- Because, yes, maybe I told you [INAUDIBLE]..
- This was taken, the only witness during the trial,
- I think the only person alive who was already inside the gas
- chamber with the doors locked, and who could tell the story.
- How come?
- He was a child.
- And he was taken with 200 other children,
- pushed into the gas chamber.
- And it was closed.
- And he described how it was absolutely dark,
- and how the children at first began to sing
- to give themselves courage.
- And when at first nothing happened,
- the children began to cry and to shout.
- And then the door opened.
- We had some other evidence why that happened.
- A train had arrived in Auschwitz with potatoes.
- And there were not enough SS men to unload the train.
- So the SS commander had the glorious idea.
- Why not use some of the children before they were killed
- in order to unload the train?
- So they took out the first 20 nearest the door.
- He was one of those.
- Then they closed the door.
- The other 180 were killed right away.
- And these 20 had to help unload the train.
- And then they were also killed.
- But he-- the commander had said that he'd done some negligence,
- and committed some negligently done some damage to one
- of the trucks.
- So the commander said before he is killed with the next group,
- he should be whipped in the camp.
- And he was sent to the camp, and the SS man who
- had to carry out the whipping, took a liking to him,
- and kept him as his batman to clean his shoes,
- and so on, and so on.
- And this boy, he also described, I
- mean there were a number of witnesses.
- Not all of them we caught in the truck,
- amongst these children who were taken on that day
- to the gas chambers.
- Not everyone was killed right away.
- There were some who could still work, were used for four
- or five days before they were too weak.
- Then they were sent there.
- But the ones who were already very weak and very small
- were taken to the gas chamber right away.
- Now, the Germans didn't want to question every child
- extensively.
- So they put up a sort of a [? we can say it, ?]
- two vertical sticks and a horizontal one.
- And the children had to walk underneath that.
- And any child that didn't come up to a certain height,
- was sent to the gas chamber right away.
- Now he was very small, and very weak.
- But he had an elder brother who was taller.
- And the brother, and he realized that he won't make it.
- So the brother took some stones, and he put it
- in his shoes of his little brother,
- that he should be a bit higher.
- And he also held him up.
- But the SS man who was in charge of the operation
- apparently saw that.
- I don't quite remember whether the brother was shot,
- or he was sent away.
- But anyway, he was sent to the gas chamber.
- That's to say because of that, he was there that day.
- Now--
- So he was-- I'm sorry.
- He was the older brother or the younger brother?
- He was the younger.
- Younger brother, I see.
- And now, yes, the older brother was sent away somewhere else.
- I don't know exactly what happened to him on that day.
- But the older brother tried to save him.
- And so, I mean, as I said, were many cruel things in the trial.
- But that witness, you know especially when
- I heard about these children singing.
- And I thought, well, is there something special?
- And then I remember there were a million children who
- were killed, most probably it happened very often.
- But no one can tell the story because very usually
- it doesn't happen that someone is taken out
- to take out potatoes.
- So therefore, most probably thousands of little children
- were also singing.
- It was very moving.
- Anyway, the judges were a bit also a bit disturbed,
- I mean distraught.
- And then when this witness was over,
- they said we have to make a 15-minute--
- Break, yes.
- Then I sat down, and at that moment someone
- took the picture.
- I don't know whether it's a good one.
- But it has a lot of memories.
- And then actually also I went to my room there, my office.
- Also I tried to recover a little bit.
- And then suddenly, the door burst out,
- burst open and the young defense counsel of Eichmann,
- he was a baby during the war.
- And he joined the defense team, because he
- wanted to find out for himself, how this could have happened,
- and what really did happen.
- Anyway, he came into my room.
- And he burst into hysterical weeping after this witness.
- He didn't want people to see him like that outside.
- I didn't want people to see him that way.
- So I prepared coffee for him.
- And I had to really treat him, to enable him to continue.
- I mean this is just--
- as I very often say, I never had routine cases.
- When I was a state attorney, and when I was the judge,
- I mean I always had adventures one after another.
- But the Eichmann trial is the only trial
- where not a day passes without me being reminded.
- So that way, especially of this particular case, sometimes
- emotion, sometimes is illegal, sometimes historical, judicial,
- all kinds of things.
- But I spent two years with the Eichmann trial.
- Yeah.
- The trial took two years, right?
- No.
- No.
- The trial took how long?
- You need preparation.
- When Eichmann was brought to Israel, two days after he
- came to Israel, I was then the deputy state attorney
- of Israel.
- Right, yeah.
- And the judge-- and the Minister of Justice,
- two days after Eichmann came to Israel, He called me.
- And he said, I imagine you will be one of the prosecutors.
- But would you be prepared now already
- to become the legal advisor of the Police Bureau
- that are charged with the investigation against Eichmann?
- And the whole prison was vacated for that, not far from Haifa,
- in a place called Yagur.
- There was a prison, a prison there.
- They emptied it completely.
- And he was there.
- And there were about 30, 40 police officers
- who were in charge of the operation of the investigation.
- And I had my office there.
- So at that time, I lived in a hotel in Haifa.
- And every morning, I went to this prison.
- And at first, what was that prison called?
- Yagur, Yagur ] prison.
- And I also was his only contact with the outside world
- until his lawyers came.
- Right.
- The Israeli government declared after he was brought here
- that whomever he chooses as his lawyer,
- the Israel government will come up
- for the expenses that would enable it, and so on.
- But at first, it took some time for him
- to decide whom he wanted and so on.
- And it was so at that time, when I
- came in, I let him know that if he
- had some problem, personal problem,
- connection with his family, or connection with appointing
- a lawyer, or some other physical problem, he could come to me.
- But I let him know that I was not
- prepared to talk to him about the alleged offenses,
- because then I would have to be a witness.
- Right.
- And I knew I would be the prosecutor.
- I didn't want to spoil that chance.
- So at first-- at first, I didn't see him.
- But very often they asked me, what
- was the first time that you did come across?
- And also I'll never forget that on that day
- I was sitting in my room.
- This is still near-- in the prison?
- In the prison near Haifa?
- Yes, in a prison near Haifa, yes.
- It's not yet part of the trial.
- And then I, on that day, I read the autobiography
- of Rudolf Hess the commander of Auschwitz.
- Not Hess, H-E-S-S.
- And he was hanged in Poland in '48.
- Yes.
- 12 years before Eichmann was caught.
- Yes.
- But before he was executed, he wrote his biographical notes.
- And on that day, I read these.
- And I read a chapter where he described
- how they had very often 1,000 Jewish children that they
- killed a day.
- And he describes how the children used to kneel down
- sometimes to be safe.
- And he wrote, when I with my colleagues
- had to push the children into the gas chambers,
- my knees were getting a bit wobbly.
- But then he added, but afterwards, I
- was always ashamed of this weakness of mine.
- After I talked to Obersturmbannführer,
- Adolf Eichmann, because Eichmann explained to me
- that, especially the Jewish children
- that have to he killed first.
- He says, because where is the logic that you
- kill a generation of older people,
- and you leave alive a generation of possible avengers who
- can afterwards created that race again?
- Now, 10 minutes after I read that, a policeman
- came in and said, Adolf Eichmann wants to see you.
- So I must tell you, and I just read that.
- And then I heard his steps outside.
- And he was sitting opposite me, like you are now.
- It was not so easy to keep a poker face.
- But that's one of the things.
- So anyway, I was for about nine months,
- I think, we carried out the investigation.
- Then I also prepared the indictment, and so on.
- And then the trial itself, to start it,
- took about three months.
- Yes, yeah.
- And after the three months, it took a few months
- to write for the judges to write the judgment.
- Then he appealed to the Supreme Court.
- And I also appeared as one of the--
- we were three prosecutors at the trial.
- The attorney general Gideon Hausner, who was at that time
- the main one.
- I, as he said, number two, as deputy state attorney.
- And the district attorney of Tel Aviv, Yaakov Bar-Or.
- The three of us who took part.
- So then the trial itself took about three months,
- it was until the judgment two months,
- and then the judge sent an appeal to the Supreme Court,
- the hearing of Supreme Court.
- Then the judgment, it took a few more months.
- And then the family asked for a pardon, after the judgment,
- and after the--
- Final judgment.
- --after the appeal was dismissed.
- And it took some time for the president
- to decide about the request for a pardon.
- When he refused that, it took a few more days
- and then he was executed.
- So the whole thing took to me two years.
- Right, right.
- The trial itself in the district court took about three months.
- Right.
- But did you hear about Eichmann's kidnapping,
- like everybody else from Ben-Gurion's announcement?
- Yes.
- Exactly.
- The first time I heard of it, it had an electrifying effect.
- Because I knew the Kasztner affair?
- Yes.
- Kasztner, he was the head of the Zionist movement in Hungary.
- Yes, yeah.
- And people charged him.
- Some people charged him here that he was a traitor,
- because he negotiated with Eichmann
- for the release of about 1,400 people, some of them,
- members of his family, some leaders of the Zionist
- organization, and so on.
- And-- and he didn't cause [BOTH TALKING]
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- There was some tea.
- Oh, coffee's fine.
- Coffee's fine.
- It's even better, right?
- No, no.
- I like coffee too.
- Thank you so much.
- Yes.
- All right.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
- So about the Hungarian, the 1,400.
- Yes.
- Pardon, is about the what?
- Well, you stopped about Kasztner and then yes.
- Getting and Kasztner was charged after that.
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Thank you.
- So Kasztner, he was charged.
- He was charged by some people that he was a traitor.
- Right.
- And but this man was already a very high official
- in the Israeli government.
- So they decided that they had to do something about it.
- And so they charged this man who had published this about him.
- With libel.
- With libel.
- Right.
- And so the district court judge actually
- decided against Kasztner, not 100%.
- But he said that he really, the fact
- that he didn't raise the attempt to escape, or to fight
- the Germans, the Hungarians, and so on.
- And that he didn't do anything.
- He just carried out negotiations with Eichmann.
- That made him a traitor.
- Well, the attorney general then asked
- me to prepare the appeal against that.
- So that was before Eichmann was caught.
- I see.
- So this is the appeal on behalf of Kasztner.
- That was an appeal.
- Well, not really.
- Kasztner wasn't-- it was a libel case.
- It was a libel case.
- You had the libel case.
- But in effect--
- In effect, it was supportive--
- The behavior of Kasztner was the main topic.
- Right, right.
- So I prepared the appeal.
- We won the appeal.
- And Kasztner was actually justified.
- But two months before that judgment, he was murdered.
- Right.
- Kasztner, I mean, so I had I dealt with Eichmann
- quite a lot.
- Not to the same extent that I did afterwards.
- Yes.
- So actually for these nine months,
- I lived practically every day there.
- And well, first of all, maybe I can tell you
- some special things which are not so much known
- about it, in the public.
- But it's perhaps not completely logical.
- I mean the German government, by the way, was very cooperative.
- They gave us all the files.
- Every Ministry in Germany, and the SS, and the SR,
- and the army.
- And we really, they always asked us to if they can help us.
- And they helped us with everything possible
- that can be.
- Really, that was terrific.
- And so there were--
- I mean we had millions of documents.
- And I fixed that there would be one policeman in charge
- of every country of Europe, and also of every special topic,
- like the deportation, and the arrest of the people,
- and the theft of the property, and the gas chambers, and so
- on.
- And my instructions were that every evening, every policeman
- when he came across a document that might be relevant,
- he would show it to me, and then I
- would decide if it should come in as part of the evidence.
- Being included in evidence.
- Part of the prosecution case or not.
- When you talked to him, to Eichmann,
- what was his facial expression?
- Was he defiant, arrogant, or sorry?
- Well, I can't say.
- It was more or less natural.
- I also warned myself, I mean when
- you know such a lot about these people,
- if I had seen him somewhere or met him ordinarily,
- no, he spoke--
- I didn't meet him so very often.
- So when he discussed something, he mentioned that,
- and he spoke in a serious manner.
- I can't say there was a--
- his lawyers told me that sometimes,
- and I saw it in court.
- If there was some evidence he didn't like which disturbed
- him, then you could see especially a very, very strong
- and unpleasant expression.
- By the way, the first thing I did
- was that I thought maybe he would plead insanity.
- Or he might, also for history's sake,
- I wanted him to be examined by a psychiatrist.
- So I had him examined by Israeli psychiatrist.
- But not only that, I heard there was a very special man
- in Switzerland, Professor Szondi, not Jewish and nothing
- to do with Israel.
- And that he had invented a very special way of examining
- prisoners psychologically.
- The ordinary examinations like their psychiatrists
- had, but in addition, the person is
- shown pictures of living people, some
- of them sadists, murderers, rapists,
- and other cruel people, and some of them winners of Nobel
- prizes, and very, very, very, very positive people.
- And he has to pick the five that he
- likes best of these pictures.
- It was only one-- if it's only one picture,
- it doesn't show much.
- But he's shown 30 or 40 pages like that
- from different countries.
- And the idea of the Swiss man was that then a character
- picture comes out, in addition to the other examinations.
- So I sent that to this Swiss person
- anonymously, with some other examinations of other people.
- And I asked for his opinion.
- So he gave you the pictures to show.
- Of all the other--
- of all the people.
- Right, right, right.
- And you had it shown to Eichmann?
- Wait a minute.
- No.
- Oh, these pictures he sent me.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Oh, yes, he sent me.
- Yeah.
- And then we examined this, and together
- with the other examinations, and we sent it to him.
- So after a few days, I got a phone call from this Swiss man.
- He said, I would like to have further evidence
- about one of the people that you examined.
- So I said, why?
- He said because never in my experience
- have I come across a case of such murderous instincts
- of this particular person.
- Really?
- I mean I didn't know at that moment it was him.
- But I imagined it would probably be him.
- It was indeed Eichmann.
- It was, yeah.
- Now, he didn't plead insanity.
- And also under our law, we could not
- use this for the prosecution to show
- before this man is convicted.
- So we didn't use it.
- Also, I can't say that the system of that Swiss person
- was accepted all over the world as a practice.
- So we didn't use it.
- It's only that-- it came as rather a shock.
- Not very surprising, but the fact that this man saw that--
- that was--
- Without knowing who he was.
- Yes, Yeah.
- He had no idea.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- That's fascinating.
- That was also yes.
- And look, there are so many things.
- This idea that sometimes Hannah Arendt and other people
- that he was just obeying orders.
- It's absolute rubbish.
- This man, I mean that's one of the first things I examined.
- You know, I examined in the Gestapo, and the [NON-ENGLISH],,
- they had lots of departments.
- Everyone had his officer, commander.
- But they were all, after a year or two, changed by transition.
- The only one who was kept all the time
- as head of the Jewish department was Adolf Eichmann,
- because his superiors saw that this man was completely
- identified with this thing.
- And I mean if you're interested, I
- mean I can show you lots of points that really
- showed that quite clearly.
- I mean not only was Hess--
- Hess also said, by the way, that Eichmann told him
- that one day if his life would end,
- he would jump into his grave laughing with the knowledge
- that he had killed many millions of Jews, and so on.
- And also towards the end of the war, he said to his friends,
- and they testified to that.
- He said, I know the war is lost.
- But I'm still going to win my war.
- And then he went to Auschwitz to get
- the death rate increased from 10,000 a day to 12,000 a day.
- Yeah.
- You know, I wanted to have some kind of a general picture
- about what happened there.
- And so we wanted to have a documentary film.
- And I was asked by my colleagues that I should choose--
- not too long-- we didn't want it too long.
- But we thought 45 minutes, something like that.
- So I spent three days and three nights,
- looking at all the films that existed about Auschwitz,
- and the corpses in Bergen-Belsen, and all that.
- And I prepared this film.
- But out of fairness to the accused and his lawyers,
- we didn't want to show it to the court,
- without showing it to them first.
- Maybe they wanted to see, it's not authentic or not relevant.
- So before we showed it to the court in the evening,
- we invited--
- we took him to the courtroom, Eichmann with his lawyers,
- and there was some journalists present without the judges.
- And we showed that film.
- Now, I knew the film.
- So I didn't look at the film so much.
- I looked at him.
- I wanted to see how he would react
- when he saw the gas chambers, and the corpses, and so on.
- He was completely-- no, he didn't react at all.
- But then suddenly he spoke in a very excited manner
- to his warden.
- So when it was over, I called the warden.
- I said, tell me.
- Why was he suddenly so excited?
- He said, yes, that he had been promised that he would never
- be taken to the courtroom unless he wears his dark blue suit.
- And here they take him in his gray pullover,
- with this gray suit.
- And they shouldn't promise him something like that,
- if they can't keep it.
- And he has to protest most violently about that.
- Also during the trial, by the way, one of the judges
- asked him.
- Tell me, what do you think about the Holocaust?
- What is your opinion?
- So he said, I think it was one of the worst
- crimes or something.
- So I was asked during the trial and later
- by journalists and politicians, whether I
- thought he meant it sincerely.
- From the point of view of the punishment at least,
- that could have been of importance if he had really
- shown some regret.
- Right.
- Right.
- So I said, I'm quite sure that this was mere lip service
- for the outside as well.
- So people ask me, why do you say that?
- I said, well, I could imagine, even a man like that,
- between the end of the war 1945 and 1961, when the trial took
- place, 16 years had passed.
- It's possible that his eyes could be opened,
- or someone could have explained it to him.
- Someone could have convinced him.
- Time could have done the same.
- And also he is the accused person.
- And under our law, we are very strict that every doubt must
- go in favor of the accused.
- The accused, yeah.
- So, I wouldn't say that it's absolutely impossible.
- But here we had proof that in 1956, when he was already
- in the Argentine, after he escaped from there,
- he was in the Argentine.
- And there he was visited by a Dutch journalist, fascist,
- Willem Sassen.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- And Sassen questioned him.
- The idea was that he would publish his life
- story after his death, the sort of life
- insurance for his family.
- So when-- after Eichmann questioned him,
- and they told his story.
- He told his story and so on.
- Amongst other things, Eichmann said to him, if I went there--
- by the way, all the things that we handed in,
- and which was accepted by the court later,
- was typewritten but with Eichmann's corrections
- in his own handwriting.
- So they're clearly authentic.
- So he said to this Dutchman, maybe you also in Holland Jews,
- I saw the trains that moved these Jews to Auschwitz.
- [NON-ENGLISH] it was marvelous to watch that.
- And then this Dutchman said, yes.
- But Mr. Eichmann, do you feel sorry sometimes
- for what you have done?
- He said, yes.
- I feel sorry for one thing, that I wasn't hard enough,
- that I wasn't tough enough, that I didn't
- fight these damn interventionists enough, word
- by word like that.
- And now we see the result, the creation
- of the state of Israel, and the re-emergence of that race
- there.
- So I said if he said that in 1956, 11 years after the war,
- and now five years later in '61, when
- he's fighting for his life, he suddenly
- speaks of a grave crime.
- I think I'm more than justified to ask not to believe it.
- Not only that, we had proof that he
- countermanded Hitler's orders.
- When he thought it might mean the saving,
- that was one of the--
- by the way, I don't know.
- I can also tell you that connection something
- about Hannah Arendt.
- Eichmann, he usually said in Berlin, and pulled the strings.
- And his assistants worked in the various countries.
- But when the German army entered Hungary, you know,
- Hungary was on the side of the Germans and the Italians.
- And at the end of '43, '44, the Hungarian leader Horthy
- thought the war was lost.
- And he wanted to make a separate peace with the West.
- And Hitler met, tried to prevent it.
- Also there were half a million Jews still living in Hungary,
- and were not deported.
- So Hitler met Horthy.
- And he, by threats and promises, wanted
- to make him continue on the German side,
- and also help in the deportation of the Jews.
- Horthy at first didn't agree.
- But then he did.
- But made some conditions.
- One condition was that the Germans
- should agree that 8,700 families from Budapest
- should be permitted to go to a neutral country,
- to neutral countries.
- Hitler agreed, not out of humanitarian reasons.
- But he wanted Hungary to continue on his side.
- And also he wanted the half a million Jews
- who were living in Hungary.
- How do we know all this?
- As I told you, the Germans were very cooperative.
- They sent us all the documents, including the German Foreign
- Ministry.
- And there, was we found a telegram sent
- by the German ambassador, von Veesenmayer,
- the German ambassador at the time from Budapest
- to Ribbentrop, the German minister of Foreign Affairs.
- They described the arrangement between Hitler and Horthy,
- including the 8,700 families.
- But then he continued.
- I have, however, to inform you that the local representative
- of the SS here, Obersturmbannführer,
- Adolf Eichmann, was very upset when
- he heard about the arrangement between the fuhrer and Horthy,
- because he thinks these 8,000 families
- and so that could be important biological material.
- And they might from these neutral countries
- even come to Palestine, and help to create that race again
- there.
- And therefore Eichmann is given instructions
- when he heard about the arrangement between Hitler
- and Horthy that the deportation from Budapest
- should now be forced at such a speed
- that until the visas can be arranged
- to these neutral countries, no 8,000 families should
- remain in Budapest.
- Now, I handled the whole of the Hungarian case.
- I put all the witnesses.
- Now this was especially important.
- Because if one thing showed that he was not just obeying orders,
- then here was a decision of the fuhrer himself,
- and he tried even to countermand that.
- And of course, I stressed this with special importance.
- In the trial, yeah.
- But in recollection, you know, Hannah Arendt,
- when she wrote this book, what most people don't know
- that not only did she have some strange ideas in this book,
- but she falsified practically all the important documents
- and the evidence that she referred to.
- Now I just mentioned this.
- She also referred to this Hungarian case.
- And she said the prosecutor who handled Hungary, that was me,
- tried to put a great stress on a telegram sent
- by the German ambassador, von Veesenmayer to Ribbentrop.
- And then she added, only because the telegram shows
- that Eichmann was not prepared to obey Himmler's orders when
- they were contrary to the idea of the fuhrer,
- because for Eichmann, the fuhrer was a semi-God,
- and maybe the Israeli prosecutors did not realize it.
- Now it's true that for Eichmann, Hitler was a semi-God.
- But that makes it worse.
- This Himmler had nothing to do with this.
- It was an arrangement between Hitler and Horthy.
- They met at the border.
- They're quite clear from that document.
- Why Hannah Arendt, she came to Israel about a week
- before the trial started.
- And I heard there was a philosopher who
- had come from America.
- She wants to write something against the trial.
- It seemed to be strange to me why before the trial started.
- Anyway, I let her know that I was gladly prepared
- to meet her if she had some problems to talk to her.
- Two days after that, I got a message.
- She's not prepared to speak to anyone
- of the Israeli prosecution.
- That seemed very strange.
- I mean she doesn't have to accept everything we say,
- if she doesn't want to.
- But she was not prepared.
- If she had some special problems,
- she was not prepared to talk to any one of us.
- Anyway, I still, I mean I had other things in my head then.
- So I gave instructions that she could come every day
- to the courtroom.
- Not only that, but that she would have access
- to all the documents, all the evidence given
- by the prosecution, and by the defense.
- Then she could form her own ideas and so on.
- So she wanted to be very much on one side of defense, right?
- Yes, I wanted her to--
- that she could have access to everything, prosecution,
- and the defense, and everything.
- And that she could then form or write whatever she feels.
- But then I read this.
- There's a book published by Jacob Robinson,
- And the Crooked Shall be Made Straight.
- Yes.
- And there he described, page after page,
- and evidence after evidence, what made her do that.
- I don't know?
- I understand.
- She's quite an important philosopher and other things.
- Here, I mean there are various--
- I mean without talking about any proof,
- I don't want to say they she had a Nazi friend.
- Heidegger.
- Heidegger, yeah, I'm not prepared to say
- whether that's a connection.
- It's possible.
- But without proof, I'm not prepared to say anything
- against anyone.
- So certainly not here, but the fact that what she said
- there was strange.
- She also wrote that the fact that we described Eichmann
- in such black terms, that that somehow
- belittled the guilt of Hitler and Himmler.
- Of course, Hitler and Himmler are more guilty.
- They were the ones who initiated this.
- And he was the one was asked to carry it out.
- And therefore, of course, they are
- more-- and the fact that they kept him there, knowing that he
- was completely identified with this,
- this doesn't decrease their guilt. On the contrary,
- the other way around.
- So it seemed very strange.
- I mean, if you're interested, there's
- some more things about what she wrote, which I've read.
- But I only wanted to tell you about it, before I forget,
- in the Hungarian case, it's also interesting.
- Eichmann sits here, fighting for his life and trying--
- and yet when he described in the previous investigation,
- you could see the pride about everything
- that he described that he did in order
- to prevent any escape of any Jew,
- and how he was angry at anything that happened
- to save some Jews, and so on.
- I mean that was amazing.
- I want to give you some examples.
- But I mentioned Hungary.
- There, in fact, Himmler had something to do with it.
- Himmler asked that Eichmann should join the army when
- they entered Hungary, to carry out the deportation, and so on.
- And that Eichmann, in order to prevent the mass escape which
- the year before had happened to him also, the Warsaw ghetto.
- There was an escape, and uprising, and so on.
- So in order to prevent that, Himmler
- said Eichmann himself should go to Hungary.
- So Eichmann told us, he said the first thing I did when I came
- to Hungary was I gave instructions
- that the first Jews from Hungary who
- came to Auschwitz, before they were put into the gas chambers,
- they were forced to write postcards
- to their friends and families.
- And Eichmann wrote what should be there,
- that we are in a beautiful place called [NON-ENGLISH],,
- lovely excursions, in the neighborhood,
- only very light work.
- But not a lot of room so come as quickly as
- possible to join us here, if you have a chance, and so on.
- We knew something about these postcards.
- But then Eichmann said, I also want to add,
- I also asked to edit in the postcard,
- bring good shoes with you for the excursions,
- so that the German army could get the shoes when these people
- were put into the gas chamber.
- I mean all right that he did this.
- But the fact that he bragged about that as he--
- anyway, while I was handing in the Hungarian case,
- I heard there was a Jew here in Israel who had such a postcard
- and was still alive.
- I managed to get hold of him.
- And said come to Jerusalem immediately.
- This was almost towards the end of the Hungarian case.
- We had more eyewitnesses there, because Eichmann was there
- in person.
- So this man came at 11:00 at night
- to my chambers in the courthouse.
- I mention this, because I mean I usually
- examined all the witnesses very carefully before that.
- But when this man came at 11:00, and I never
- had more than three hours sleep during the trial,
- so I asked him.
- Show me the postcard.
- Translated from Hungarian to Hebrew, which he did.
- Which he did.
- And then I said, you know, what happened to your family?
- You tell me tomorrow morning, when I put you on the stand.
- I just didn't-- I wanted to go to bed.
- I thought maybe in the morning I can talk to him.
- But he came at the last minute.
- So I didn't speak about the research.
- So I heard after when I put him on the stand,
- I first asked about the postcard.
- And he said that and so on.
- And he showed, put it in.
- And then I said, well now tell me
- what happened to your family?
- So he said, well, I had a wife, and I
- had a little daughter, 2 and 1/2 years old,
- and I had a boy 13 years old.
- And he described when they arrived in Auschwitz.
- He had no idea what Auschwitz-Birkenau meant.
- And there were a few other hundred Hungarians also
- didn't know anything.
- Right.
- And he described the selection.
- He said we were standing there, The SS men in charge.
- When we arrived, when we came there,
- he said the wife to the left, which was clearly then
- afterwards came to the death, goes to the gas chamber.
- The little girl, 2 and 1/2 years old, to the left.
- Then he was asked what was your profession.
- He said, I was an engineer in the army.
- So they said to the right.
- They said, wanted to use him for some work in Auschwitz.
- And what about your boy?
- How old is he?
- He said, 13.
- So the SS man said, well, I have to discuss
- that with my superior.
- And he came back after a few minutes and he said.
- Run after your mother.
- And the witness, you could see--
- I could see it when I questioned him--
- when I questioned him in court.
- He was back there, and he said I thought,
- well my son won't find my wife, because they were already
- 100 people in between for during these minutes.
- I looked.
- And my wife was swallowed up in the crowd.
- I couldn't see her anymore.
- My son was also swallowed up in the crowd.
- I couldn't see him anymore.
- But my little daughter, she had a little red coat,
- and that little red dot getting smaller and smaller.
- This is how my family disappeared from my life.
- Now, I had a little daughter exactly 2 and 1/2 years old.
- And two weeks before, I had bought her a red coat.
- And the day before that trial, before the evidence,
- my wife had here taken a picture of me with the little girl,
- with the red coat.
- So this is my daughter there.
- Up there, she's a clinical psychologist now.
- And so-- so when the witness said that I heard it
- for the first time.
- It cut off my throat completely.
- I suddenly couldn't utter a sound.
- The witness recovered after a while,
- and waited for the next question.
- The judges gave me sign to continue.
- The television was on me.
- And I just--
- I mean it took a few minutes.
- But I started playing with my documents.
- See, I couldn't say anything.
- Then I managed to get under control.
- And I very often say, I mean until this very day,
- I can't be in a football stadium.
- I can't be in a restaurant.
- I can't be in the street.
- And I see--
- I suddenly have heart beating.
- And I turn around, and I see either a little boy
- or little girl in a red coat.
- That may be a banal little story.
- But for me, that somehow symbolizes it really.
- Do you think that what was his name?
- Spielberg's movie, of course--
- With the red coat.
- Of course, he did--
- exactly he, yes.
- Yes, he didn't know my story.
- But he saw it in the evidence.
- No doubt about it.
- He was impressed only when he read
- the evidence of that witness.
- Right, right.
- But for me, you know, when I just two weeks before
- and my daughter exactly the same age.
- Yeah.
- I mean, that was something incomparable.
- But he-- when he described this with the red coats,
- it's exactly on the strength of that--
- It's something you always remember in the movie.
- No doubt about it.
- That's it.
- I saw it also.
- Some time ago, his-- the sister of--
- I don't know this man.
- What's his name?
- Spielberg?
- Yeah.
- Spielberg.
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
- So nice to meet you.
- I'm Andrew Nagorski, a pleasure to meet you.
- And what a lovely place you have.
- I have just some small sweets for you.
- --and this latest book.
- Oh, yes.
- Yes.
- Yeah, this is my book I released.
- My previous book, yeah.
- Very nice to meet you.
- Your husband is-- oh my god.
- Unfortunately I have to leave.
- I know.
- I have a lesson now.
- I have to go.
- Lesson?
- Yes, the Open University.
- So I'm sorry that I can't stay.
- Well--
- Did you ask for a taxi?
- I will.
- I will.
- Do you ask for-- oh, you will.
- Not yet.
- Not yet.
- Then, we do it, if you need it.
- Thank you very much.
- My pleasure.
- Woody, you put.
- [NON-ENGLISH]
- Please sit down.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- Here, just sit.
- That's your daughter?
- This is my daughter.
- Girl in the red coat.
- This is the one who is now--
- Yeah, what a lovely young woman.
- [NON-ENGLISH]
- Please.
- Come and please take a seat.
- Yeah.
- I have so many things that I remind.
- About I was a year ago, I was invited to Berlin.
- Yes.
- And by people from [NON-ENGLISH] and other places.
- And I also told this story.
- But only this time she joined me.
- She also came to Berlin, of course,
- came and brought my boy.
- And she wanted to see where her father grew up as a child.
- So she was sitting there.
- And then I read--
- and I mentioned this, and I said, by the way,
- if you want to know what happened
- to the little girl of 2 and 1/2 years with the red coat--
- Here she is.
- Yes.
- She said, if you weren't--
- I'm sorry.
- I didn't know that you are in Israel.
- Oh, that's quite all right, quite all right.
- I have a lesson now.
- I know.
- I have to go.
- A pleasure.
- I don't teach, I learn.
- You learn?
- I go to the Open University, and I am a young student.
- Very good.
- Very good.
- So what is your lecture today about?
- Today, it's English.
- English?
- Oh, excellent.
- Yes.
- I have a few courses which I like so much,
- but I don't like to be late.
- Well once again, a pleasure to meet you.
- Nice meeting you.
- Very nice to meet you.
- Thank you.
- Enjoy your stay.
- Thank you.
- Bye-bye.
- Bye-bye.
- Yeah.
- I'll tell you something interesting about her
- as well, her family, I don't know whether you know this.
- Just before I forget, how did you find all the witnesses?
- How did you find the witnesses for the trial?
- Yeah.
- Well, I told you there were 30, 40 policemen.
- And we had information.
- Goodbye, everybody.
- First of all--
- Goodbye.
- Hello.
- Bye-bye.
- Because we after all, we had lists of all the survivors
- from Yad Vashem.
- They gave us the survivors from every country.
- So there, I tell you immediately,
- we had, well first of all, I got to do
- one story after the other.
- When I came to Germany, and I told the story that here is
- the daughter is sitting there.
- The deputies of Prime Minister Merkel--
- Yes.
- The ones in charge of the [? Grüne Partei ?]
- and the other.
- They got up and they embraced with me,
- with tears in their eyes.
- It was remarkable.
- Of course.
- Altogether, I mean I also find I mean I'm regarded
- as an incurable optimist.
- I always see the positive things.
- Now, the reactions now in Germany,
- the way in which I am received by everybody,
- and what's their reactions is so moving.
- And I quite see that it's not only tactics or politics
- for some reason.
- They really-- whenever I come to any place,
- they always ask me to also meet with young people.
- And they invite--
- Excuse me for a second.
- Yes, please.
- I'll be back after the lecture.
- Yes, of course.
- OK?
- Will you be here?
- Yeah.
- Bye-bye.
- Have a nice stay in Israel.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
- We will.
- And your daughter's name is what?
- Orli.
- Orli.
- Orli is my lights.
- O-R-L-I.
- Oh, O-R-L-I.
- Orli, Orli means my light.
- My light.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yes.
- All right.
- So you were saying about the reaction in Germany.
- Yes, that they want me everywhere, and--
- last week, I came back about two weeks ago from [NON-ENGLISH]..
- That's not far from Cologne.
- There they have a center which is called--
- I didn't know about that.
- [NON-ENGLISH] They called me by phone.
- And said, we are [NON-ENGLISH].
- I thought [NON-ENGLISH].
- They mean Jewish?
- But they said, no, no, no no.
- No, no.
- Not Jewish?
- I see that's what I understood.
- That's right.
- [NON-ENGLISH] And the name of this town is [NON-ENGLISH]..
- It's not far from Cologne.
- I only found that out later.
- Yeah.
- And they said that they have a company.
- I didn't know about that, an organization,
- that they have decided in 2006, that's about eight years ago,
- that every year they will give a special [NON-ENGLISH] prize
- of their organization to someone who does a lot to prevent
- forgetfulness of Nazi crimes, or the Holocaust, and others,
- and does a lot to prevent that things like that should never
- happen again.
- And for 2014, they decided to award it to me.
- So they invited me now.
- Congratulations.
- And to the place there.
- And then they asked me twice to appear before 300 children
- from schools.
- And they asked the children to prepare themselves.
- And they asked the children to go to newspaper.
- I want you to imagine.
- This is really amazing.
- Because one reads such a lot about antisemitism everywhere.
- So I wouldn't have been surprised
- if there were some people who would say something maybe
- against Israel or something like this.
- And although I don't to pay any special attention.
- Wait a minute.
- Have I got this?
- You see this?
- You see, here [NON-ENGLISH].
- So you see here, you see on the first-- you see here
- on the first page.
- He invited us, and--
- Could I take a picture of you, so showing the paper.
- And I just want to show you.
- And look at this.
- This is in between in the paper here.
- This was me with Eichmann.
- This here, I can give you, a-- yeah, this was me.
- I was even younger than now.
- This was here.
- But here all this, you see here, this whole page?
- Yes.
- Inside all about the trial.
- Yes.
- And all this, I mean because usually the newspapers are
- told, they bring things that they
- think the public would be interested in.
- The fact that they do it in such a way--
- Yes.
- I mean all this shows.
- But even more they're like, oh, all right.
- You've done it?
- No.
- Not yet.
- Hold on.
- She said something wrong.
- Maybe this one.
- Can I see the paper?
- Maybe wait a minute.
- Yeah, OK.
- All right.
- Good.
- Thank you.
- I hope so.
- I don't know.
- Yeah.
- You see, I had better light on this side.
- OK.
- But anyway, that's very impressive.
- But all of it, I mean there are lots of things that happened.
- OK?
- OK.
- OK, great.
- OK.
- OK.
- This picture you have seen maybe perhaps before.
- Have you seen that picture?
- Yes, I have seen that picture.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- I've got that for the larger one as well.
- I think-- I think it's been reproduced
- in a number of places.
- I think it's maybe in the Holocaust museum.
- Aha, yes that was--
- this is this one.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, very famous picture, yeah.
- By the way, greetings before I forget, from Eli Rosenbaum,
- who really sends his best to you.
- He's a very nice person.
- Very nice person, yes.
- He's been very helpful.
- Yeah.
- I wanted--
- I was going to say--
- yes.
- Yes, I wanted to tell you about [NON-ENGLISH]..
- While it was after I got this special prize,
- and I spoke and the reaction of people.
- And now like yesterday, I received a letter from there.
- They say that until today, the everyday children
- call them and say how much they were impressed.
- And the teachers they say we somehow feel envy,
- because we've never seen our children so
- impressed by anything that we say, we tell them.
- Yeah, of course not.
- And so on.
- As they say here.
- But more than that, I told them the following story.
- I was questioned in the German television,
- by German television about two years ago, three years ago
- maybe.
- And they asked me, what do you remember as a child
- when you were in Berlin?
- And I told them, well, I mean we left Germany as you perhaps
- now, at the age of 11.
- Yes.
- And I was there during the Olympic games, in '36.
- Certainly I was impressed.
- Not only that, but I was very interested in sports.
- And I was very interested especially in football.
- And I said, there is a football team.
- I don't know whether you are interested in football,
- [NON-ENGLISH] is one of the best teams in Germany,
- and one of the best teams in Europe, and so on.
- And I was especially interested in them and liked them.
- First of all, because they had a very special way of playing,
- and also their uniform was blue, white,
- and that was our Zionist--
- Colors.
- My father was one of the leading Zionists.
- I went also ironically to the [NON-ENGLISH],,
- on Adolf-Hitler-Platz.
- On Adolf-Hitler-Platz.
- On Adolf-Hitler-Platz, it was also, anyway.
- That we took part in also in competition,
- with blue and white, just like [NON-ENGLISH]..
- So because of that, I also liked them very much indeed.
- And so when about a few months ago, there
- was a group of German--
- German students who came to Israel,
- and asked also to meet me.
- And so when it was-- my lecture was over, they asked questions.
- And then they also asked me, what
- do you remember as a child.
- Yes.
- So I told them that, too.
- And also about [NON-ENGLISH].
- They said, interesting.
- And they pulled out a cushion which I can show you
- afterwards, blue of [NON-ENGLISH],,
- and it turned out that the deputy of the German prime
- minister, she had heard about this also.
- And she had gone to a shop.
- She heard that the students were coming to Israel to meet me.
- So she bought this and asked the children
- to come to Israel to give me that thing.
- I mean--
- That's very thoughtful.
- Things like that are very thoughtful.
- Anyway, when I was now in [NON-ENGLISH],,
- I told this story.
- And when I finished, the person in charge of the meeting there,
- he said, well, Mr. Bach, I still have against this,
- is that we didn't know you would talk about I [NON-ENGLISH]..
- But here was the leader of [NON-ENGLISH] of the party,
- of the football team.
- And he came and he brought me a huge picture,
- of all the pictures of all the various seasons [INAUDIBLE]..
- And they said with special regards
- for our friend, Gabriel Bach.
- And blue, we always have blue and white.
- There is-- this is red.
- And then I have to show you this.
- Yeah.
- It was really very, very moving.
- As this came as a real surprise.
- [NON-ENGLISH]
- Before I show you this, the pictures that, they gave--
- Oh, my goodness that's funny.
- This Bach.
- That's wonderful.
- I love that.
- This was really easy.
- You see, and there he was--
- and they prepared this.
- And just to show, I mean the little things
- like that which show that more than any article or anything.
- Right, real humanity.
- And then they in addition, he brought me
- and they sent it to me down by post.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- See here-- this.
- Oh, I see.
- Yeah.
- And that is before the war.
- They just-- they don't know yet.
- They're going to send it with all the names.
- But here, here they said that here it says, I didn't.
- I only realized it when they sent it to me now by post,
- I did see what was written in there.
- You see here,
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- They say, [NON-ENGLISH] All our life is blue and white.
- And here it says in honor of a fan of [NON-ENGLISH],,
- Gabriel Bach.
- That's wonderful.
- That's wonderful.
- Great.
- So touching.
- Yes.
- And those things, but I can tell you.
- I come across things like that, practically every day
- someone rings of somebody--
- Yes.
- Also for instance, the Minister of Interior of Germany,
- of Brandenburg, Brandenburg you know?
- Yes.
- It's Potsdam.
- Is the capital of Brandenburg, first part of Eastern Germany.
- And the Minister of Interior, he visited Israel about last year.
- And he is in charge of people who
- deal with questions of internal policy inside the parliament.
- So I was told there is some danger that some Nazi documents
- may perhaps be destroyed after a while,
- not being important enough.
- We wanted to prevent that.
- So I met him.
- I invited him for dinner.
- And we had a nice talk together.
- And of course, in German.
- And then he said, well, tell me.
- Where do you come from.
- Where were you born actually?
- I said, well, I was born in a place called Halberstadt.
- But at the early age of two months, we left.
- My father was in heavy industry.
- He was first, one of the assistants.
- But then he became the director general of one of the biggest
- copper factories.
- And that was in Halberstadt.
- But it moved from Halberstadt to Berlin when I was born.
- So I didn't know Halberstadt.
- OK.
- So I said I don't know the place.
- So all right, so he went back to Germany.
- And after about two weeks, I got a phone call from him.
- Mr. Bach, I would like to continue our conversations
- with you.
- I would like you to meet our prime minister,
- and to meet our a judges of our Supreme Court.
- Would you be prepared to come for a week as a guest
- to Potsdam?
- But on one condition.
- I said what's the condition?
- The condition is that if you come here,
- that you enable me one day of this week to take you in my car
- to Halberstadt.
- I want to show you the room where you were born.
- I was very moved.
- I mean you could have said you have a chance
- to visit Halberstadt.
- Right, right.
- But the fact that he after all, was a Minister of Interior,
- quite an important person, that he said he
- would take about four or five hour's drive
- from Berlin to Halberstadt.
- [NON-ENGLISH]
- So I came.
- And he took me one day in his car.
- And at the outskirts of the town, the mayor of Halberstadt
- was waiting.
- And he took me to the house where I was born,
- and he took me to the room where I was born.
- And the people there who are now living,
- they also went with me to where I was born, and so on.
- And then they asked me to meet with people, young people,
- from Halberstadt to tell them, and so on.
- And so I mean they also invited me for lunch
- together with the mayor, where from the room, from the window
- I could see also the house where I was born.
- And then they took me to the center of the town.
- They put up a sculpture there, and they
- had written down all the names of all the Jews
- from Halberstadt who were deported to the death camps
- during the war.
- And then I really had a shock.
- It said-- it gave all the names and where they were sent to.
- Auschwitz, and Mauthausen, and Majdanek, and so on.
- And then it says, [NON-ENGLISH],, so not one returned.
- So it turned out that all were killed.
- I mean, I didn't know that.
- It didn't reduce my impression there, my movement as I
- was received now.
- But on the other hand, so I came sort of from one emotion
- to another.
- Yes, but that was terrible when I suddenly
- realized that really every one of them
- was killed from Halberstadt.
- And but as I say, people from--
- they've decided about two years ago, three years ago,
- that in every province of Germany where
- they have a parliament of their own,
- every year they devote a whole day in memory of the Holocaust.
- And they invite me to come there to not only in their parliament
- make the main speech, but also to conduct--
- to conduct all the discussions, and the hearing
- afterwards, and so on.
- So I've been there in Magdeburg.
- I've been in Saarbrücken.
- And everywhere they asked me to meet
- also with children and so on.
- So, these things are really, I think, very, very positive.
- People in newspapers always write,
- like to write about negative things.
- So if there's something, I mean, I'm
- sure there is some antisemitism and anti-Israelism things
- like that.
- I'm sure it happens.
- But I must say that the way in which three months
- ago now I was in Leipzig and Dresden.
- That's Eastern Germany.
- Yes.
- Also incredible the way in which we were received everywhere.
- And that really gives the impression
- that there is a large number of people in Germany, who really
- want to do everything possible in order to prevent things
- like that from happening again.
- And that's why they are interested-- to result
- of the trial.
- I mean in Israel, interesting also.
- Before the trial started, teachers
- told me that many of our young people
- here didn't want to hear about the Holocaust.
- Why?
- Many of our young people were ashamed.
- A young Israeli can understand that you
- can be hurt fighting, that you can be killed fighting,
- that you can lose a battle.
- But he cannot understand how millions of people let
- themselves be slaughtered without an uprising.
- That's why they didn't want to hear about it.
- That was not the main purpose of the prosecution.
- But we also wanted our children to know that that was not true.
- And we showed them the almost systematic and almost
- scientific way in which people who were supposed to be--
- was intended to be murdered, whether they were gypsies,
- or whether they were Jews, or whether they
- were Russian commissars.
- How they were misled, I mean I showed you about the postcards
- that Eichmann invented.
- But there were other things as well,
- how people were up to the last minute, misled.
- And then when like it the Warsaw ghetto,
- when it was clear to the Jews that death was waiting,
- and there was an uprising.
- And they fought to the last man, in an incredibly courageous
- manner.
- So actually, there was no reason to be ashamed, on the contrary.
- And that caused-- after the Eichmann trial,
- our young people wanted to visit Poland.
- They wanted to visit the death camps.
- Yes.
- They wanted to be interested in culture
- and history of the various Jews, Jews in Europe.
- So that was a development here.
- And then the development in other countries,
- I mean interesting.
- More than 50 years have passed.
- And the interest in the Eichmann trial grows from year to year
- all over the world.
- I mean incredible.
- I mean it's not only this.
- In Japan, and in Australia, and in America of course.
- And then in Sweden, and Hungary, and England,
- and everywhere the interest--
- Was the trial conducted in Hebrew?
- Yes.
- In Hebrew.
- So Eichmann asked, on that day when he came to me,
- after I just heard about this.
- He asked me.
- He said I want to talk to you about this,
- and my wife has written to me that she would suggest
- Dr. Servatius as being one of the defense counsels, who
- was one of the main defense counselors in the Nuremberg
- trial.
- He defended Sauckel.
- And he defended the Nazi Party.
- And he wanted to know, first of all,
- if the Israel government would agree
- that one of the German defense counsels,
- the main ones of the Nazi regime,
- that he would come here.
- I said no problem whatsoever.
- And then he said, really understand
- it will be most probably be in Hebrew.
- Will he understand Hebrew?
- I said, there will be simultaneous translation
- all during--
- all during the trial.
- And otherwise, will there be any objection?
- I said, no.
- Yes.
- People, everyone would agree to that.
- And you certainly can't find a better defense counsel.
- That was also discussed.
- That was my first meeting with Eichmann at the time.
- But--
- But you spoke to him in German?
- I spoke to him, yes, of course.
- I speak to him in German.
- My German, well, people say this is [INAUDIBLE]..
- I have no problem.
- Well, some of them, I spoke to my parents
- in German, when we came here.
- Sure.
- I don't know whether you know the details.
- We left Germany in '38, two weeks before Kristallnacht,
- when all Jews--
- we left to Holland.
- And we left.
- My father didn't want, but my father
- was the only Zionist in the family remaining in Germany.
- And all my uncles were arrested, and put into concentration camp
- in Dachau and Buchenwald.
- But my father managed to get them all out.
- He managed to get them entry certificates to Palestine
- in '38.
- It was still possible.
- And there he managed to get them all out.
- But he didn't want to leave Europe
- before everyone was safe.
- So we were almost caught.
- We left Holland one month before the German invasion of Holland.
- And we came to Palestine on the ship, The Patria,
- which was sunk on the next journey
- after that, with 250 people killed.
- So we were always one step ahead.
- Two weeks before the Kristallnacht,
- one month before the German invasion,
- last trip before of The Patria.
- But really made me crazy, that connection, in Holland--
- in Germany, I went to a Zionist school, a Jewish school.
- But in Holland I went to a mixed school.
- But there were hundreds of Jewish pupils
- in all the classes.
- And my best friend in Holland, not Jewish.
- He saw me 20 years later on television
- in the Eichmann trial.
- So he contacted me, and I invited him here.
- And we re-established our contact.
- And then he told me that after the war, he made some research.
- And he found out that of all the Jewish pupils in our school,
- that I'm practically apparently the only one
- who remained alive.
- They were all killed when the Germans entered.
- And then what connection really shook me,
- I later read in history books that between the outbreak
- of war in '39 and March '40 that we left Holland,
- during that time, Hitler had fixed seven times a date
- for the invasion of Holland.
- And every time, he postponed it at the last minute.
- Once, three astrologers had told him that the South situation--
- Was less favorable.
- Once they heard something on the BBC.
- And they thought the British were suspecting something.
- A number of times weather conditions were bad.
- So seven times when we were still there,
- there was a date fixed by Hitler for the invasion of Holland,
- and he postponed it at the last minute.
- And the eighth time, when they entered,
- we had just left Holland.
- You had incredible luck.
- Incredible luck, so everyone thought
- that my father had a sort of sixth sense,
- as to when to detach himself.
- So when afterwards, the German army after General Rommel, yes,
- through Libya and Egypt approached Palestine,
- and they said they would come here
- to kill all the Jews in Palestine.
- And he approached through Libya, and he came to Egypt.
- And on the way to Palestine, everyone came to my father.
- And they said, well, where now to?
- So he said, here is the last stop.
- Here we won't budge.
- So then Rommel had to go back.
- Now, don't take me seriously.
- That people-- but General Rommel withdrew from el Alamein.
- There was a defeat, and then he had to withdraw.
- So people said that must be the reason,
- that because Mr. Bach said it.
- Yeah.
- This was my father.
- That was your father.
- Very distinguished looking gentleman.
- By the way, this man over there.
- Yes.
- That was the father of Ruth.
- I see.
- And he was one of the leaders of the Haganah.
- And he was a very well known man.
- He was in charge of all the illegal immigrant ships
- from Italy.
- I don't know whether you saw the film Exodus?
- Yes.
- Yes, of course.
- Well, the main person there is--
- Her father?
- Well, I mean, sort of modeled on her father?
- Yes.
- They didn't mention him by name there.
- But the person who wrote this, he came here
- and he talked to him before.
- He died unfortunately at the age of 51.
- Oh, my goodness.
- Yeah.
- But he was also one of the leaders of the Haganah.
- Also they left.
- He was sent before the war to Poland
- to buy arms for the Haganah.
- And Ruth and her mother, the whole family were in Warsaw.
- And they left by the last trains in '39.
- Wow.
- Once just before he managed.
- But he stayed there because he had to do something else.
- He also escaped in a very, very interesting way.
- But anyway, they left just by the last train.
- The next one was bombed already by the Germans in '39.
- But well, lots of interesting--
- Right.
- Can I get back to one thing you said about Eichmann?
- Because when you talk about Arendt and her theories
- about Eichmann, it wasn't just--
- I mean one of her points was not just whether or not
- he saw himself as following the will of Hitler, of course.
- But there are people who she makes the point,
- and then I've spoken to other people who were
- involved in the Eichmann case.
- Some of whom they disagree on this.
- They say Eichmann, it wasn't so much he
- wasn't motivated by pure antisemitism,
- that he was motivated by--
- if he had the impression that his job was
- to kill Frenchmen, or Eskimos, or whatever,
- he would have done it with equal sort
- of tenacity and enthusiasm.
- That it was just the Jews were the designated target.
- But he would have done it against anyone.
- This was the kind of mindset he had.
- Do you feel that it's true or was it
- specifically only about the Jews in terms of Eichmann's case?
- Yeah.
- Well, he wasn't in the head of the Jewish world.
- I think I can't say what would have happened if others.
- Perhaps well, I don't know whether you
- know that towards the end of the war, that's
- also typical for him.
- But there's also that connection.
- There was someone who suggested that
- all the German soldiers who were one quarter Jewish,
- one Jewish grandfather or one Jewish grandmother, that's
- one quarter Jewish, that they should either be castrated,
- or sent to a concentration camp.
- Now, Eichmann supported that incredibly orally
- and by written.
- The one who was against it was Keitel, the commander
- in chief of the German army.
- Again, not out of humanitarian reasons,
- but he said it weakens my army.
- There are thousands of soldiers like that.
- They were fighting together with their comrades all the time.
- And to take them now and to castrate them,
- or to send them to concentration camp,
- he said that will absolutely weaken the army.
- Hitler supported Keitel.
- Yes.
- But Eichmann, you know he did everything-- always
- for this, related, supported this, and so on.
- When the German generals on the Eastern Front were clamoring
- for reinforcement, and ammunition,
- he managed to get priority for his death trains,
- knowing it must have been the [NON-ENGLISH]..
- What would have happened if he had been shot?
- I also thought at first that he joined the Jewish department
- not because of the Supreme antisemitism,
- but because he thought it was good for his career.
- Exactly.
- That he would go on, and so on, and continue.
- And then afterwards, when you deal
- for years with the murder of innocent people,
- I think perhaps he must either go--
- You accept the rationale.
- Didn't happen to him, or you must convince yourself
- that you do something which is of importance,
- or historical importance.
- And maybe after that, then he couldn't make any distinction
- anymore.
- That prediction, I also want to tell you.
- Which when I said it's perhaps not 100% logical.
- When I was in charge of the investigation, I got documents.
- 100,000 Jews here, 700,000 Jews there, and so on,
- with Eichmann's signature, which was, of course, very
- important for the prosecution.
- But from what I remember more than anything else was
- in every country, there were sometimes
- an attempt to save one particular Jewish person,
- or one particular Jewish family.
- And then when there was such a request made to Eichmann,
- when one of the officers went out--
- the police officers came across a document like that,
- they gave it to me.
- But that was all chronological.
- So and a few days passed before I got the reply of Eichmann.
- So I had dreams at night that sometimes one Jewish family
- or one Jew was spared.
- But then without exception, whenever
- Eichmann had to give a reply, the answer
- was always to put these people to death, and not to the--
- I don't want to be theoretical.
- I'll give you an example.
- One day, the person in charge of France, the policeman in charge
- of France, he brought me a Telegram,
- sent by a German general, the commander of Paris.
- He wrote to Eichmann that there was
- a Jewish professor, Professor Weiss, an expert on radar.
- And this man had made many patents and inventions
- about radar.
- And it was important for the German army
- to examine him in connection with what the German scientists
- had found.
- And therefore, he, the general, insists
- that this man and his wife should not be deported
- from Paris to the East.
- Here, I must say in the middle of the war, a German general,
- one Jewish person expert on radar.
- He must agree.
- After a few days, the answer of Eichmann,
- question of principle, cannot possibly agree and so on.
- A few days later a note, the German general
- had called Eichmann by phone.
- And said, how dare you counter my orders.
- I am a general of the Wehrmacht.
- And the answer of Eichmann and I am an [NON-ENGLISH] of the SS
- and I don't care what rank you have in the army.
- A few days later, Eichmann writes to this general.
- I have examined the matter further,
- and I found out that the German army has already
- taken over all the patents of this Jew, Weiss.
- Therefore, I see no reason even for one more day
- to postpone the deportation.
- And then a note that this man and his wife
- had been deported to their death, and so on.
- Here I must also tell you, as I told you,
- there were the three of us where I was in.
- Because I was in charge of the investigation, everything
- directly connected with Eichmann usually I reported it.
- I questioned all the witnesses.
- So also all of Western Europe, I had under me during the trial.
- So I, also France, so I put in these documents
- about this Professor Weiss.
- Two days later, my secretary came to me.
- And she said you know Mr. Bach.
- There's a young lady outside who wants to see you.
- Who is that?
- Aliza Weiss.
- Don't know her.
- Anyway, she came in.
- And she said you know I'm the daughter of this Professor
- Weiss.
- I was a baby when they took my parents away.
- They saw apparently, the SS, coming.
- So they sent me to neighbors.
- The neighbors kept me, and sent me later to America.
- And now I am in America.
- And I read that you put in these documents about my parents.
- Now, not only didn't I know my parents,
- I haven't even got a picture what they looked like.
- Can you give me some examples of how at least I can get it?
- Another day the person in charge of Holland, he came to me
- and he brought me a telegram sent
- by the leader of the Fascist Party of Holland.
- There was a Fascist Party there.
- And he informed Eichmann that there were 12 Jews, members
- of the Fascist Party.
- And he says, these people are loyal members of our party,
- and it would be demoralizing if they were sent away.
- Therefore, we insist that these people should not be sent away.
- In order to make it more attractive to Eichmann,
- he wrote, they might even do intelligence work
- inside the Jewish community, and they might
- help you to get all the Jews.
- It was not very nice to read that.
- But at least I thought it was probably it was successful.
- The answer of Eichmann, out of the question.
- He added, if you say it will be demoralizing
- if they are sent away this week, then
- let's wait two or three weeks.
- By then, people will get accustomed to the deportation
- of people to such an extent, that it won't make
- any special impression anymore.
- And they have to be sent away.
- Perhaps even more, one day the person
- they brought me a telegram sent by the Italian consul
- in Lithuania.
- He wrote to Eichmann, there's a woman, Mrs. [? Cozzi, ?]
- an Italian Jewish woman, but her parents live in Lithuania.
- She had visited them in Riga or something.
- And she was caught by the German army and the SS.
- And the question is now whether she should be
- sent to one of the death camps.
- So the Italian wrote this woman is
- the widow of a high officer in the Italian army who fell.
- But he was a most courageous, and most intelligent,
- and most effective.
- All Italy speaks about this man who fell in the Italian army.
- And therefore, the Italian authorities
- demand that you give this woman the chance to return to Italy.
- Now here again, Italy, the ally of Germany after all,
- and this woman, the widow of all Italy speaks about this family,
- about this man who after all fought
- on the side of the German Wehrmacht.
- Here he must agree.
- The answer, out of the question.
- This is so and so reason, so a refusal.
- I mean, this is incredible to see that.
- But these things somehow stick in one's memory,
- even more than perhaps more important documents
- about hundreds of thousands of people.
- In addition, I want to tell you another thing.
- We knew our judges will be very strict with us.
- They always refused in every criminal case
- to accept any evidence, which is not directly connected
- with the accused.
- So, of course, we wanted to show as much as
- possible of the Holocaust.
- What helped us here was that the accused was Eichmann,
- because he was really connected with every aspect of this
- all during the war.
- Therefore, we could put in practically everything.
- But there were some things was no direct connection,
- so we didn't put it in.
- But sometimes also things that I couldn't
- forget, and keep in my mind more perhaps than in other things.
- I told you we had from all the ministries,
- we had, for instance, the Ministry of Health,
- the director general of the Ministry
- of Health, a doctor with a university education.
- He wrote to his minister in the court, he wrote that--
- he wrote today, like you have a blood bank,
- there was a milk bank, that women
- who had mother milk, where the children had died
- or where they had too much milk, they could donate the milk,
- to the to mothers who had no milk.
- So this man writes I got information yesterday
- that a woman who was one quarter Jewish, also
- one Jewish grandmother was [INAUDIBLE]..
- She had donated her milk to this milk bank without informing us,
- without informing the hospital that she
- was one quarter Jewish.
- And he wrote verbally what to do with this infamous woman.
- I find difficult. At first, I thought perhaps
- that we should have a showcase that she is sufficiently
- punished for doing that.
- But then I thought, how demoralizing
- that would be on all Aryan mothers who
- might think their children were contaminated by the milk
- that they got from this milk bank.
- And therefore, I now suggest that this woman should just
- disappear in a concentration camp,
- and never be heard of again.
- Now I, as a child, I mean I saw in Germany sometimes Hitler's
- speeches.
- I saw how people reacted hysterically.
- I don't want to justify it.
- But at least I could understand how this happened.
- But here, this man, a doctor with a university education,
- in the quietness of his writing desk,
- writes to his minister about this woman,
- how demoralizing that would be, how the children were
- contaminated, and so on.
- I don't know.
- Every explanation is only a partial one.
- But perhaps even more, I make one last point about this.
- Before they had the gas chambers, in the death camps,
- they had these gas vans, where they had vans.
- And the Jewish men, women, and children were put behind,
- and the exhaust, instead of going to the outside,
- went inside.
- And they drove about 30 or 40 kilometers.
- And then the people choked slowly to their death.
- Now one day, also during the examination,
- I found a document by an intelligence officer,
- an expert who wrote to his superior or his minister.
- I don't remember exactly, about how these vans work.
- Then he added, I have however to make out
- of humanitarian reasons, a following suggestion.
- And that is we have to do something
- to protect our poor SS drivers from having
- to listen to the shrieks that are getting
- softer and softer from behind.
- And therefore, I have invented a soundproof wall
- to put up between the driver and the part behind,
- so that our poor SS drivers don't have to listen.
- Here again, I will tell.
- When I got this document, and I read humanitarian reasons,
- I have to make a [INAUDIBLE],, I thought something for these
- poor people, for poor women and children who were slowly--
- The only thing to protect our poor SS drivers
- against from having to listen to the shrieks getting
- softer and softer.
- The things like this somehow keep in one's memory
- more that than perhaps more important documents.
- But all this was--
- I mean I had these two years something
- is very difficult to forget.
- Right.
- Can I ask you a quick question about this?
- As you were gathering the evidence,
- did either Tuviah Friedman--
- Tuviah Friedman said he handed over a good deal of evidence.
- And I don't know whether Wiesenthal did.
- But I know that Tuviah Friedman did.
- Was that used in the trial?
- Yeah.
- At the beginning, I can tell you.
- Of course, I had kept connections with them.
- Yes.
- And when we started investigation,
- we first asked what they had.
- But then when our policemen got information
- from all over the world, and this, then later
- this became not so very important anymore.
- But at first, as a start, we got information also
- from Tuviah Friedman and from Wiesenthal.
- From both?
- From them both.
- I mean I you say we, I didn't.
- The police people dealt with that.
- I didn't have the personal contact.
- But it was useful in the early stages?
- At the first stages of the investigation.
- Then we went much further.
- Just like for, instance, we had Robert Kempner.
- Robert Kempner, he was in Nuremberg.
- Nuremberg, yes.
- And he-- and after a while, we invited him to Israel,
- because we wanted to ask him whether he thought
- that we had all the documents.
- He said, not only do you have, you
- have many more than that we had, you see,
- because that was later.
- Right.
- Later, we had more information.
- But so we really had this.
- And we also enabled--
- when they said, for instance, the defense
- counsel that they would like to question some Nazis.
- And they would like us to say that we will not
- examine these Nazis when they come to Israel.
- That, of course, was difficult with their people, criminals.
- But we didn't want Eichmann to be
- disabled from putting this up.
- So we said these people can testify before a German judge
- in Germany.
- And the Israeli court said they will accept this.
- Their testimony.
- When it comes to their testimony.
- So this was sent to Israel, so they also--
- I mean everything, full judgment I think
- was done all along the line.
- Also, I mean I deserve no credit for this.
- But when we had these millions of documents,
- sometimes I came across a document
- that the police gave me that I thought
- might be of interest to the defense, about obeying orders,
- and about the oath of allegiance,
- or the allegiance to the SS, and so on.
- So I sent these documents to the defense counsel, to Servatius.
- So two days later, Servatius came to me.
- And he said, I showed this to Eichmann.
- And Eichmann asked me, where did you get this from?
- I said from the prosecutor.
- So Eichmann almost fainted.
- He said, the Israeli prosecutor gave you documents
- that he thought it might be of interest to the defense?
- That for him was something incredible.
- I mean for me, I handled this case
- like I would have handled any other criminal case.
- Was there ever any Jewish person who
- testified on behalf of Eichmann during the trial?
- Well, there was I tell you, that was also very interesting.
- That I saw in Hannah Arendt's book
- that she said that the prosecution brought
- some evidence about some Jews, Jewish leaders in Poland,
- the Polish, who cooperated with the Nazis, preparing
- lists for people for deportation in order
- to save their families.
- Yeah, the discussions about the Judenrat.
- The Judenrat and so on.
- So Hannah Arendt wrote, the prosecutors
- brought some evidence.
- But maybe if they had stressed it more,
- that would have been a mitigating circumstance
- for Eichmann.
- It would have shown that under certain circumstances
- of stress, people do things which are even illegal.
- It didn't sound very convincing.
- But anyway, what really impressed me during the trial,
- Dr. Servatius came to me.
- And he said Mr. Bach, I have to show you one thing.
- There were about 12 Jewish Israelis who had written to him
- and had suggested they would be prepared to testify
- as witnesses for the defense.
- Why?
- Not because they wanted to help Eichmann.
- But there were always attempts to save Jews
- in various manners, some of them giving bribes
- to local policemen or to Nazis, or talking, other ways.
- Some succeeded and some did not.
- The ones who did not succeed sometimes
- regarded the ones who did succeed
- as traitors, like Kasztner and so on and so forth.
- So just like Hannah Arendt said, that
- could be a defense, important for the defense.
- So these Jews suggested that they would testify in order
- to harm the people who did succeed in saving a few Jews.
- So Servatius said to me, you see Mr. Bach,
- If I thought it would help my client
- than I would have no choice.
- I would use these witnesses.
- But for me, this kind of evidence
- is not a mitigating circumstance,
- but an aggravating circumstance.
- This cat and mouse game that they played with the people
- that they managed to get some people--
- To cooperate up to a point.
- To cooperate because they were afraid for their life.
- To me, this was certainly not a mitigating circumstance.
- So I'm not prepared to use it.
- So I thought this non-Jew, this Servatius,
- he understood what Hannah Arendt never really understood.
- But they suggested that there would be some evidence.
- But there was no one whom the defense
- wanted to bring us witnesses.
- There was nothing special that they wanted to put forward.
- Well yes, her discussion of the Judenrat and so forth
- in the book, of course, stirred a lot of controversy.
- And later I've read some interviews with her, later,
- where she says, well, maybe I overstated
- my case a little bit.
- But how that would be a mitigating circumstance
- for Eichmann that they managed to get some Jews to--
- Yeah.
- No.
- I mean altogether, I tell you it's practically what as I say,
- I don't know what somehow what prompted her to do that.
- She didn't say that the trial was not justified.
- No.
- No.
- No, no.
- But she said as if we somehow--
- my impression was that she had this general feeling
- that here we had caught Eichmann,
- and that we tried to bolster up his part,
- because we had him as a prisoner.
- And then everything which did not
- fit in with this idea, so she changed the facts around
- from what was said in evidence, and then in the documents.
- But the main thing is really about this question
- of the fuhrer, which me was showed exactly
- the opposite in Hungary.
- That Eichmann did something in order
- to prevent an agreement that Hitler had made,
- I mean if anything showed that he was not just carrying out
- orders, then that this is one.
- So she changed it over.
- And she said it's Himmler who wanted to do this.
- The fuhrer was against it, absolutely untrue.
- But why was she doing this?
- As I say, many people have said because of this connection
- with Heidegger, I don't know.
- I'm not prepared to say this without proof.
- So my feeling was that was what made
- her do this is she had this preconceived idea that we
- had taken this man because we managed to get hold of him.
- And he was head of the Jewish department.
- But somehow that we tried to bolster up his--
- which is not true.
- I mean, we put in every piece of evidence which was relevant.
- But it really shows also the fact
- that he was the only one who was kept as head of the department
- all during the years during the war.
- It shows that his superiors knew that in many German documents,
- the whole execution of the Jewish problem
- was called Operation Eichmann.
- Yes, yeah.
- Because even his superiors, like Müller,
- and like a Heydrich, well of course
- Heydrich was his superior.
- I mean for instance, but it was also very typical
- in '41, when Hitler decided to kill all the Jews.
- And then at first it was hidden also
- from the German ministries.
- They said to all, they said to the Jews
- who were sent to death to labor camps, and so on.
- But they didn't say that the idea was to kill them.
- All but then in '42, Eichmann told us
- that Heydrich and he decided it's impossible in order
- to get the cooperation of all the German ministries,
- we have to tell them the idea is to kill 11 million Jews.
- That was the idea.
- And so we had the Wannsee Conference.
- And in the Wannsee Conference, they
- tried to show this to all the ministry.
- So Eichmann told us, that he and Heydrich were rather afraid
- before they started the Wannsee conference.
- They said, because many of the people invited
- were Jews, heads of the various government departments.
- And Eichmann told us that we thought
- that some of these people will say what you are suggesting
- is contrary to German law.
- It's the murder of innocent people,
- and therefore we cannot agree to this.
- And that's what they were afraid of.
- And then the evening passed, and apart
- from some technical questions, no one asked--
- said anything, any objection or any criticism.
- So when it was all over, Eichmann told us,
- he and Heydrich were sitting before the [NON-ENGLISH],,
- before the fireplace, and were drinking a schnapps in order
- to congratulate themselves on their success in the Wannsee
- Conference.
- They said, three times, we drink.
- Toast.
- We drank a schnapps.
- Now, after I was in Germany and I was on television, and so on,
- I went to the Villa Wannsee and I
- met with some professors who were dealing also
- with the Holocaust in the University there.
- And we were drinking coffee.
- And suddenly I saw we were sitting
- in front of a fireplace.
- So I said, tell me, is this the fireplace where Eichmann
- and Heydrich drank [NON-ENGLISH]..
- Well, the coffee did stick in my throat a little bit.
- Anyway, a few months later, there
- was this 65th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference.
- And I was asked by the leader of the Wannsee Conference,
- by the head, [NON-ENGLISH] his name was I think,
- to come to the Villa Wannsee, and to make the main speech,
- and also to lead the whole of the evening.
- There were hundreds of people coming from all over Germany.
- So we were there in the main hall.
- And that was also where this fireplace was at.
- So I told them the story of that fireplace.
- So there were about 20 people sitting
- in front of this fireplace.
- You should have seen.
- They all moved aside.
- They didn't want--
- No one wanted to be by the fireplace.
- They didn't want to be anymore in front of that fireplace.
- I can imagine.
- That's also something that's a bit difficult.
- But interesting, how Eichmann told us how proud
- they were that they managed to get this across.
- I mean it's also that's something certainly
- we didn't know about this.
- He said, yes.
- We were afraid but we're terribly proud of this.
- And then, for instance, when I say about his reactions,
- that's also very typical.
- I mean I asked the police, as I didn't want to question him
- myself during the investigation before.
- So I asked every evening the policeman brought me
- what Eichmann had said.
- And I gave them instructions about how to continue.
- So we questioned him country after country.
- So you could see that again, whenever
- some Jew managed to escape, how angry he still was, even so.
- I mean, you know what happened in Denmark?
- That in Denmark it was known that this would happen,
- and the Danish population they took the little--
- their Jewish neighbors in little rowing boats to Sweden.
- Oh, yes.
- And they saved out of 7,500 Jews whom
- they wanted to deport in '43, they saved 7,000.
- And that was a very remarkable achievement
- really for the Danish government.
- And how did it come?
- Because a man called Duckwitz.
- Duckwitz was in the German embassy.
- And he was working.
- He was a Nazi, actually.
- But he thought it was a bad thing for relations
- with Denmark and so on to deport the Jews from there.
- He didn't want that.
- He tried to prevent it.
- It didn't help.
- The head of the SS in Denmark, Werner Best,
- he was head of that SS there.
- And he told his colleagues, like to Duckwitz,
- he told them about that Hitler had given the instructions
- that now in '43, all the Jews from Denmark
- should be deported to their death, in the East.
- So Duckwitz was against that.
- And he told his Christian friends and leaders
- of the various parties, the Social Democratic Party
- in Denmark.
- And these people told the Jews.
- So when the Germans came and wanted to arrest the Jews,
- the Jewish people didn't open.
- Some of them had escaped from home.
- Some of them didn't open.
- And the question was what to do, whether to break open
- all the doors immediately.
- So Werner Best, the head of the SS.
- He said, well, let's wait a day or two,
- then we break down the doors.
- But he didn't do it immediately.
- And that enabled the neighbors of the Jews
- to enable the Jews to escape.
- Now Eichmann described what happened in Denmark.
- So he told the police, the Israeli police officers.
- Look at these people.
- Look at Werner Best, my man, SS man.
- There he was in Berlin.
- The [NON-ENGLISH] that was so small,
- and did what we was told.
- And then he goes to Copenhagen, [NON-ENGLISH]----
- and makes difficulties for me.
- As if he expected the Israeli officer to say,
- ah, everyone tried to prevent you
- from killing everyone last one, but incredible.
- That he even now couldn't forgive
- that this man, Werner Best, didn't break down
- all the doors immediately.
- And because of that, the Jews managed to escape.
- You should look these people.
- There was anger inside.
- I mean just how proud he was that he did in Hungary.
- And how angry he was that what happened
- in Denmark that somehow some people escaped.
- I mean that also shows you how, that now
- when this happened after the war,
- and what said to us about the children,
- and what he said to Hess about how angry he
- is with himself that he wasn't not stricter more.
- Now, you see the Jewish state.
- I mean it all shows that this idea was
- absolutely wrong to say that he just obeyed orders.
- He really identified himself completely with this.
- But even, I mean, the theme of the banality of evil,
- in some ways I think you, since you read Hoss' recollections,
- he also to me in some ways that even represents it more.
- Because he's talking about how he's under so much strain.
- He can't meet his children because he's
- pushing children into the gas chamber, basically.
- Who said that?
- Rudolf Hoss, the Auschwitz commander.
- Yeah, Yeah.
- It's interesting comparing the psychology of the two men.
- That's very, very bizarre.
- One thing I wanted to [INAUDIBLE]..
- I know I've taken a lot of your time.
- If this was the big trial, and I think in retrospect,
- even people like Arendt and others
- who had their doubts about parts of it, recognize that say,
- as you say, it had a huge impact in Israel.
- It had a huge impact internationally.
- I think long term, what you're saying about Germany,
- a lot of the things that happened later
- would not have happened if not for the Eichmann trial.
- And there really wasn't anything quite like that again.
- Do you of the operation a few years later
- against Herberts Cukurs, the Latvian pilot, who was in Riga.
- He was called the Hangman of Riga,
- who the Mossad killed in 1965.
- They had an operation in Uruguay, and--
- He was killed?
- He was killed.
- They actually--
- By whom?
- By Mossad agents, including one or two
- of the people who were involved in the Eichmann--
- Yeah, I was just curious.
- When was that?
- In '65, '65, so a few years later.
- It's interesting for me the contrast because Israel
- was so cautious about Eichmann to do everything
- properly and so forth.
- And here this was, it was almost--
- I've discussed it with some people.
- They feel maybe there was something personal involved
- here.
- That the decision was made let's just eliminate
- this person who was responsible for the murder of so
- many Jews in Latvia.
- In Latvia?
- Yes, yeah.
- Yeah.
- I didn't hear.
- Was there something in the papers?
- Well, there was--
- Because usually I got in '65--
- In the papers then, no, nothing.
- Nothing.
- Because I was still in the State Attorney's Office.
- No, no, no.
- The only, a few years ago, one of the agents involved in it
- who was also, by the way involved in the Eichmann
- kidnapping, wrote a book about it.
- It was published, I think, in England.
- And he died.
- This agent died about a year ago.
- And so there were stories about this.
- But I'm just curious whether you had heard about it.
- No.
- Yeah, no.
- But overall, I mean the Eichmann trial in the end I think
- was the seminal trial that in terms of education,
- and in terms of really sending a message,
- and this impact as you say, just keeps growing in many ways.
- Yes, and also I've heard, for instance, that from,
- as the people who have similar powers, whether they
- are in Yugoslavia, or Africa, or South America--
- that they know that if they give in to this,
- and do what Eichmann did, then even after 15 years,
- they may be caught.
- Yes.
- And they may get the heaviest punishment
- known in a democratic country.
- I think all this is also
- Important.
- Did Eichmann ask for anyone to testify for him?
- Yes, well I told you.
- These people in Germany.
- Germany.
- That he asked, that where lots of people
- were questioned in Germany, whoever Eichmann
- wanted to question.
- No.
- I'm not talking about the Jewish witnesses.
- But--
- Oh, no.
- As I said, in Germany, Nazis, people
- who thought where Eichmann thought, it might help him.
- They were questioned before a German judge.
- And all this was sent to us, and be
- part of the evidence, which you can see here.
- That was part of the evidence in the trial, what
- these people said.
- And we sent a delegate for the prosecution who questioned
- these people as well.
- And the judges, German judges, sent it to the Israeli judges
- here.
- So that was-- these were people that he wanted to--
- But did he know those people personally or--
- Did he know these people personally?
- Some of them, I think.
- I don't quite remember now the name of them.
- There were a number of people in the SS,
- especially about this question of superior of orders,
- and superior orders, and so on.
- Did you witness his execution?
- Pardon?
- Did you go to his execution?
- To the execution?
- In fact, I was asked by the police, by the police.
- I said I didn't--
- I met Eichmann.
- I didn't know how long it would take the President to decide
- on the question of the pardon.
- So I didn't know when it would take place.
- But I was asked by the Yugoslav government
- to question him about Yugoslav war criminals.
- So in fact, I visited Eichmann the day before his execution.
- I was told he was the only person who
- was ever sentenced to death in Israel and executed.
- We still have the death sentence for terror acts,
- for war crimes, and for treason in wartime.
- But even for the most terrible terror acts,
- no one has yet been executed.
- So when you visited him a day before his execution,
- he had no idea that he would be executed the next day.
- He had no idea and I had no idea.
- I didn't know how long it would take.
- And so I mean I don't know.
- I think the family asked for a pardon.
- And of course, we didn't talk to the president about this.
- So we didn't know how long it would take.
- But I suggested that when the moment the president
- decides, if he decides to accept the pardon, all right.
- Then that's at.
- But if not, if he refuses, then it
- should be broadcast on the radio at 11:00
- at night, and at 12:00.
- Because I was afraid that if--
- There's a long gap.
- If there's a long gap, they might take a Jewish child
- somewhere.
- Right, right.
- As [INAUDIBLE] for all this, and whether it's in Hawaii,
- or whether it's in Portugal, or whether it's in [BOTH TALKING]
- So there was no family members of Eichmann's who
- were witnesses at his execution either?
- From the family members, no.
- No, no.
- There was a priest.
- But he refused to talk to him.
- We sent a Christian priest to him,
- that if he wanted to say something to him or that.
- He said, no.
- And did they follow your instructions
- and just announce it one hour and then one hour later
- execution?
- Yeah.
- And I said at 11 o'clock at night on that day,
- I never forget I was on that day in my bathroom here.
- And I didn't know, of course.
- I didn't know.
- In this house?
- In my house, I was staying at home.
- In this house?
- Yes.
- In this house.
- Oh, in this house?
- Yes, of course.
- In this house.
- I was in my bathroom at 11 o'clock.
- And I didn't tell my wife about all this.
- We decided that if the president decides
- it should be broadcast at 11 o'clock, and at 12 o'clock.
- So at 11 o'clock on that day, I was in my bath.
- And suddenly Ruth called me.
- And she said, Gabby, they just said on the radio
- that the president had refused.
- So I realized that it would be now.
- So look, I had no doubts about the matter.
- But I did grow pale a little bit.
- You know, when you meet a person,
- practically every day for two years.
- Yeah.
- It was not such an--
- I had never been instrumental in anything like this happening.
- I hope it will never happen again.
- But that's also something that's difficult to forget.
- It was also another thing.
- I mentioned other countries, for instance, in Japan.
- In Japan, they have thousands of people,
- friends of Israel, members of the Christian,
- of the Protestants.
- And it started that a man called Father [NON-ENGLISH]..
- He was a leader of the Protestant party in Japan.
- And in the beginning of the '30s, 1930,
- he was in Manchuria.
- He didn't know any Jew, no one from Palestine either.
- And he told me later when I met him,
- he said he suddenly had at night that God appeared to him.
- And told him that in Palestine there will one day
- be a Jewish state, Israel.
- That will somehow save the world from everything.
- And he told me, I thought one of these dreams--
- that one has.
- I forgot about it.
- But then 10 nights, every night, the same thing happened.
- And God told him you have to inform
- the Japanese people about this.
- So I said, well, maybe I am chosen.
- So he told the people.
- And people laughed at him in the '30s.
- People laughed at him, and didn't want to listen to this.
- But then in '48, when the Israel state was created.
- People stopped laughing.
- So now, there is this group.
- They're called Beit Shalom.
- And they study Hebrew.
- And they put up a museum against the Holocaust,
- about the Holocaust, in the name of Anne Frank.
- You know?
- Sure, of course.
- Of course.
- Not far from Hiroshima.
- And they asked me to come there about 20 years ago.
- I was there to give lectures, to talk to them about it.
- And so I came there.
- And when I came there, they showed me.
- They had brought from a few days before I came,
- they had brought from Holland from the house of Anna Frank
- the roots of roses.
- And they had planted these in the garden of that museum.
- And they asked me to plant a tree in my name
- next to the rose of Anna Frank.
- And now a few months ago, I suddenly
- received a picture of my tree, which has grown with my name.
- And next to it Anna Frank, the roses there,
- which is rather moving.
- by this, they take every day, 200 children,
- Japanese children, to tell them about the Holocaust,
- that things like that should never happen again.
- So this was so successful they put up a larger one,
- not far from the old one.
- And they asked me about a year and a half
- ago to come there to open it, for the opening ceremony
- of this new museum.
- So I, with Ruth, we went to Japan.
- And we got there.
- And the night before the opening of the ceremony of that museum,
- they took me Kyoto, at the headquarters
- of that whole company of theirs.
- And they asked me if I would be prepared
- to speak in the auditorium before their friends
- about our relationship in the future
- with these friends of Israel and so on.
- So I thought, well we thought, 30, 40 people or so will come.
- When I got in there with Ruth, 2,000 Japanese were waiting.
- And they got up and with 300 children beautifully dressed
- in white, and black, and red, and so.
- And when we got in, all the 2,000 got up,
- and they sang in perfect Hebrew.
- No.
- And they knew [NON-ENGLISH].
- We brought peace on you, which is a very famous Hebrew song.
- And they sang that in Hebrew.
- And they didn't read it out.
- They had studied it in front.
- And they spoke.
- They sang it perfectly.
- I had tears in my eyes, I must tell you.
- You know, suddenly like that, and then they
- asked me to go up to the podium and to speak.
- And before that, they put down a screen.
- And they showed a film about my life.
- How come?
- About three weeks before that, they had called me and said,
- could you send us some pictures of your youth,
- and as the state attorney, and as a judge,
- and before the Supreme Court, and Eichmann trial, and so on?
- I said, why do you need that?
- They said, well, our young people
- they want to know who is the one who opens the museum.
- So please send us pictures.
- I sent him some pictures.
- And I forgot all about it.
- But then suddenly they'd use this in order to make a film.
- Then I thought, I mean, after all the Japanese also
- had a past.
- And suddenly they sing there, and they learn Hebrew.
- They come every year to Israel, and they
- sing Hebrew songs, Japanese songs, not so many, not 2,000,
- but 30 or 40 people or so.
- And it's a remarkable you come across things like that
- all over the place.
- And I was invited in Australia to speak there, also
- with the judges of the Supreme Court
- there, and being very, very nice.
- As I said, Sweden and Hungary, and in America.
- There, I don't know whether you heard about that.
- I mean now I got the [NON-ENGLISH]..
- It's a prize.
- But about two years ago, I was informed
- there was a man called Lemkin.
- He is the one who created the word genocide.
- Raphael Lemkin.
- Raphael Lemkin.
- Lemkin.
- Yes, so here I want to show you Raphael Lemkin.
- So they decided two years ago in America.
- To do an award.
- And from now on, every year somebody
- will get the Lemkin prize.
- Yes.
- If he had done something to prevent things
- like that happening again.
- So they gave it to me.
- And--
- So just hold it here, because of the light.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Oh, yes.
- No, I'm aware of the Raphael Lemkin award.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- Yes, yes.
- And I was the first one to get it actually.
- Aha.
- I was the first one who got it here.
- This is to get the Lemkin award.
- And then I don't know who got it the year afterwards.
- But that was in Los Angeles.
- At the Museum of Tolerance probably, September 15, 2011.
- Are you all right?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, wonderful.
- One thing, I remember the Gideon Hausner wrote in his book
- about you, that you never lose your temper.
- And no matter all through this horrible trial, and so
- many things that you always had--
- I hope so.
- Right.
- That may be so.
- And also what people say about me, the optimism.
- That's what they stressed in Germany.
- Yes.
- That when I meet also the young people in Germany, I also
- find it makes it, special impression if I tell them
- about all the positive things that I come across, and how--
- Not just-- the history.
- Yes, that people, as I say, ministers and others,
- and the way in which people react now
- is really very, very, very impressive.
- They are so good, the strawberries.
- Yes.
- It's delicious.
- But--
- This is so very delicious.
- During the Eichmann's trial, did David Ben-Gurion or Golda Meir
- ever attended the trial, or any--
- I think Golda--
- Golda, Yes.
- Ben-Gurion did not come.
- I mean he talked to--
- also people say that, for instance, why didn't you
- bring evidence, for instance, against
- the present German government.
- And then there was some rumor.
- Somebody said that it was probably
- Ben-Gurion gave instructions.
- I said, nonsense.
- People said, how do you know?
- Maybe they he told Hausner.
- I said that would be true if Hausner would have questioned
- all the witnesses.
- But here, the case was handled by the three of us.
- If there were any decision not to bring in
- or not to ask certain questions, we would have to know.
- Right.
- Bar-Or and myself, we would have to know.
- And in fact, it was never-- never mentioned.
- But for instance, when people say, you know Globke?
- Yes.
- Globke was also a Nazi.
- And he became a minister after the war.
- And that was not prevented.
- So people also came to me at the time from Russia
- or from Eastern Germany.
- And said, why don't you bring evidence
- about what's happened with Globke now, so to attack
- the German government?
- I said, if that was relevant for the Eichmann trial, yes.
- But that had nothing to do with Eichmann after the war.
- Right.
- If the German government now decides to do this,
- you may criticize it.
- OK.
- But the judges would never have received it against Eichmann.
- They would have said, what does he got to do with that?
- He was in the Argentine.
- So we could not possibly bring this evidence.
- And also I must say, to go out of our way
- when the German government was so cooperative.
- Yes.
- But certainly, if it was relevant to Eichmann,
- we would have brought it.
- But to bring something not relevant to Eichmann
- just in order to take the German government-- as I say, first
- of all, it would not have been received.
- It would not have been relevant to the trial.
- And therefore, we didn't bring it.
- But apart from that, we brought in everything
- that was relevant to the trial.
- Well, thank you so much.
- This has been absolutely fascinating to hear
- all this listen.
- I know we took so much of your time, but your stories are so--
- Actually, let me sign the book for you, if I may.
- Thank you very much indeed.
- Tell me what is it called?
- This one is called Hitlerland.
- Because it's about Americans in Germany
- in the '20s and the '30s.
- And some of the American reporters,
- the correspondents there, began referring
- to the country they were covering as Hitlerland--
- this was informally among themselves.
- Because of course, in the '30s, it was all about Hitler.
- But it tries to tell the stories of what
- was happening from their perspective,
- not in retrospect, how Americans lived there,
- what they observed, the diplomats, the journalists.
- At the time?
- At the time, at the time.
- Yeah.
- Did you, Justice Bach, have you ever
- written a book about your life?
- Pardon?
- Your own book about your own life.
- Your memoirs?
- Yes.
- There is a biography has been, in Hebrew, but it's in Hebrew.
- And the book has been published.
- And then there's another one with 800 pages, also
- that's the Supreme Court has issued,
- the people writing about me, about this.
- But the main thing is the biography.
- The biography, it was written by someone
- who also wrote a biography about Ruthie's father and--
- And was he, Ruthie's father?
- Ruthie's father, here, the one I told you.
- Oh, that--
- He was the one.
- Oh, I didn't connect this.
- He is the one who was in charge of the illegal immigration.
- And he was one of the leaders of the Haganah.
- So she wrote about it.
- And she wrote a book.
- I can show you what it looks like.
- She wrote a book about me.
- And she called it State Attorney--
- Judge and Gentleman.
- This is one thing here.
- I show you with some of the pictures.
- So that was the father-in-law.
- Yes.
- That was the father.
- I thought that was the friend.
- No, the father.
- Ruth, you met Ruth.
- I know.
- I know.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Gabriel Bach
- Interviewer
- Andrew Nagorski
- Date
-
interview:
2014
- Credit Line
- Permanent Collection. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Gift of Andrew Nagorski
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
1 digital file : MP3.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Personal Name
- Bach, Gabriel.
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Andrew Nagorski donated the interview with Gabriel Bach to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016. Nagorski recorded the interview during his research for his book "The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi."
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:40:04
- This page:
- http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn562478
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Also in Andrew Nagorski collection
Materials related to research conducted by Nagorski into topics related to the history of the Holocaust and World War II. Includes the extended draft of an article about Auschwitz written by Nagorski, 1995, and published version of same as it appeared in Newsweek, 16 January 1995, sound recordings of interviews of historical eyewitnesses, historians, and others interviewed by Nagorski during his career at Newsweek, and while writing his books “Hitlerland” and “The Nazi Hunters,” transcripts of interviews, and other related research (and other) materials.
Andrew Nagorski papers
Document
Collection consists of transcripts of interviews conducted by Nagorski, primarily in preparation for a cover story on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, written for publication in Newsweek magazine in January 1995. The collection consists of a typescript of the full version of the article; the shortened, public version as it appeared in Newsweek; and transcripts of related interviews that Nagorski conducted in the years following this article. In addition to interviews with Polish and Russian former prisoners of Auschwitz, mostly conducted in the early 1990s, the collection of transcripts also includes interviews with German president Richard von Weizsäcker; Manfred Rommel, the son of General Erwin Rommel; and Niklas Frank, the son of Hans Frank, the Nazi administrator of occupied Poland who was tried and executed by the Allies at the International Criminal Tribunal in Nuremberg.
Oral history interview with Richard Hottelet
Oral History
Oral history interview with Angus Thuermer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Richard Staar
Oral History
Oral history interview with Władysław Bartoszewski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henryk Mandelbaum
Oral History
Oral history interview with Chaya Kroin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Zygmunt Zins
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rafal Molski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Stella Madej
Oral History
Oral history interview with Adam Dobrzanski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Yisrael Gutman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Albert Grinholtz
Oral History
Albert Grinholtz, born on December 4, 1920 in Opoczno, Poland, discusses his family’s move to Paris, France in 1922 (he went with his father first and then his mother and little brother arrived later); being summoned along with his younger brother to register at the commissariat de police on May 14, 1941; being taken to the Gare d’Austerlitz and sent to Pithiviers, where he stayed for 13 months; being deported on June 25, 1942 to Auschwitz-Birkenau by cattle car, while his parents remained behind in Paris; the conditions of deportation and arrival in Birkenau; how the camp was not yet completed and the men were housed in the women’s barracks; the daily routine, brutality, and construction work brigade; being selected as one of 22 barbers to shave daily both the Germans and prisoners, about 450 men a day, and this work providing him with a bit more food; working on the construction of an Olympic pool in Birkenau, which was used for Nazi propaganda; his work cutting fuelwood for the mines nearby; the situation in January 1945 as the Germans began their retreat and the evacuation and murder of Jewish prisoners; hiding in the kitchen, unseen in the chaos, and being liberated later; being evacuated to Marseille, France on June 18, 1945; going to Budapest, Hungary and Bucharest, Romania, where he was taken care of by the Joint; and returning to Paris.
Oral history interview with Helena Wrona
Oral History
Oral history interview with Kazimierz Smolen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jerzy Tabeau
Oral History
Oral history interview with Marek Edelman
Oral History
Marek Edelman discusses his participation in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Oral history interview with Manfred Rommel
Oral History
Manfred Rommel discusses his father Erwin Rommel's plot against Hitler.
Oral history interview with Martin Walser
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jan Karski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Helena Slezynska
Oral History
Oral history interview with Deidre Berger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Peter Black
Oral History
Oral history interview with Monika Boll
Oral History
Oral history interview with Harold Burson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Allan Ryan
Oral History
Oral history interview with Piotr Cywinski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sam Donaldson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rafi Eitan
Oral History
Oral history interview with Benjamin Ferencz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Peter Heidenberger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Marvin Hier
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elizabeth Holtzman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Joseph Lelyveld
Oral History
Oral history interview with David Marwell
Oral History
Oral history interview with Martin Mendelsohn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Herman Obermayer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Krzysztof Persak
Oral History
Oral history interview with Harry Phillips
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eli Rosenbaum
Oral History
Oral history interview with Avraham Shalom
Oral History
Oral history interview with Bernhard Schlink
Oral History
Oral history interview with Efraim Zuroff
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elizabeth White
Oral History
Genocide panel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gerald Schwab
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ilona Ziok
Oral History
Oral history interview with Irmtrud Wojak
Oral History
Oral history interview with Peter Schneider
Oral History
Oral history interview with Peter Sichel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sandra Schulberg
Oral History
Sehn Institute
Oral History
Oral history interview with Thomas Will
Oral History