Simon Wiesenthal the Nazi hunter, pleaded last night for the continuation of trials against those Nazi criminals who have so far escaped punishment, not just for legal reasons but to educate mankind. “They must take place to make people understand how far down hate can take us when hate is part of a government program,” Wiesenthal told some 450′ persons attending the Convocation Dinner of the New York school of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion at the Plaza Hotel here.
He said the trials must continue “as a warning to the mass murderers of tomorrow whose victims might be Jews or other people. These trials must take place as a confirmation that justice never ends.” Wiesenthal, who heads the-Nazi war crimes center in Vienna, earlier in the day received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters at the commencement exercises of the HUC-JIR at Temple Emanu-EI. The degree cited him as “a visionary taking on single-handedly the task of cleansing the conscience of the world.”
Noting that the Nazi mass, murderers can never be adequately punished, Wiesenthal said the trial was more important than the verdict, even in the case where the defendant is acquitted. “These trials have to shatter the armor of indifference and the conviction that everything goes its proper way,” he said.
Wiesenthal urged that declarations at anniversaries or at common graves or crematoriums and gas chambers are not an adequate response to the Jewish losses. What is required, he said, is “alterness every day to all forms of bondage.” He added, “We must not forget that anti-Semitism. fascism and oppression have not died with the death of the Third Reich.” Wiesenthal said they have survived in many forms “particularly in the countries of the Eastern bloc; and we must realize again that wherever human rights are trampled upon, the Jews are usually among the first victims.”
Also receiving honorary degrees at the commencement exercise were: Rudolf G. Sonneborn, industrialist and Zionist leader; Louis Broido, honorary chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee; Sen. Hugh Scott (R.Pa.), Senate minority leader; Earl Morse, former chairman of the board of trustees of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations; and Mrs. Arthur Hays Sulzberger, retired director of The New York Times and grand daughter of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, founder of the college.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
