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11.04.2021

The Eichmann trial 60 years later: no escape for perpetrators of genocide

 
 
Adolf Eichmann during the trial in Israel in 1961, image: Israel Government Press Office, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Adolf Eichmann during the trial in Israel in 1961, image: Israel Government Press Office, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

 

On the 60th anniversary of the start of the trial against Adolf Eichmann, a key designer in the genocide of the Jews of Europe, Christoph Heubner, the Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee said in Berlin:



"The 11th April 1961 is of great significance to Auschwitz survivors and all survivors of the Holocaust throughout the world. This date marks the beginning of the trial in Jerusalem against Adolf Eichmann, a key designer in the systematic murder of the Jews of Europe. Eichmann, who organized the million-fold murder of Jewish families, had been captured by the Israeli secret service in Argentina and brought to trial for his crimes before a criminal court in Jerusalem. This trial gave an incredibly important signal to the survivors that no hiding place in world could guarantee safety for Nazi murderers. The survivors saw Eichmann standing in the dock before an official court, and they were able to bear witness, in this court and before the eyes of the world, to the crimes that were committed in the German concentration and extermination camps.

To this day the survivors are also aware that, long before the trial in Jerusalem, state authorities in Germany knew about the places to where Eichmann and other Nazi perpetrators had made their escape. There was no interest at all in having him extradited to Germany and brought to trial there. For this reason the survivors are, to this day, especially grateful for this trial in Jerusalem. For them it is still an indelible reminder that now and in the future there can never be any escape for perpetrators of genocide, and that particularly in Germany the legal processes accompanying the Nazi crimes still need diligent and ongoing critical scrutiny."