Simon Wiesenthal was a Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. Born on 31 December 1908, Wiesenthal was known for his relentless pursuit of Nazi war criminals in order to bring them to justice.

He studied architecture and resided in Lwów at the start of World War II. He survived several concentration camps including the Janowska, Kraków-Płaszów, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, and Mauthausen camps. After the war, he dedicated his life to tracking down fugitive Nazi war criminals. In 1947, he co-founded the Jewish Historical Documentation Centre in Linz, Austria, and later opened the Documentation Centre of the Association of Jewish Victims of the Nazi Regime in Vienna in 1961.

Wiesenthal played a role in locating Adolf Eichmann, working closely with Austrian ministries to prepare dossiers on war criminals like Franz Stangl. He was involved in high-profile cases such as those of Austrian politicians Bruno Kreisky and Kurt Waldheim.

Wiesenthal was also an author of several memoirs, though some stories were noted to be loosely based on real events. He passed away in his sleep at the age of 96 in Vienna in 2005 and was buried in Herzliya, Israel. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles is named in his honor.