man's civilian occupation, his origins in a particular region, his accent
mentioned by someone - all these stick in Wiesenthal's memory for years. And,
just like a computer, he can call them up at any time.
This permanent readiness of recall means that the horror is not relegated,
as it is with most people (and increasingly also with victims), to a remote
recess of the mind, but is always at the forefront, at the painful boundary of
consciousness. Wiesenthal possesses what is usually called a photographic
memory: he is a man who cannot forget. (Peter Michael Lingens, in Simon
Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, pp. 20-21.)
But from someone in Mr. Wiesenthal's position, one expects no less one expects just such
exactitude as he is gifted with, just such precision, just such vivid and accurate recall of
detail. All such things are essential when one is entrusted with the grave responsibility of
accusing individuals and ascribing guilt to nations. And precise memory of such events is to be
expected all the more of someone who was young when the events occurred, and when the events
were traumatic and seared into his memory.
As Mr. Wiesenthal has related the story of his life to more than one biographer, it is not a
difficult matter for a reader to compare these stories in order to be further edified by the
demonstration of Mr. Wiesenthal's remarkable memory. Take, for example, this other account of
the same story of being discovered underneath the floorboards:
One evening in April 1943 a German soldier was shot dead in the street. The
alarm was raised: SS and Polish police officers in civilian clothes searched
the nearby houses for hidden weapons. Instead they found Simon Wiesenthal. He
was marched off for the third time to, as he believed, his certain execution.
(Peter Michael Lingens, in Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p.
11)
But this parallel version of the story is not precisely what the claims concerning Mr.
Wiesenthal's memory led us to expect. The astonishingly accurate "Tuesday, 13 June 1944" has
turned into "April 1943," "beaten" has become "murdered," "in a house" has become "in the
street," the "railway inspector" has become a "German soldier," and the "Gestapo" has become the
"SS." The last might seem like a fine point, but in fact the Gestapo and the SS had clearly
defined and mutually exclusive duties: "A division of authority came about whereby the Gestapo
alone had the power to arrest people and send them to concentration camps, whereas the SS
remained responsible for running the camps" (Leni Yahil, The Holocaust, 1987, p. 133). Perhaps
a fine point to someone who had not lived through these events, but to someone who had lived
through them, then one would imagine a memorable point, one that should be easier to remember
than, say, what color suit each participant wore at some huge function.
And so now we are forced to wonder whether this is the same event badly remembered, or whether
Mr. Wiesenthal was discovered twice under the floorboards, once in 1943 and again in 1944. The
more cynical reader might even go on to wonder whether any such event took place at all.
As the above comparison illustrates, and as a reading of Mr. Wiesenthal proves a hundred times
over, Mr. Wiesenthal's salient characteristic is not that he has a photographic memory, but
rather that he cannot tell a story twice in the same way. For a second example, take the case
of the Rusinek slap.
The Rusinek Slap
Former inmates took over command. One of them was the future Polish Cabinet
Minister Kazimierz Rusinek. Wiesenthal needed to see him at his office to get
a pass. The Pole, who was about to lock up, struck him across the face - just
as some camp officials had frequently treated Jews. It hurt Wiesenthal more
than all the blows received from SS men in three years: "Now the war is over,
and the Jews are still being beaten."
... He sought out the American camp command to make a complaint. (Peter
Michael Lingens in Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 12)
That is one version, but here is another:
A Polish trusty named Kazimierz Rusinek pounced on Simon for no good reason and
knocked him unconscious. When Wiesenthal woke up, friends had carried him to
his bunk. "What has he got against you?" one of them asked.
"I don't know," Simon said. "Maybe he's angry because I'm still alive."
(Alan Levy, The Wiesenthal File, 1993, p. 69)
These two accounts are so different that one wonders whether they are of the same event. In the
first account Wiesenthal is addressing Rusinek when Rusinek slaps him, while in the second
Rusinek pounces on him, which suggests an ambush. But more important, when you have been
pounced on and knocked unconscious, when you become aware that your friends have carried you to
your bunk only after you have regained consciousness, then you would not ordinarily describe
that as merely having been "struck across the face." Mr. Wiesenthal is a skilled raconteur - in
