Page 32 - aruba-today-20170715

A32 FEATURE
Saturday 15 July 2017
New York museum recreates scene of Nazi war criminal’s trial

By VERENA DOBNIK in Buenos Aires. They con-
Associated Press firmed it was him by com-
NEW YORK (AP) — Half a paring his ear to a photo
century after Nazi war crim- of Eichmann in a pre-World
inal Adolf Eichmann was War II German army file.
convicted and hanged in In 1957, Avraham said, Is-
Israel for engineering the raeli Prime Minister David
deaths of millions of Jews, Ben-Gurion “ordered the
the bulletproof-glass booth Mossad: ‘I want you to
where he sat facing justice bring one big imported
has come to New York for Nazi for one big, huge trial
a multimedia, you-are- — a live Nazi.’”
there recreation of the Eichmann was drugged
courtroom. for the trip to the airport
It’s part of an exhibit at “because he could start
Manhattan’s Museum of screaming, saying, ‘Hey,
Jewish Heritage that opens they take me to Israel. I’m
Sunday, created by a for- an Argentinian citizen!’”
mer agent of Israel’s Moss- the former Mossad agent
ad intelligence service said. “I mean, today, you
that captured Eichmann cannot get to the plane
a decade after he fled to with a small bottle of per-
Argentina. fume, so you want to bring
Surrounding Eichmann’s Avner Avraham, former Israeli Mossad agent and curator of “Operation Finale: The Capture & Trial a Nazi?”
actual booth are screens of Adolf Eichmann,” describes the exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, in New York, Friday, Once in Israel, Avraham
with original video foot- July 14, 2017.
Associated Press said, authorities had Eich-
mann under constant
lion prosecutors,” chief mission led by Israel’s still- medical watch and made
prosecutor Gideon Hauser budding intelligence force sure he was well-fed so
intones in Hebrew, with a in the 1950s. Its agents he could stay healthy for
subtitled English translation. fanned out across Europe the trial. Characters who
“Their blood cries to heav- and Argentina, assembling populate the 4,000-square-
en, but their voices cannot the pieces of a puzzle that foot exhibit include card-
be heard.” ended with Eichmann’s
The trial was held in a Je-
rusalem theater converted
into a courtroom — an ap-
propriate setting for the
last act of what unfolds like
a sensational cloak-and-
dagger story, starring the
organizer of Hitler’s “Final
Solution.”
The bulletproof glass booth in which Adolf Eichmann testified
during his trial in Jerusalem District Court is displayed in the “Op- The details drew Avner
eration Finale: The Capture & Trial of Adolf Eichmann” exhibit Avraham, who left the
at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, in New York, Friday, July 14, Mossad two years ago to
2017. collect materials for the
Associated Press exhibit, which takes its
title “Operation Finale”
age — seven minutes exhaustion after he speaks. from the code name of
culled from 350 courtroom “Here with me stand 6 mil- the undercover Eichmann The 1960 forensic crime lab file comparing photos of Adolf Eich-
hours — that makes visitors mann in World War II and as Ricardo Klement in Argentina, are
feel like they’re spectators displayed in the “Operation Finale: The Capture & Trial of Adolf
at the 1961 proceedings. Eichmann” exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, in New
They hear the voices of sur- York, Friday, July 14, 2017.
vivors who testified against Associated Press
the SS lieutenant-colonel,
as well as the prosecutor hanging. board figures of the 11 key
and the defense attorney. Avraham said the proof Mossad agents, including
The balding, 55-year- they had the right man one woman, who closed
old German who once came down to his left ear. in on Eichmann after track-
planned the routes of cat- Eichmann was abducted ing him for months. He was
tle-car trains that brought by the Mossad in 1960 taken to Israel aboard an
Jews to Auschwitz, Bergen- as he got off a bus while El Al plane, camouflaged
Belsen, Dachau and other heading home from work as a cabin attendant in the
camps sits stone-faced in at a Mercedes-Benz plant airline uniform.q
footage rolling on a screen
right behind the original
booth. To the right is an-
other screen beaming the Adolf Eichmann’s SS file, obtained by the Israeli Mossad in 1960,
traumatic, tear-drenched is displayed in the “Operation Finale: The Capture & Trial of Adolf
Eichmann” exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, in New
testimonies, with one man York, Friday, July 14, 2017.
collapsing to the floor in Associated Press