By Joel and Arlene Moskowitz
LA JOLLA, California–Adolph Eichmann is a name that is likely to be unfamiliar to present generations of young Jews and even more so to young gentiles. Eichmann’s End, a film about an evil man who effected the annihilation of the Jews and other peoples despised by the Nazis over six decades ago still is a compelling story. It is one of the films to be shown at the upcoming San Diego Jewish Film Festival.
Adolph Eichmann who dropped out of high school in Germany rose to among the highest ranks of those who were committed to the genocidal “Final Solution,” as the Nazis described their program to rid Germany (and the world) of all Jewry.
Eichmann took on this task with alacrity. The tragic events have been described in multiple publications. films and museums. Eichmann’s End focuses on the ‘accidental’ capture of this venal man.
Eichmann, who maintained that he was “only following orders,” had managed to elude a “deliberately” careless attempt to bring Nazis to justice. With the help of “friend he,” eventually moved to Argentina. He brought his family with him! And even had one of his four sons in Buenos Aires.
Many of his fellow collaborators had also escaped to Argentina. He was introduced to a journalist , a former Waffen-SS officer, who was half Dutch and half German, Wilhelm Sassen. During 1956, over a five-month period, Sassen video recorded interviews with Eichmann and prepared a script of almost 600 pages. These provocative and informative documents form the central theme of Eichmann’s End. The film goer will see Eichmann’s cold blooded commentary
about his unremorseful role in the killing of millions.
He was ironically undone by ‘love’ for a Jew. His eldest son, Klaus, fell for Sylvia Hermann. She was the daughter of a half-Jewish man who had fled to Argentina after a stint of incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp.
Lothar Hermann sent his suspicions about this man and his family to the judicial authorities in Frankfurt, Germany. The location of a much wanted criminal made its way through the snake like paths of governmental communications, eventually to Israel. A country then only eight years old, Israel had prudently developed masterful intelligence agencies, Mossad and Shin Bet
The subsequent ‘illegal’ capture of a citizen of Argentina and Eichmann’s chutzpadick pleas for mercy when he was found guilty by the judiciary in Israel are included in the tale of Eichmann’s End. This is a film which should be viewed not only
for the drama but as a focus for education about man’s inhumanity to man.
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The Moskowitzes are freelance writers based in La Jolla.