Amid all the background noise, it's sometimes easy to forget that there are major news stories beyond Katrina and the War in Iraq. I believe Wisenthal's death is a major news story because he was such a significant man.

There are many good links to this story. Here are a few:

MSNBC

CNN

LA Times (This is a 12 page article that does the man's life justice. Registration may be required.)

NY Times (registration may be required)

From the LA Times:

When Wiesenthal began his quest for justice in 1945, he was unknown, a cadaverous man whose survival had made him believe in miracles. Yet he was known to say, "God must have been on leave during the Holocaust."

Fifty years later, on the anniversary of Austria's liberation, Wiesenthal was such a symbol of justice in the postwar world that he was asked to address thousands from the same Vienna balcony where Hitler stood in 1938 when he took over Austria.

Amid triumphs and acclaim, Wiesenthal also faced controversy, rancor and setbacks. He failed to find Josef Mengele, the physician who had conducted brutal experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz. He was called a bully and a zealot by friends and relatives of Nazis he pursued, sometimes well into the quarry's later years.

He was excoriated by an Israeli intelligence official who said Wiesenthal had claimed too much credit for the 1960 capture of Eichmann. He was severely criticized by fellow Jews for refusing to condemn former Austrian President Kurt Waldheim as a war criminal.

No less a personage than novelist Elie Wiesel, who survived Auschwitz and won the Nobel Peace Prize 40 years later, challenged him on his position that non-Jews slaughtered by the Nazis should be counted as Holocaust victims.