Simon Wiesenthal, head of the Vienna Documentation Center, charged today that Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban had placed himself “in opposition to the vast majority of the Jewish people” by expressing disinterest in the continued tracking down of Nazi criminals. Wiesenthal, interviewed by the Dutch Radio in Vienna, was reacting to Eban’s comments yesterday on American television’s “David Frost Show.”
On the show, Eban said that while he does not oppose trials of Nazi criminals who happen to be captured, the subject in general “hardly interests me.” The crimes of the Nazis are not “capable of expiation.” Eban explained, and the important thing for Israelis and other Jews now is to build on the past. “I don’t really care,” he said. If “some wretched man in Paraguay or Brazil” is captured or not.
Wiesenthal said: “I, for one, have not learned about Nazism from newspaper reading or from cafe small talk. I have experienced Nazi persecutions on my own skin.” The historian, who will be 63 on Dec. 31, survived a dozen concentration camps, although most of his family, including his mother, did not. He was instrumental in the capture of some 1,000 ex-Nazis, including Adolf Eichmann and Franz Stangl. (In New York, a spokesman for Eban said the minister would have no comment on Wiesenthal’s statement.)
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