I Have Never Forgotten You

I watch way to many documentaries, and I watch way to many docs about the Holocaust.

Simon Wiesenthal walked away from the death camps at the end of WWII little more than a skeleton. Just a few days after his release he saw U.S. soldiers talking in an office about hunting down the Nazis responsible, he immediately volunteered to help them. He had lost every single person in his family, he was the only one left and demanded justice. He worked with them for years, and after the Nuremberg trials the English and the Americans left, the sad truth of the matter is that the Nuremberg trials only convicted some of the guilty, some were let go, and some went to prison. Once the trials were over the rest of the Nazis, some being high officials were just forgotten about, but not by Wiesenthal, he set up his own group to hunt down these criminals who were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Throughout his life he tracked down the worst of the worst. Was painted as a villain by some (shame on those who did) while he was celebrated and honored by others. He was called a hero, which he always fervently denied, to try and understand why he wouldn't want that you have to put yourself in his position. All of your loved ones are dead, and you live, the guilt must have been so heavy. Yes, he sought justice, and tracked down real monsters, but he didn't want to be the hero.

To those who painted him as a villain, for trying to ruin peoples lives by exposing them all I can think is how anti-semitism is the same, year after year it keeps coming back. Him being a Jew wanting justice is somehow wrong, and the actual wrong doers are now mearly innocents, just following orders, or deserving of a second chance? I don't think so. Are there crimes in war?

How could someone not say yes to that. I think that the German people as a whole now are a good people, but still there is an under belly of anti-semitism, and its sad. It must be a hard legacy to live down and a terrible past to overcome, but to fix that would be to have expelled the guilty after WWII, instead of hiding them and defending them.

I want to call Wiesenthal a hero, or at least a great man, but I know he would have disagreed with me, so for that I respectfully say he was one out of many who sought to right wrongs, and for that he should not be forgotten. 8/10 stars.

Director: Richard Trank

Narration: Nicole Kidman

Starring: Simon Wiesenthal