My Grandfather Simon Wiesenthal

A Family Story to be Never Yet Told

Abstract

After his liberation from Mauthausen, Simon Wiesenthal, my late grandfather, was reunited with his wife Cyla Muller. They realised all too soon that all 89 of their relatives had been murdered. This is the notion we grew up with: “we have no family”. Over the years, I made multiple attempts to ask my grandparents about their family, but my notes remained almost empty. Upon the passing of Simon Wiesenthal, I renewed my efforts to explore our family roots and analysed personal letters and tombstones, as well as communicating with people sharing the name Wiesenthal and, most importantly, genealogy pals. This lecture focusses on the discovery of Simon Wiesenthal’s ancestors and their families. This search led to the establishment of a huge and robust family tree now shared with the public in various databases, and a story to tell to all those who are interested in the man who dedicated his life to bringing Nazi criminals and their collaborators to justice.