The Daily Files: Driven by duty to dead, says Wiesenthal

[HTML_REMOVED]A look backward in time through the yellowing pages of newsprint archives shows what The Daily and the UW looked like 25 years ago[HTML_REMOVED]

It was hard to tell how many people crowded around Simon Wiesenthal; they pressed too tightly.

Minutes before, the 73-year-old Nazi-hunter had finished Thursday night's lecture at Shoreline Community College. Security guards quickly ushered him from the auditorium to a reception near the student union building. There was free coffee for those who paid the $6 admission fee, but the crowd around Wiesenthal didn't seem interested in refreshments.

They surrounded his chair five deep, all waiting to attract his attention. Some handed Wiesenthal copies of his own books to sign, but others had more personal requests. One man, about 35, thrust a 3 x 5 card into Wiesenthal's hand.

"Herr Wiesenthal, do any of those names on the card mean anything to you?" he asked.

Wiesenthal glanced at the card and pointed to the top name on the list. "Yes, that is a convalescent home in Germany. During the war it was a Nazi hospital."

"My mother was tortured there," the man said. "She was a speaker and a writer..."

Other people in the crowd held their breath. It looked like another long conversation. Already several people had held unintelligible conversations in foreign languages. Some of those in the crowd would never get their autographs.

Earlier that evening, Wiesenthal had told similar tales of torture and death. A capacity crowd filled the Shoreline auditorium's bleachers to hear Wiesenthal's account of the investigations which have brought hundreds of Nazi war criminals to justice.

Wiesenthal is probably the world's foremost Nazi-hunter. During the Holocaust he witnessed hundreds of brutal murders as he was transferred from concentration camp to concentration camp, barely escaping death several times. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, including more than 80 of Wiesenthal's relatives.