Simon Wiesenthal has died at age 96. From the Washington Post:

After the Nuremberg Trials of the late 1940s, Wiesenthal remained a persistent and lonely voice calling for war crimes trials of former Nazis. This was later considered by many a remarkable achievement, coming during the Cold War when the major world powers were recruiting former Nazis to help govern countries along the Iron Curtain. There was little political will to relive World War II, and few cared to challenge that perspective.

…

Following the creed “justice, not vengeance,” Wiesenthal said trials of Nazis would provide moral restitution for the Jews and have the best chance of preventing the anti-Semitism that defined the first half of his life.

“I’m doing this because I have to do it,” he once said. “I am not motivated by a sense of revenge. Perhaps I was for a short time in the very beginning. … Even before I had had time to really think things through, I realized we must not forget. If all of us forgot, the same thing might happen again, in 20 or 50 or 100 years.”

On page 27 of the first volume of his memoir, Chronicles, Bob Dylan remembers. He remembers the trial of Adolf Eichmann – in whose capture Wiesenthal’s campaign had in fact played a role. Dylan’s passage on this subject ends:

The State of Israel claimed the right to act as heir and executor of all who perished in the final solution. The trial reminds the whole world of what led to the formation of the Israeli state.

The irony of the world needing a reminder, a mere 16 or so years after the end of World War II, should be apparent. Now, 60 years after the end of the concentration camps, while the holocaust is still in the living memory of some, its reality and frighteningly recent nature seem to escape countless others.

In 1997, in Los Angeles, Bob Dylan played at a benefit for the Simon Wiesenthal Center. As he said in Rolling Stone in the fall of 2001, he takes some pride in having a “song for any occasion.” He played the song Stone Walls and Steel Bars, an old tune with a prison theme, sung by the Stanley Brothers, amongst others. He played Masters of War, which might be a surprise to those who believe he only sings it in order to criticize Republican U.S. presidents.

And he finished by performing Forever Young (mp3 file of this performance is here, for a little while).

May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young

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