Goodbye, Simon

One of the heroes of the twentieth century passed away today at the age of 96. Simon Wiesenthal devoted his life, after incredibly surviving the full gamut of Nazi death camps, to hunting down the killers who escaped the fall of Hitler's outlaw regime. His greatest achievement came in 1960 when his work in finding Adolf Eichmann, chief in charge of the "final solution," led to his capture by Israeli agents. Eichmann was then brought to trial in Israel, convicted, and executed. But Wiesenthal brought hundreds, and even thousands, more Nazi killers to justice over his lifetime. His committment to justice was a heroic response to his personal tragedy at the hands of the Nazis, who killed 89 of his relatives and had starved him to 99 lbs. by the end of the war. Such devotion to justice is always inspiring. Goodbye, Simon.