"I Have Never Forgotten You" chronicles the life of a man who relentlessly pursued his Nazi torturers with a passionate fervor and obsession. Unable to return to a "normal" life after his liberation from Mauthausen concentration camp in upper Austria, Wiesenthal was driven to follow a lifelong obsession in his quest for justice. A relentless researcher with a talent for ferreting out war criminals, Wiesenthal's lifelong passion would suggest a man ravaged by hate and driven by revenge to seek his torturers, yet "I Have Never Forgotten You" reveals a man who pursues former Nazis in the name of justice, but more importantly, for the friends, 89 family members and fellow sufferers and casualties of the Holocaust. The title of the film exposes the true nature of the documentary as a tribute, not as a documented record of revenge, even though "I Have Never Forgotten You" reveals thousands of detailed atrocities committed by the men and women Wiesenthal brings to justice through his research.
"I Have Never Forgotten You" is not an easy documentary to watch, nor does it soften the brutality of the Holocaust, but although the images on the screen depict horrible criminals, murderers and torturers, the purpose of the film is to memorialize the commendable work achieved by Wiesenthal throughout his lifetime to honor the lives lost at the hands of the criminals he unearths. Labeled "the man who could not stop thinking about the guilt of other people" by a contributor in the documentary, Wiesenthal's obsession was apparent in the documentary, but so were his reasons.
"Survival is a privilege which entails obligations. I am forever asking myself what I can do for those who have not survived. The answer I have found for myself (and which need not necessarily be the answer for every survivor) is: I want to be their mouthpiece. I want to keep their memory alive, to make sure the dead live on in that memory," said Wiesenthal, in his book, Justice, Not Vengeance.
The documentary opens with footage from Mauthausen, one of the several concentration camps Wiesenthal endured during his capture, and the location from which he was liberated on May 5, 1945. Found lying helplessly in a barracks surrounded by the dead, and weighing less than 100 lbs., Wiesenthal barely survived to be liberated by an American armored unit. Wiesenthal's first documentation of the atrocities committed by the Nazi guards survives in volumes of sketches he drew while imprisoned.
"I drew what I was seeing every day," said Wiesenthal. "I wanted to leave something behind to document the horrors I saw every day."
Wiesenthal's first small efforts to expose the crimes of Nazi guards through his sketches were magnified greatly following his release. One day during the struggle to regain his health, Wiesenthal walked into a meeting between the War Crimes Section of the U.S. Army and former Nazi prison guards. Amazed to see the German guards shackled and answering questions regarding their activities in the concentration camps, Wiesenthal immediately offered his services. Underweight, weak and completely untrained, U.S. officials placated the excited Wiesenthal and unofficially "commissioned" him to submit information. Wiesenthal's first list of 99 Nazi offenders, explicitly detailed and painstakingly categorized, incited a passion and obsession that ended only with his death in 2005.
Credited with providing information to bring nearly 1,100 Nazi war criminals to court, Wiesenthal's most high-profile cases include Franz Murer, "The Butcher of Wilno;" Gustav Wagner, the commandant of Sobibor; Erich Rajakowitsch, in charge of the "death transports" in Holland; Karl Silberbauer, the Gestapo officer who arrested Anne Frank; Hermine Braunsteiner, a housewife living in Queens, N.Y., who had supervised the killing of hundreds of children at Majdanek; and Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Treblinka and Sobibor concentration camps in Poland. Stangl, who Wiesenthal patiently researched for three years, was finally located in Brazil in 1967. Remanded in West Germany for trial, when asked whether he plead guilty or not guilty, Stangl replied "not guilty." Wiesenthal remarks grimly in his documentary, "The judge should have asked him that question 6,000,000 times." Stangl was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in prison.
Stangl, about whom Wiesenthal says, "Had I done nothing in my life except catch this man, I would not have lived in vain," was one of two on Wiesenthal's most-wanted list. Adolf Eichmann, chief of the Gestapo's Jewish Department, and implementer of "The Final Solution" was the other. After over a decade of relentless research, Wiesenthal aided Eichmann's capture in Buenos Aires in 1959. He was brought to Israel for trial, and executed on May 31, 1961 for mass murder.
Wiesenthal's work continued through the various obstacles time and the Cold War presented to a researcher of a war that was slowly becoming outdated. When Wiesenthal's association with the U.S. War Crimes Association ended in 1947, he opened the Jewish Historical Documentation Center in Linz, Austria until 1954. Later, he reopened the Jewish Documentation Center, this time in Vienna. Although Wiesenthal's passion brought thousands of felons to justice, he suffered for his work at the hands of the public. Neo-Nazis and Nazi sympathizers criticized his work and made personal threats against Wiesenthal, his wife Cyla, and daughter Pauline. A police guard was mounted around Wiesenthal's house, and friends and family encouraged the researcher to leave Vienna.
"A soldier must stay on the battlefield," said Wiesenthal. "It is my duty to continue."
Cyla, who suffered from nervous breakdowns, also pleaded with her husband to move to Israel, or to any other country.
"I know you are right, I said to Cyla," said Wiesenthal in the documentary. "But all the people we lost - your mother, my mother, our family, friends and all I saw dying in the death camps - if I gave up, I would be betraying them. So I asked her - 'Could you live with a traitor?'"
Though Wiesenthal faced much persecution in the course of his life, he was also rewarded for his commendable efforts later in life. Decorated by the Austrian and French resistance movements and recipient of the Dutch Freedom Metal, the Luxembourg Freedom Medal, the U.N. League for the Help of Refugees Award, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, given by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, leaders have attempted to pay tribute to Wiesenthal for the years he suffered in return for his work. Several films have been produced, based on Wiesenthal's life, including Paramount Pictures' 1974 film, "The Odessa File," and Twentieth Century Fox's 1978 film, "The Boys from Brazil," in addition to a 1981 documentary produced by the Wiesenthal Center, titled "Genocide." Wiesenthal has written several books, most notably, The Murderers Among Us, a book of his memoirs, published in 1967.
Despite his various awards, Wiesenthal maintained a humble position in life, taking payment only from the films and books he published. He lived his final days in a modest apartment in Vienna with his wife, until her death in 2003.
"I am not a Jewish James Bond or Don Quixote," said Wiesenthal. "I am only a survivor who pays with his work for the privilege to remain alive."
In August 2000, Rabbi Marvin Hier accepted the Medal of Freedom on Wiesenthal's behalf, the U.S.'s highest civilian honor, presented by President Clinton. Wiesenthal was only the sixth foreign citizen in the history of the U.S. to receive this honor. At the presentation, Hier gave President Clinton a letter on Wiesenthal's behalf. In the letter, Wiesenthal wrote, "My cause is justice, not vengeance. My work is for a better tomorrow and a more secure future for our children and grandchildren who will follow us. As a firm believer that each of us are accountable before our creator, I believe that when my life has ended, I shall one day be called to meet up with those who perished and they will undoubtedly ask me, 'What have you done?' At that moment, I will have the honor of stepping forward and saying to them, I have never forgotten you."