Holocaust survivor is buried in Israel.

HERZLIYA, Israel (AP) - Simon Wiesenthal, who spent half a century tirelessly tracking down Nazis hiding throughout the world, was laid to rest yesterday in Israel , the nation that sprang from the ashes of the Holocaust.

Several hundred dignitaries, Holocaust survivors and admirers gathered at the funeral for the man one diplomat praised as "the conscience of the Western world."

"Every" Holocaust "survivor in the world walked a little taller and felt a little more secure because Simon Wiesenthal was out there defending their honor and the honor of their loved ones who perished," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

Wiesenthal, who died Tuesday in his sleep at his Vienna , Austria , home at age 96, lost 89 family members in the Holocaust, survived a dozen Nazi camps and weighed less than 100 pounds when he was liberated in 1945.

Speaker after speaker at the funeral in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya saluted the man who, by his own count, helped bring more than 1,000 Nazi war criminals to justice, giving voice to the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust.

"For decades," said Gene Cretz, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, "Simon Wiesenthal served as the conscience of the Western world."

Wiesenthal had trained to be an architect, Hier said, "but instead of sketching homes, he was forced to sketch the faces of the murderers."

Hier described how Wiesenthal ran after the cattle car that took his mother to her death.

"She never heard his desperate cries, the cries of a loving son," Hier said, adding that at their last meeting, he told the Nazi hunter, "Because of your life's work, the whole world has heard you."

Rabbi Michael Melchior, Israel 's deputy minister for education, said Wiesenthal "taught an entire generation that you learn from the past and use your knowledge to build the past so that there will be hope in the future, hope for the Jewish nation and for all humanity."

Dignitaries from several nations placed wreaths on Wiesenthal's grave, and mourners put stones on it in keeping with Jewish tradition. A cantor chanted a prayer for the dead, infusing it with references to the Holocaust.

No members of the Israeli Cabinet attended the funeral, with Melchior the highest-ranking official there - a situation that did not go unnoticed.

"There's a lot of people who should have been here," said Shevach Weiss, a Holocaust survivor and former parliamentary speaker who heads the board of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem .

Even though he wanted to be buried in Israel , home to his only child, daughter Paulinka Kreisberg, Wiesenthal spent his life outside the Jewish state.

"To study malaria, you have to live where the mosquitoes are," Hier said, explaining why Wiesenthal felt he needed to be in Europe.

Wiesenthal's 35-year-old grandson, attorney Joeri Kreisberg, said the body of his grandmother Cyla, who was married to Wiesenthal for 67 years before her death in 2003, will be moved from Austria to Israel in the next few months so the couple can be buried side by side.

Married in 1936, both survived the Holocaust. Besides their daughter, they have three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

An Austrian official attending the funeral, Andreas Mailath-Pokorny, said Wiesenthal taught his nation "to look into the mirror and to assume responsibility."

Efraim Zuroff, the Wiesenthal Center 's Israel director, called on Austria to "translate all the words of praise for Mr. Wiesenthal ... into practical judicial action," urging the country to take legal action against an alleged Nazi war criminal, Milivoj Asner, living in Klagenfurt , Austria.

Wiesenthal was perhaps best known for his role in helping find one-time SS leader Adolf Eichmann, who organized the extermination of the Jews. Eichmann was tracked to Argentina, abducted by Israeli agents in 1960 and hanged by Israel.

Wiesenthal had been accused of exaggerating his role in Eichmann's capture, although he never claimed sole responsibility.

Among others Wiesenthal tracked down was Austrian policeman Karl Silberbauer, who Wiesenthal believed arrested the Dutch teenager Anne Frank and sent her to her death.

Columbia Tribune, September 24, 2005