The trial of Adolf Eichmann.
The entrance to the Birkenau camp (Auschwitz II).
The infamous “Ramp of Death”. In the background, the chimneys of crematoria II and III can be seen.
“I was at the Bergen-Belsen camp when I saw this diminutive man, racially prejudiced, limping and stiff in his uniform, coming to inspect the camp. I watched as this horrific demiurge, walked with pride, casting disdainful glances at the exhausted elderly men and nearly-dead teenagers” (from the testimony of Ivo Goldberg).
The trial began in Jerusalem on April 11, 1961.
Witness Yehiel Dinur Katzetnik faints in the courtroom.
Philosopher Hannah Arendt attended the trial as a representative for the American magazine, The New Yorker. Here, she formulated her views on the “banality of evil”, focusing on Eichmann’s defense of being an idealist who merely followed orders to the end.
Eichmann in his cell. The 22 guards chosen had no connections to camp victims to prevent any potential reprisals against the prisoner.
Medical examination in prison.
Model prisoner at Hafa prison.
Sentenced to death on December 11, 1961, and hanged on June 1, 1962. Shalom Najar, his jailer, later recounted Eichmann’s final moments in the prison yard: “Only Eichmann and I were there. I was standing on a platform opposite him, staring into his eyes. He refused to cover his eyes and still wore his usual plaid slippers. I pulled the lever and he fell, swinging at the end of the rope.” In accordance with his last wish, his ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean, but outside Israeli territorial waters, so as not to “pollute” them.
In 1948, while hiding in Germany under the guise of a cattle rancher.
The document obtained through Bishop Alois Hudal’s network – one of the main escape routes for German war criminals – allowed him to hide under the name Riccardo Klement in Argentina.
On the deck of the ship, en route to Argentina (1950).
The “Riccardo Klement” in Buenos Aires.
In Vienna in 1939, planning the deportation of Austrian Jews with his superior Herbert Hagen and Jewish lawyer Joseph Lowenherz. It was then that Eichmann conceived the idea of liberating the Jewish guards to secure their cooperation.
Disembarking from a train. “Alle heraus (everybody out)!” “Alles dort lassen!” “We liked the first order, because we could finally breathe. But the second one left us stunned. What did that “all” mean? All the luggage? And the warm clothes for the winter? And the medicines? And the family photos?”
Women with their children. A significant portion of the male Jewish population was conscripted into forced labor, particularly in Ukraine, leaving women with the daunting responsibility of guiding their families into the ghettos and subsequently to the death camps.
Upon arrival, men, women, and the elderly were segregated into distinct groups.
“I was torn away from my mother without the chance to kiss her goodbye, nor my twin brothers, nor my little brother, Valentin. How could I have known, as I watched her recede into the distance, that it was the last time I would see her?”
A group of women singled out for forced labor.
“The Last Stand of Their Lives”. Just a few dozen meters away, hidden behind the trees, the crematoria awaited them. Every day, 10,000 people were marched to their deaths.
#img# The “commons of evil.”
#img# A resting place adjacent to the gas chambers.
The photographs of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp are sourced from the Birkenau State Museum publication, with commentary drawn from the narration of Oliver Lustig, one of the survivors.
