In the fall of 1941, Eichmann visited the site chosen for the Belzec camp in Poland. The gas chambers that would be built there could annihilate up to 15,000 people a day. Such camps lent themselves to the merciless deception at which the Nazis had become adept. The newer camps were set up far from population centers, and in some the gas chambers were flanked by flowers or shrubs and disguised as showers.
Quite simply, Eichmann saw his mission—the elimination of Jews from the face of the earth—as a priority at least equal to that of winning the war. Nothing could be allowed to impede it. Even as the war began to go badly, Eichmann opposed deals with outsiders in which Jewish lives were to be ransomed. As the Reich collapsed, he pressed for the destruction of those Jews remaining in the camps.
In early May 1945, as the Allies closed in, Eichmann led a unit into the Austrian Alps to fight on as guerrillas. But almost immediately the men received orders to lay down their arms: Germany had surrendered. Heeding the entreaties of the others, who had no wish to be captured in the presence of so notorious a figure, Eichmann agreed to move off on his own.
They watched him leave, making his way down a mountain trail, carrying a couple of days’ provisions. For years afterward, that was the last the world would know of him.
* * *
On the evening of May 3, 1960, Uzi, Meir and I departed for Argentina.
The address we’d been given turned out to be an elegant four-story apartment building in the wealthy quarter, rented by David, Operation Attila’s front man. The kind of safe house we needed—large enough to accommodate our entire contingent and suitably laid out to hide a prisoner—had proved hard to come by. Few owners were willing to lease their properties for just a month or so, as we required.
Even worse, most residences of any size included on-site employees as part of the package. Indeed, a uniformed concierge manned the lobby of the apartment we were in now, making it impossible for us to use it as a permanent hiding place.
Indeed, a uniformed concierge manned the lobby of the apartment we were in now, making it impossible for us to use it as a permanent hiding place.
The automobile situation was almost as desperate. On the trip from the airport, I had noted that most of the cars on the road were at least a decade old; many were bona-fide museum pieces. David would simply have to round up the best models he could, and then we’d rely on Meir’s magic mechanic’s hands.
Isser, who had already arrived, had left word he wanted to see Uzi and me as soon as possible at a café ten minutes away. As we drove over to meet him, I noted heavily armed soldiers and armored personnel carriers at several intersections. We were well aware that Perón sympathizers were attempting to disrupt preparations for Argentina’s upcoming 150th anniversary. The presence of armed soldiers in the streets would not make our task any easier.
Isser wanted us to look over the operational area immediately. So in a few minutes Uzi and I were back in the car, heading northeast on Route 202 toward the suburb of San Fernando, where Eichmann—Ricardo Klement—lived.
As we approached the district, rain fell steadily. Aharon eased the car off the main road, then made a sharp turn onto a side street, weaving his way around the large puddles. It was a poor area, even worse than the photos had shown. The houses were small and ramshackle.
A few minutes later we turned onto a lane parallel to Garibaldi. Aharon killed the engine and we got out, slogging our way through the mud and rain. My suit was soon plastered to my body, and my shoes began to squeak. We made it to the base of a steep hill, then crawled to the top. We were on the railroad embankment. Directly beneath us lay another set of railroad tracks. The setting unnerved me. Eichmann had always considered “collection and transport” to be his field of greatest competence.
Before us was the view we had become so familiar with in photographs: off to the left, Route 202, heavy with traffic; and directly ahead, the Klement home. We knelt on the wooden ties and rested our elbows on the cold tracks. With field glasses, I felt I could touch the house.
I checked my watch. According to the reports, Klement usually appeared between 7:20 and 8 p.m. I turned my glasses toward the highway, nudging Uzi as a brightly lit bus detached itself from the traffic and squealed to a stop. My watch read 7:35.
The bus pulled away, leaving two figures at the curb. One was a woman, the other a man in a hat and trench coat.
“That’s him!” hissed Aharon.
The two separated, the man turning onto Garibaldi Street. It was too dark to make out his features, only that he wore heavy-rimmed glasses.
But there was his walk—purposeful, measured, head erect. Instantly any doubt melted away.
Eichmann!
* * *
The following day my surveillance of the target area began in earnest and continued for nearly a week. I walked the street in front of Klement’s house; I rode the dilapidated bus on which Klement traveled to and from his job at a Buenos Aires auto plant.
The point was not only to be familiar with his neighborhood and movements, but to place myself in his shoes. I wanted to know what he would be experiencing immediately before we met.
That evening I returned to San Fernando on my own. When I arrived shortly after 6 p.m., it was already dark. I lay prone atop the railroad embankment and waited. The interior of the house was well lit, and there, playing on the living-room floor, was Klement’s little boy.
A little after 7 p.m. a motorcycle pulled up to the house, and a moment later those inside were joined by a blond man in his late teens. Probably Dieter, one of the older sons. We’d had reports that Dieter owned a motorcycle.
A little past 7:30 the No. 203 bus pulled up to the stop and Klement got off. He was dressed exactly as he’d been the evening before, and he moved toward the house with the same purposeful stride, his hands at his sides.
This last was vital. Even if he was armed, he would not have ready access to the weapon.
He could not have been better suited to our purposes; a man of absolutely rigid habits. On the crucial night, any spontaneity on his part could cause trouble.
I was further pleased to see the light in the house get brighter as soon as he stepped through the door. The same thing had happened the night before; as, I would learn, it did every night—another piece of Klement’s routine.
Now, his hat and coat off, Klement was at the boy’s side. He lifted him in the air and spun him around. Both of them were laughing. It was a universal scene and on any other occasion it would have had me smiling. They moved to the window next. The boy sat on the man’s lap, both of them gazing out.
They stayed as they were, just staring out for a long time, seeming to daydream in unison. Then, off to my right, there came a rumbling noise. Slowly, it began to grow louder. Now the man stirred and pointed. A moment later a freight train appeared, roaring by on the tracks directly below me.
All at once I was hit by an almost indescribable sense of revulsion.
The father was smiling, and his lips were moving. Finger extended, he was helping the child count.
You bastard, I thought. Still the trains!
* * *
There was a general relief when David found a new villa in a resort district an hour north of the capital. It had no heat, but was reasonably isolated; the house was surrounded by an eight-foot wall and came free of staff. Meir proposed that a bedroom adjacent to the kitchen be set up for the prisoner. It had only one tiny window and offered easy access to a veranda through which, in the event of trouble, Klement could be hidden or even spirited away.
The villa had a courtyard inside the wall, which provided an ideal spot for Meir to work on the automobiles. With only a few days remaining until the capture, he was concentrating entirely on the two that would see action that night: a gray Chrysler and a black Mercedes. Especially the Mercedes. It was the vehicle in which Attila would travel to captivity.
As the day approached, a dispute arose over the method for the actual capture. The approved plan h
ad been devised by Hans, the agent who had stalked Klement in preceding months.
His plan called for me to be out of sight on Garibaldi Street and to jump Attila on his way from the bus stop to his house, wrestling him to the ground. Meir, who was to hide nearby, would help me hold him. The rest of the team would be waiting around the corner on Route 202 in the two cars. As soon as they saw that we had secured him, they would swing around the corner, pick us up and take off. We would be exposed until then.
“But what,” I asked, “if a policeman happens by or even an ordinary pedestrian?”
“Under no circumstances will you let go of Attila,” Hans told me.
“This isn’t a plan to get Eichmann to Jerusalem,” I retorted. “It’s a plan to land Meir and me in a Buenos Aires jail.”
On the morning of May 10—D-Day was to be May 11—we gathered for a last discussion. Isser, deep in an easy chair, faced the rest of us. His eyes were bloodshot from working nonstop on his plan to get Attila out of Argentina.
It fell to Uzi to describe the opposing plans. I wanted one of the cars, the Mercedes, positioned on Garibaldi Street, hood up as if disabled, so that Attila would pass directly by it en route home. Meir was to be on the street side of the car, obscured by the raised hood, as if working on the engine, while Hans and Uzi stayed hidden within. Strolling in the opposite direction, toward Attila, I would have no apparent connection to the vehicle. When we met, after I had subdued him, Meir would help me get him into the car. The other car would turn onto Garibaldi from 202 and take the lead position to protect us in case of a blockade.
In Hans’s plan, I noted, there were too many imponderables. Aside from our being exposed to passersby, what if those waiting in the cars on 202, blinded by oncoming headlights, failed to make out what was happening? What if a cop, spotting two cars on the side of the highway, stopped to investigate?
Isser studied me intently. “What if Attila panics when he sees the car?” he asked. “What if he runs?” It was a legitimate apprehension.
“If Hans’s plan fails—that’s it, we’ll never have another shot.”
I simply didn’t think it would happen, not to a proud German officer, a creature of habit and routine. “You can’t run away from every suggestion of the unknown,” I said. “It’s impossible to live that way.”
Then I added, “There’s something else. If Hans’s plan fails—that’s it, we’ll never have another shot. With my plan, even if his suspicions are aroused by the car, we simply continue to work on the engine, slam down the hood and drive away. In all likelihood, he figures he was being paranoid, and we try again later.”
Isser pulled himself out of the chair, walked over to me and placed his hands on my shoulders, both a benediction and a warning. “All right. I agree. But, Peter, it’s on your head.”
* * *
On May 11, Meir and Uzi were up at dawn to test the cars. When they returned an hour later, Uzi was soaring. “Like we just drove them out of the showrooms!” he announced.
An hour before we were due to leave, I went to my room and lay down on the bed. I tried to think about loved ones at home, about my mother, but everything was pushed aside by a vivid, persistent image: Klement coming toward me in the dark. He was a trained soldier, a man who had survived on instinct for 15 years. The slightest mistake on my part, and he could be off. Or he could take off for no reason at all.
And, too, there remained the terrible question: Was it really Eichmann?
I went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, studying it in the mirror. What does a kidnapper look like? A moment later I pulled on a wig and combed it into place; then I added a pair of glasses. Back in my room I dressed in a blue sweater and black trousers.
I also stuffed a pair of fur-lined leather gloves in my back pocket. They would of course help with the cold, but that was not the reason I brought them. The thought of placing my bare hand over the mouth that had ordered the death of millions, of feeling the hot breath and saliva on my skin, filled me with an overwhelming sense of horror.
It was 6:45 p.m. Time to go.
We were intentionally cutting it close. The 30- to 35-minute ride to San Fernando would leave approximately a quarter-hour before the usual arrival of Attila’s bus; not long enough for a disabled car to arouse suspicion.
We drove in silence, arriving a little past 7:15. Swinging onto Garibaldi, we stopped 20 yards before the Klement house. Ahead, on the shoulder of 202, we could see the Chrysler, its headlights dark.
The street was deserted. The wind had picked up, and every minute or two there was thunder and a flash of lightning, but no rain. Out of the car, I walked back 40 paces, measuring the distance to the spot where I intended to meet him. Then I waited, buffeted by the wind, trying to stay warm. Ten minutes went by. Twenty.
I wandered back to the car. I tapped on the front window. Uzi’s head popped up. A lightning bolt flashed, illuminating his face eerily. “It’s getting late,” I asked. “What do we do?”
“Maybe we missed him.” It was Hans answering. “Maybe he came earlier.”
I shook my head. “No, he’s not here yet. You can tell by the light in the house.”
“Give him 15 more minutes,” Uzi decided.
I stayed by the car for a few minutes. Then off to the left, heading northeast from Buenos Aires, at once familiar and startling, the No. 203 bus came into view.
At that instant, a young man turned up Garibaldi on a bicycle, his overcoat whipping behind him like a cape. Spotting us, he yelled a friendly greeting in Spanish and started pedaling our way. A Good Samaritan!
Leave us alone. The words rang out within. Get away!
Smiling at his approach, Meir simply shook his head and slammed down the hood, giving it an affectionate pat for good measure. Waving, the man passed by and continued around the corner. Instantly, Meir reopened the hood. The bus was at the stop. When it pulled away, there he stood, framed in silhouette by the oncoming headlights.
As he turned onto Garibaldi, I began my leisurely stroll toward him. The lightning was flashing on all sides, the thunder booming. But still no rain. It was Judgment Day.
* * *
Burrowed within his coat, his collar upturned, hands in his pockets, leaning into the wind, Attila continued steadily toward me. We were 50 feet apart. I could hear his footfall, regular as the tick of a clock. Would he pause at the sight of the car? No—he didn’t hesitate. Twenty-five feet between us. Fifteen.
“Un momentito, señor.” The simple phrase I had been practicing for weeks.
He stopped. Behind black-rimmed glasses, his eyes met mine. He took a step backward. I leaped at him.
We fell hard to the ground and tumbled into the ditch alongside the walkway. I was on my back in a couple of inches of mud, grasping him with all my strength, one hand around his throat. He was making gurgling noises. As I struggled to my feet, hoisting him with me, I eased my hold.
Suddenly he let out a piercing scream. It was the primal cry of a cornered animal. Tightening my grip, I cut it off. “It will do you no good,” I told him as I dragged him to the car. “This is the end for you.”
Meir appeared. He lifted the feet, and I kept hold of his shoulders and head. The back door swung open, and we stuffed him inside the car.
I slid in after, still holding fast, my hand over his mouth. Meir ran around to the front seat, and Hans put the car into gear. As we lurched forward, we gagged him and covered his eyes with goggles. Then we threw a blanket over Attila, and he lay absolutely still on the floor.
Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the courtyard of the villa. David slammed the gate behind us, rushed up to the car and peered in. “You did it!”
Uzi and I led Attila to his room, trailed by Hans. Shutting the door behind us, we studied the prisoner for the first time. He stood in the center of the room, still in his overcoat, his eyes obscured by the goggles. He was utterly rigid except for his hands, which were opening and closing spasmodically.
&nbs
p; Months before, we had obtained a list of Eichmann’s identifying characteristics from the SS files. Hans, whose primary responsibility as interrogator was to make a positive identification, knew them by heart: his height and weight, head circumference and shoe size, scars, dental work, a tattoo under his left arm listing blood type.
“Wie heeissen Sie?” demanded Hans sharply.
“Ricardo Klement,” came the reply. His voice was weak and raspy.
Four times the question was asked and the answer repeated.
Changing to English, Hans snapped, “Take off his coat and shirt.” We removed his coat, shirt, tie and shoes.
Eichmann stood before us, his hands still working. At Hans’s direction, I lifted his left arm. There, where the tattoo with his blood type should have been, was a small scar. Something had been removed. But a scar on his chest was just where the records indicated.
We began silently taking measurements. All three of us buzzed around him with measuring tapes. Everything matched perfectly, except the dental information. The man before us wore dentures.
“Wie heeissen Sie?” Hans demanded again.
“Otto Heninger,” the man said now. It was an alias he’d used after the war. It meant nothing to us.
“Your SS number,” Hans spoke up, “was 45526.”
There was a pause. “No,” he corrected, “45326.”
“Good. Now.” Hans asked his question a last time. “Wie heeissen Sie?”
“Ich bin Adolf Eichmann.”
* * *
Peter Z. Malkin joined Israeli intelligence in 1950. For many years under a government order to keep silent about his work, he is now free to tell the story of his part in the capture of Adolf Eichmann. With the exceptions of Peter Malkin and Isser Harel, names of Israeli operatives have been changed for security reasons.
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