6 million Jews who died during the onslaught. He himself lost 89 relatives in the Holocaust.

Wiesenthal spent more than 50 years hunting Nazi war criminals, speaking out against neo-Nazism and racism, and remembering the Jewish experience as a lesson for humanity. Through his work, he said, some 1,100 Nazi war criminals were brought to justice.

''When history looks back I want people to know the Nazis weren't able to kill millions of people and get away with it,'' he once said.

Wiesenthal's quest began after the Americans liberated the Mauthausen death camp in Austria where Wiesenthal was a prisoner in May 1945. It was his fifth death camp among the dozen Nazi camps in which he was imprisoned, and he weighed just 99 pounds when he was freed. He said he quickly realized ''there is no freedom without justice,'' and decided to dedicate ''a few years'' to that mission.

''It became decades,'' he added.

He was perhaps best known for his role in tracking down Eichmann, who organized the extermination of the Jews. Eichmann was found in Argentina, abducted by Israeli agents in 1960, tried and hanged for crimes committed against the Jews.