Simon Wiesenthal dead at 96

The man who dedicated his life to tracking down Nazi war criminals died in his sleep in his home in Vienna.

Wiesenthal spent more than 50 years hunting Nazi war criminals, speaking out against neo-Nazism and racism, and remembering the Jewish experience as a lesson for humanity. Through his work, he said, some 1,100 Nazi war criminals were brought to justice.

''When history looks back I want people to know the Nazis weren't able to kill millions of people and get away with it,'' he once said.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that Wiesenthal ''brought justice to those who had escaped justice.''

''He acted on behalf of 6 million people who could no longer defend themselves,'' ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. ''The state of Israel, the Jewish people and all those who oppose racism recognized Simon Wiesenthal's unique contribution to making our planet a better place.''

Calls of remorse poured into Wiesenthal's office in Vienna, where one of his longtime assistants, Trudi Mergili, struggled to deal with her grief.

''It was expected,'' she said. ''But it is still so hard.''

Wiesenthal was first sent to a concentration camp in 1941, outside Lviv, Ukraine, according to the Wiesenthal Center Web site. In October 1943, he escaped from the Ostbahn camp just before the Germans began killing all the inmates. He was recaptured in June 1944 and sent back to Janwska, but escaped death as his SS guards retreated westward with their prisoners from the Soviet Red Army.

Wiesenthal's quest began after the Americans liberated the Mauthausen death camp in Austria where Wiesenthal was a prisoner in May 1945. It was his fifth death camp among the dozen Nazi camps in which he was imprisoned, and he weighed just 99 pounds when he was freed. He said he quickly realized ''there is no freedom without justice,'' and decided to dedicate ''a few years'' to that mission.