Simon Wiesenthal: The real Nazi hunter
Simon Wiesenthal survived the Holocaust and spent the rest of his life hunting Nazi war criminals. Here's the extraordinary story of the real Nazi hunter.
Image: Dr. Simon Wiesenthal — photo by Rob Bogaerts, National Archives of the Netherlands / Anefo. Cropped by Sky HISTORY.
Ira Levin’s 1976 bestselling book The Boys From Brazil focuses on a Jewish survivor of the holocaust named Yakov Liebermann. The book covers Liebermann’s relentless attempts to dispense justice via a thrilling conspiracy. The character is loosely based on Simon Wiesenthal, a real life Holocaust survivor who hunted Nazis after the war.
Sky HISTORY examines the remarkable life of Simon Wiesenthal – Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and one of history's most tenacious advocates for justice.
Yakov Liebermann: The inspiration
In The Boys From Brazil novel, Liebermann runs an organisation dedicated to documenting crimes against humanity committed throughout the Holocaust. Despite Western nations rapidly losing interest in finding Nazi war criminals, Liebermann continues to run the center by moving it to his own home.
Liebermann is brought to life by Laurence Olivier in the 1978 film (though he is renamed Ezra Liebermann). The character is set to appear once again in a Netflix adaptation of the novel, where he will be portrayed by Jeremy Strong.
Simon Wiesenthal: The real Nazi hunter
Liebermann is heavily inspired by Simon Wiesenthal. Born on 31st December 1908, Wiesenthal was a Holocaust survivor from Austria. His survival story alone is extraordinary, as he lived through imprisonment in four concentration camps and a death march – all between late 1941 and 1945.
Despite 89 members of his and his wife’s family being killed during the Holocaust, he miraculously reunited with his wife in 1947. They had both assumed that the other was dead.
Post war
Following the war, Wiesenthal regained his health and began to collect evidence of atrocities committed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. He prepared the evidence to hand over to the US Army's War Crimes Section.
His work did not stop there. From 1945 to 1947, he headed a welfare and relief organization within the United States zone of Austria. This centre was for the Jewish people called the Jewish Central Committee. At the same time, he worked for the Office of Strategic Services and Counter-Intelligence Corps (also for the US Army).
Wiesenthal’s association with the United States Army ended in 1947. When this happened, Wiesenthal, along with 30 volunteers, established the Jewish Historical Documentation Centre. The centre, based in Linz, Austria, was intended to assemble the gathered evidence for trials.
Interest in Nazi prosecution began to wane when the Cold War erupted. The centre was closed in 1954 and the files that had been collected were taken away to be stored in Israel within the Yad Vashem Archives. Only one file was not taken to the archives: the file of major Holocaust organiser Adolf Eichmann.
Adolf Eichmann
Whilst continuing his salaried welfare and relief work, Wiesenthal actively hunted Eichmann. Through continuous work and connecting with contacts, Wiesenthal discovered that Eichmann was in Argentina in 1953. The information was given to the Israeli consulate in Vienna in 1954, but the tip was not acted on immediately.
With the help of several others, including a German Jew living in Argentina named Lothar Hermann, Eichmann was finally captured in 1960. He had been living under the alias Ricardo Klement. After being found guilty of mass murder, Eichmann was executed in May 1962.
Other notable Nazi catches
Eichmann was one of several high-ranking Nazis caught thanks to Wiesenthal’s work. Here are a few other catches that Wiesenthal was able to provide information leads for:
Franz Stangl
A police officer in Austria turned Nazi commandant of the Treblinka and Sobibor extermination camps. Tracked by Wiesenthal to Brazil and arrested in February 1967.
Hermine Braunsteiner
A member of the SS-Helferin, a women’s auxiliary corp within the SS. Known as ‘the Mare of Majdanek’ as she would stomp on and kick prisoners. Braunsteiner served at the Majdanek and Ravensbrück concentration camps. She served three years in prison for her role at Ravensbrück, but became an American citizen in 1963 before she was charged for Majdanek.
Wiesenthal was informed about Braunsteiner by a contact in 1964. Although Wiesenthal informed the Israeli authorities about her, she was not extradited to Germany until 1973. She was given a sentence of life imprisonment in 1981, but was released in 1996 due to health reasons. She died in 1999.
Karl Silberbauer
The Gestapo agent best known for leading the raid on Anne Frank’s house in 1944. Tracked by Wiesenthal in 1963. While he was temporarily suspended from the Vienna police force, he was not prosecuted. He was found to be only acting under orders from his commander.
Later life
Simon Wiesenthal’s life was arguably much more remarkable than that of his fictional counterpart Yakov Liebermann. Not only did he live through unimaginable horrors, but he then dedicated his life to bringing those involved in the Holocaust to justice.
Wiesenthal died in Vienna in September 2005 at the age of 96. His legacy lives on through the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which continues his work combating antisemitism and promoting Holocaust education.
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