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Over the next 50 years, Wiesenthal hunted down Nazi war criminals. He spoke out against neo-Nazism and racism, becoming a voice of conscience, holding up the Jewish experience as a lesson for the world to pay heed to. Through his undimmed fervour, around 1,100 criminals were brought to justice.

Notorious among those he helped capture was Adolf Eichmann, chief of the Gestapo's Jewish Department, who supervised implementation of the Final Solution and had disappeared after Germany's defeat in WW II. In 1953, Wiesenthal received information that Eichmann was in Argentina, living under an alias in Buenos Aires. Six years later he was captured, eventually found guilty of mass murder and executed on May 31, 1961.

Example of Nazi brutality found at Nordhausen concentration camp, by the American 3rd Armoured Division. Hundreds of emaciated bodies covered barracks, where Russian, Polish, French, Belgian and Italian captives lived with their dead.

Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

Also see: What should you know of World War II

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