The images are in grainy black and white, bespeaking a long-faded era. Yet with its 50th anniversary upon us, the trial of Adolf Eichmann and its eternal relevance will never fade.
We can now say that with certainty, thanks to an arrangement between the Jerusalem-based Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem and YouTube, under which the website has posted 200 hours of Eichmann trial footage at www.
youtube.com/user/EichmannTrialEN.
A half-century ago, Israel pulled off one of history’s greatest feats of justice when Jewish commandos kidnapped from his Argentine hideout the notorious Nazi officer Eichmann, spirited him away to Israel and put him on trial for crimes against humanity.
From the end of the war in 1945 until the 1961 trial in Jerusalem, which was broadcast around the world, many had not yet come to grips with the magnitude of Germany’s crimes. But riveting testimony from Eichmann’s victims commanded the world’s attention regarding the Holocaust, its legacy and the legitimacy of the Jewish homeland.
The trial triggered an outpouring of sympathy for Jews and the Jewish state. Unfortunately, since then, some of that good will has dissipated.
With the numbers of survivors dwindling daily, compounded by an epidemic of Holocaust denial and other efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel, projects like the Yad Vashem–YouTube partnership are more important than ever.
Eichmann was a unique villain. He was the chief designer of the Nazi extermination machine. He figured out how to make the cattle cars run on time, how to liquidate entire populations of Jews, how best to build murder factories.
Israel’s daring kidnapping may have violated Argentine laws, but it showed great respect for a higher law. The trial convulsed Israel at the time, but it was a necessary emotional catharsis that made permanent the lessons of the Holocaust in the hearts and minds of all Israelis.
Eichmann was convicted and executed, the only person in history to receive the death penalty in Israel.
The Holocaust deniers of the world believe they have time on their side. As the Holocaust moves beyond living memory, the deniers feel they can chip away at the truth, whitewash Nazi crimes and once again make the world safe for persecution of Jews.
It will never happen. And with assets like the Eichmann trial footage now just a few mouse clicks away, the incontrovertible reality of the Holocaust can never be seriously questioned.
The footage is not easy to watch. Some of the eyewitness testimony recounts bestial acts of cruelty. Eichmann comes off as the remorseless monster he was, exemplifying the “banality of evil,” as historian Hannah Arendt wrote at the time. But watch it we must.
When the Jewish people say “Never again,” we mean it. We applaud YouTube for making this material available for all to see.