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You can't run forever, Eichmann |
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By: Correspondent |
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Date:
2012-02-22 |
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Place: Mumbai |
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After more than half a century, an ongoing exhibition in Israel breathes life into a compelling story of the capture of a Nazi criminal
After more than 50 years of secrecy, Israel has blown the lid on one of the most sensational stories of all time - how Nazi criminal and killer Adolf Eichmann was captured and ultimately brought to justice in Israel. An exhibition at the Beit Hatfutsot Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, opened recently called Operation Finale which, through exhibits tells of how Israeli agents hunted down, pursued and finally got the killer bringing him to a trial that captivated the world and ultimately to justice. It is curated by a former Mossad agent.
Long arm of the law: A replica of the gloves that were used by an
Israeli Mossad agent during the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.
Pic/AFP
This is the story:
The past caught up with Adolf Eichmann one day in the 1950s. Eichmann was a Nazi criminal who had the task of masterminding the 'Final Solution' (extermination of all Jews) in Nazi-occupied Europe. When World War II ended, Eichmann eluded capture and fled to Buenos Aires (Argentina) in 1950. Eichmann changed his identity and assumed the name of Ricardo Klement. Soon, he found a job with the Mercedes Benz Company.
Israel, meanwhile, was busy sniffing out Nazi criminals who had escaped and spread out across the world.
Klement lived unnoticed until 1957 but the mask began to slip when a seemingly innocuous event led to the first faint traces of suspicion. Klement's son Nick began seeing a girl called Silvia Hermann. Silvia's father Lothar Hermann a Holocaust survivor himself, started becoming suspicious about Ricardo Klement.
Acting on his suspicions, Lothar Hermann sent a letter to a friend called Fritz Bauer, triggering a chain of events that read like pages right out of a crime thriller. Bauer was the chief prosecutor in the West German town of Hessen. Bauer told the Israelis about Klement and that was the genesis of a covert two-year operation, Mossad and Israel's domestic security service called Shin Bet was on the trail. An agent called Zvi Aharoni located the home on Garibaldi Street in Buenos Aires and returned with photographs of Ricardo Klement that matched those taken of Adolf Eichmann.
Bullet Proof: The glass booth that Eichmann sat in through the trial
Identity
Some reports state that agents who travelled to Argentina to take photos of the man who called himself Klement pretended to be property investors. They hid a small Leica camera in a simple converted business case, which had a secret camera trigger. These photos were then compared to the photos of his in the Mossad file. Apparently, it was his ears that gave Klement away. Some reports state that there was a 10-point analysis of his ears, which matched Eichmann's. The Mossad was on its way to get their man.
Reports differ about how many Mossad agents were dispatched to Argentina to capture Eichmann. Some say there were 11 while others say there were seven. Agents travelled to Argentina under assumed names. Dozens of Jews living in Argentina helped provide the cover needed to succeed.
For History: A line drawing of the trial by an artist
Capture
It looked like business as usual for the unsuspecting Klement on May 11, 1960. The killer got off at the bus stop he returned to every evening from the Mercedes Benz factory. Seven Mossad agents waited for Klement at the bus stop he returned to every evening from the Mercedes Benz factory. When he arrived an agent jumped him first putting a gloved hand into his mouth looking for a cyanide capsule that Nazi criminals were known to have in their mouth in case of capture. Lore goes that when Eichmann was captured he is reported to have said in German, "I accept my fate."
After capture, he was put into a car where an agent told him, "If you move, you will be shot." Finally, in a top secret operation, Eichmann was sedated and put in an El Al crew uniform onto a special El Al flight and spirited him out of Argentina. Eichmann was put on trial in Israel where 99 witnesses testified of the torture and genocide in concentration camps. Eichmann was executed in 1962 giving a semblance of closure to some survivors. Like the experts say though, that we still do not have the whole story. We may never know.
Sombre memories: The needle, which was used to sedate Eichmann
on display
What you can see
In the Beit Hatfutsot Museum of the Jewish people in Tel Aviv is the original Mossad file on Eichmann, code named 'Dybbuk' which is Hebrew for 'evil spirit.' The briefcase with a concealed camera that took the first pictures of Eichmann in Buenos Aires, the fake licence plates the agents made for vehicles to track Eichmann, the gloves used to nab him, the needle used to sedate him is also on display. It also discloses new details, such as how forensic experts identified Eichmann by his ears.
Past: Fake passports, used by agents and another one manufactured to
fly Adolf Eichmann out of Argentina, are displayed in an earlier exhibition.
PIC/AFP |
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