Simon Wiesenthal

Re: Tireless Nazi Hunter Never Let The Murderers Rest, Sept. 21. The passing of Simon Wiesenthal is a sad event for the entire world. He was truly the conscience of the Holocaust — someone who ensured that one of history’s most depraved episodes of mass murder and collective cruelty was always on our minds.

He was an extraordinary man, who taught us that one person can change the world.

As chairwoman of the UJA Federation Holocaust Centre of Toronto, I work with hundreds of Holocaust survivors who teach the lessons of anti-Semitism to more than 25,000 Ontario students every year. Mr. Wiesenthal’s unrelenting mission to bring Nazi war criminals to justice has given me and those survivors the inspiration to carry on.

He pursued truth and justice. That will be his ultimate legacy. Lorraine Sandler, chairwoman, UJA Federation Holocaust Centre of Toronto. One of the reasons that Simon Wiesenthal survived the Holocaust was thanks to the intervention of a man named Bodnar, a Ukrainian auxiliary policeman who, on July 6, 1941, saved him from execution by the Nazi forces then occupying Lviv, as recalled in Wiesenthal’s first memoir, The Murderers Among Us, by Joseph Wechsberg.

Sadly, that fact is generally forgotten by those who have made Ukrainophobia a going concern, including those who prefer not to remember how some of Mr. Wiesenthal’s allegations about war criminals in Canada were examined, then dismissed, by the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals.

We share, however, in mourning the passing of a Ukrainian of Jewish heritage righteous enough to insist that the many millions of non-Jews who perished in the Holocaust deserve to be remembered no less than its Jewish victims. May he rest in peace. Lubomyr Luciuk, director of research, Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Toronto.