By Emily K. Alhadeff, Assistant Editor, JTNews
“First and foremost, who was Adolf Eichmann?” asked Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt as she began her talk on the evening of Jan. 22 at Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle. Lipstadt was the temple’s 2012 Keller Family Lecture Series speaker for 2012.
Lipstadt, the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, was brought to TDHS by Rabbi Daniel Weiner, who has worked with her in the past.
“The Keller Family in general and this lecture is an incredible opportunity for the Jewish community to bring in nationally and globally renowned scholars,” said Weiner. Past lectures have featured Thomas Friedman and Amos Oz.
Lipstadt is the author of several books, including The Eichmann Trial, History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, and Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.
Contrary to popular belief, Eichmann was not the “architect of the Final Solution,” as he is often described, Lipstadt said. He was one cog in the machine that created the Holocaust, being responsible for deportations and concentration camp preparations from The Netherlands to Greece.
“This is someone who was totally devoted to his job,” she said. “He was proud of what he did. He was happy.”
Eichmann was responsible for more than 1 million murders, 330,000 of which were Hungarian Jews killed in the final weeks of the war in a last-ditch effort to rid Europe of its Jewish population. The effort was so intense, Lipstadt noted, that the crematoria at Auschwitz couldn’t handle all the bodies.
She laid out the chronology of Eichmann’s capture in Argentina to his trial and eventual execution in Israel. A strong and seasoned speaker, she did not gloss over the ironies, which at times morphed into a dark humor.
Eichmann’s undoing began in Argentina after the daughter of Lothar Hermann, a German (and Jewish) ex-pat and survivor, started dating his son.
“She begins dating a young man named Nick.” Lipstadt paused. “Eichmann.”
With Hermann’s tip, German-Jewish lawyer Fritz Bauer and Israeli operatives sniffed out Eichmann, who had changed his name to Ricardo Klement. The Israelis jumped Eichmann, detained him, forged his papers, drugged him, dressed him in an El Al uniform, and checked him through on a first-class ticket to Israel.
The story of Eichmann’s coming to justice is, however, less about the man and more about the significance for the future of war crimes trials.
Then-Prime Minister David Ben Gurion had a few options. He could have said, “Let Eichmann end up in a drainage ditch…that would be fair warning to other war criminals: Don’t sleep so soundly in your bed,” Lipstadt said.
“But Ben Gurion doesn’t say that. Ben Gurion says: “˜Find him, bring him back here, and we will put him on trial.’ It’s a very distinctly Zionist act. What Ben Gurion is saying is…we can give Eichmann what he never gave any of the Jews.”
That, she said, was the chance to defend himself.
The trial began on April 11, 1961, and it incorporated not just hard evidence but also more than 100 witness testimonies from survivors. On June 20, Eichmann had a chance to speak.
Eichmann gave contradictory explanations for his actions. On one hand, he was only following orders; on the other, he excused himself from involvement altogether or cited forgetfulness. To clarify, he claimed he knew the orders were wrong, but followed them anyway.
This moment, said Lipstadt, “was what many people consider the moment when he really signed his guilty verdict, because if you know the orders are wrong, you’re not supposed to follow them anyway.”
Most astoundingly, she said, Eichmann claimed he had saved Jews from the Final Solution, not transported them directly to it. When asked by one of the judges, Benjamin Halevi, if he was anti-Semitic, Eichmann said no. In fact, he responded, he had saved a Jewish relative and a couple in Vienna from deportation.
Halevi’s response, said Lipstadt: “So when you didn’t want to follow orders, you didn’t have to.”
On December 11, 1961, Eichmann was found guilty, and on May 31, 1962, he was executed by hanging in Acco. His body was cremated and cast to sea. Eichmann was one of only two capital punishment cases meted out by Israeli courts. (The other was John Demjanjuk in the 1980s, which was overturned.)
The Eichmann trial paved the way for future war crimes tribunals. Its most significant impact, Lipstadt explained, was its incorporation of the witnesses’ testimonies. No international war crimes trial since then, from Yugoslavia to Rwanda, has excluded the voices of the witnesses as part of its proceedings.
“The ultimate legacy of this trial is the witnesses,” she said. “This is the first time the world listened.”