A_Wanderer said:
Seeking justice over revenge is certainly virtuous.
Yes, and that is what he did.
I also give him big, big props for staying in Vienna.
The city and the people here did NOT always treat him good. This is the Viennese mentality you will not hear of in the multicoloured Mozart-brochures we are printing for tourism.
In the 60s, life in Austria was different. We saw ourselves like victims of the Nazis, when there were many people who had thought that Hitler was fantastic. Some who worked in concentration camps. Who sent the trains away. Sure, there was resistance too. When we got our freedom in the year 1955, ten years after the war had ended, there were ex-Nazis hiding in South America.
So, one could say up until the 80s, the "official" Austria had a lot of run-ins with Wiesenthal. This even led to a juridicial quarrel with our (70s) chancellor Kreisky, who had appointed a politician called Peter for his cabinet, who was an ex-Nazi.
Just in the late 80s, Austria was mature enough to recognize that in our own rows there were not only victims, but also people who helped the Nazi regime.
Without Wiesenthal, there wouldn´t have been some of the Nuremberg trials, like the one against Eichmann.
Wiesenthal´s wife, however, always wanted to return to Israel. But he always wanted to stay, saying that he couldn´t continue with his work if he moved there. In a way, he was right. I liked to have him right here. To be our conscience.
That´s not to say he was a perfect saint. There have been articles about the finances of "his" NGO etc.
However, he played such an important role. There are those "little" things people will not mention in their newspaper articles.. like when he pressed and pressed and pressed the Viennese politicians to put a statue on Judenplatz (Jew´s Place) in our central business district. It was designed by Josef Hrdlicka (another guy who conservative Austrians don´t like, because he is critical of politics and can be very provocative).
I think the art scene here admired him a lot. We have some good people here, who don´t give a fuck. I will always remember Hubsi Kramer, one of our actors: when the conservatives here made a coaltion with Haider (the right-wing politician who said that sending people to concentration camps was a "proper employment policy"), Hubsi came up to the yearly "Opera Ball" in Vienna (where all the rich elite, national, international, meets once a year to dance waltz and make business deals) - in a limousine, dressed in a Hitler uniform, complete with Svastika and all, and walked right in (it took the police half an hour to realize what was going on and get him out).