Dr. Elian then briefed Meir on the specific concussion symptoms that he should present.
Meir left Bar Gloria and followed Isser’s instructions. He lay there and moaned for three days in a big Buenos Aires hospital. On May 19, he was discharged. An hour later, Isser held in his hands an official hospital document issued to Meir Bar-Hon, certifying that he had been discharged after being hurt in a car accident.
So, if the plan to smuggle Eichmann out of Argentina as an El Al crew member were to fail, Isser would have him put on a stretcher and carried to the plane as Meir Bar-Hon, a patient still suffering from a serious concussion.
May 19.
That afternoon the El Al plane landed in Buenos Aires. Protocol officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, enthusiastic local Jews, and children carrying little blue-and-white flags stood on both sides of the red carpet laid by the gangway.
A couple of hours later, Isser conferred with the pilot, Zvi Tohar, and an El Al executive and fixed the takeoff time: May 20, at midnight.
Isser presented his plans. After a short discussion they agreed to go for plan A: Eichmann would be brought aboard as a crew member who had been taken ill. His double, Yehuda Carmel, had already turned over his uniform and documents in the name of Ze’ev Zichroni, an El Al navigator, to the Mossad team. Shalom Danny, the team’s master forger, doctored the documents so as to fit Eichmann perfectly. Carmel was given new documents and told that he would leave Argentina sometime soon.
That evening a beehive of activity took over “the Base.” After a week of strained waiting, the Mossad agents sprang back to life. Eichmann was drugged and fell asleep. The agents meticulously stripped the house. The various instruments and devices were all disassembled, the personal effects packed, and the house fully restored to its previous state. By the wee hours nothing remained that could even hint at the role the villa had played in the last eight days. And similar actions took place in all the other safe houses.
May 20.
Isser left his hotel for the last time, hailed a cab to the railroad station, and checked his luggage. Then he resumed his café routine of the previous days. The El Al people were the first to report to him, and together they prepared a detailed timetable.
At midday the last stage began. Isser paid his check at the final café he visited, picked up his luggage, and drove to the airport to oversee the escape operation. He walked through the terminal, looking for a place where he could best set up his command post. He wandered through the shopping and ticketing areas, and finally discovered the cafeteria for airport employees. Outside it was bitterly cold and the cafeteria teemed with clerks, ground crew, and flight personnel, who all came in for a hot drink or a light meal. Isser was delighted. This was ideal. Nobody would notice him or become aware of his hurried and hushed consultations with his men. Isser waited until a chair was vacated, and from it he now began to supervise the final moves on Argentinean soil.
“HI, EL AL!”
9:00 P.M.—In the safe house, all was ready. Eichmann was washed, shaved, dressed in an El Al uniform, and had in his pocket an ID in the name of Ze’ev Zichroni. His face was so well made up that even his own son wouldn’t have recognized him. The doctor and two agents were also in El Al uniforms. The doctor injected Eichmann with a drug that didn’t put him to sleep but only blurred his senses. He was able to hear and see and even walk, but he couldn’t speak and didn’t quite understand what was happening.
Aharoni, also wearing an El Al uniform, took the wheel of the car, and an agent sat beside him. Eichmann was put in the backseat, between the doctor and another Mossad agent. The car set out.
At the same time two other cars departed from a popular hotel in the city center. These cars carried the real El Al crew. Their trip to the airport was meticulously synchronized with the progress of the Mossad vehicles.
In his improvised command post, Isser received minute-by-minute updates. He ordered his men’s baggage to be brought to the airport. He had prepared individual escape routes for each one, but if the main plan proceeded smoothly, they would all leave Argentina on the El Al aircraft. Not far from Isser, Shalom Danny was sipping from a steaming mug of black coffee. Passersby had no idea that this customer had a lot of cheek: he had set up his forgery lab under their very eyes, and was busy doctoring the passports of the Mossad agents, putting in all the necessary stamps and inscriptions to allow for their easy departure.
11:00 P.M.—A man materialized next to Isser. All the cars, Mossad, and El Al had arrived, he reported. Isser hurried to the parking lot and checked the El Al cars. The crew members were silent. They sensed that they were participating in something extraordinary, but had no idea what it was. They listened to Isser’s instructions quietly and asked no questions. Isser peeked into the third car, where Eichmann was dozing between his escorts. “Go,” he said. “Good luck!”
The three cars moved ahead, while Isser returned to the terminal. The little convoy reached the Argentinean Airlines barrier; the Israeli aircraft was parked in their lot. “Hi, El Al!”—one of the Israelis merrily called. The guards recognized him and were, in fact, used to the Israelis going in and out of their lot all day. They cast a weary look at the passengers in the three vehicles, all dressed in El Al uniforms. In two of the cars, the passengers were singing, laughing, and loudly chatting, while those in the third car were asleep in their seats.
The barrier was raised and all three cars drove toward the plane. Their doors opened and the dozen or so uniformed men moved in a cluster toward the gangway. Eichmann trudged in their middle, largely concealed by the others. Two men held him, helped him up the stairs, and placed him by a window in first class. The doctor and the security team spread out on the seats around him and pretended to be asleep. If Argentinean immigration officers were to come and check their papers, they were to be told that these are the men who work the second shift, and need to rest before the next leg of the flight.
11:15 P.M.—Isser, back in his seat at the cafeteria, heard the characteristic rumbling of the “Whispering Giant” ’s engines. The plane taxied to the terminal and stopped at its departure gate. Isser walked swiftly to the Departure Hall and looked around. In odd corners he saw his men, standing beside their luggage. Isser walked around to them, and as he approached each of the agents, he whispered: “Get on the plane.” They moved casually and joined the line to passport control. All had their passports ready. And Shalom Danny had done a fine job with them.
11:45 P.M.—Having passed immigration and customs without any problems, the group went through the departure gate and walked toward the plane. Isser was the last to pick up his luggage, go through the checkpoints, and get on the plane, which almost immediately moved out to the runway.
0:00 hours; the night between May 20 and 21. The plane stopped. A delay was ordered by the control tower. The agents were all tense with anxiety. Had something happened? Had a last-minute tip reached the Argentinean police? Would they be ordered to turn back? But after a few minutes of terrifying anxiety, the plane was finally cleared. The “Whispering Giant” took off over the silvery waters of Rio de la Plata. Isser breathed a sigh of relief.
“I HAVE TO INFORM THE KNESSET . . .”
May 22. The plane landed at Lod Airport early in the morning.
At nine fifty A.M. Isser came directly to Jerusalem. Ben-Gurion’s secretary, Yitzhak Navon, immediately ushered him into the prime minister’s office.
Ben-Gurion was surprised. “When did you arrive?”
“Two hours ago. We got Eichmann.”
“Where is he?” the Old Man asked.
“Here, in Israel. Adolf Eichmann is in Israel, and if you agree, we’ll deliver him to the police right away.”
Ben-Gurion fell silent. He didn’t burst into tears, as some journalists later reported, nor did he laugh triumphantly, as others wrote. He didn’t hug Isser, or show any emotion.
“Are you sure that this is Eichmann?” he asked. “How did you identify him?”
Isser, surprised, answered yes. He detailed for Ben-Gurion all the criteria by which Eichmann had been identified, and stressed that the prisoner himself had admitted that he was Adolf Eichmann. But the Old Man was not entirely satisfied. Not enough, he said. Before he would authorize any further steps, he wanted one or two people who had known Eichmann to meet him and formally identify him. He needed to be one hundred percent sure, and he wouldn’t say a word about this to his government until then.
Isser called his office and ordered his staff to find some people who could identify Eichmann personally. In no time, they located two Israelis who in the past had met Eichmann. They were brought to the cell where he was being held, spoke with him, and formally identified him.
At midday, an Israeli envoy burst into a restaurant in Frankfurt and rushed to one of the tables, where a white-haired man, visibly nervous and tense, sat alone. “Herr Bauer,” he said, “Adolf Eichmann is now in our hands. Our men have captured him and brought him to Israel. At any moment we can expect a statement in the Knesset by the prime minister.”
Bauer, pale and deeply moved, got up. His hands were trembling. The man who had given the Mossad Eichmann’s address in Argentina, the man without whom Eichmann would likely have never been caught, couldn’t restrain himself anymore. He burst into tears, grasped the Israeli’s shoulder, hugged him, and kissed him.
4:00 P.M.—At the Knesset plenary session, Ben-Gurion got on the speaker’s podium. In a firm, clear voice, he read a short statement: “I have to inform the Knesset that the security services of Israel have just recently laid hands on one of the greatest of Nazi criminals, Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible with other Nazi leaders for what they called ‘the final solution,’ that is to say the extermination of six million European Jews. Eichmann is at present under arrest here in Israel. He will soon be put on trial in Israel, in accordance with the law on the crimes of the Nazis and their collaborators.”
Ben-Gurion’s words were received with shock and wonder, which turned into huge, spontaneous applause. Amazement and admiration spread through the Knesset and throughout the world. At the end of the Knesset session, a man got up from his seat, behind the government bench. Few knew his face or his name. It was Isser Harel.
The trial of Adolf Eichmann opened in Jerusalem on April 11, 1961. One hundred and ten Holocaust survivors were the witnesses for the prosecution. Some had never before spoken of their past, and now told their horrendous stories. It was as if the entire State of Israel was glued to the radio and followed with great pain and horror the dreadful story that emerged from the testimonies. And it felt as if the entire Jewish people identified with the prosecutor, Gideon Hausner, who confronted the Nazi criminal as the representative of his 6 million victims.
On December 15, 1961, Eichmann was sentenced to death. His appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court, and pardon was refused by President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. On May 31, 1962, Adolf Eichmann was informed that his end was imminent. In his cell, the condemned man wrote a few letters to his family and drank half a bottle of red Carmel wine. Toward midnight, the Reverend Hull, a Nonconformist minister, entered Eichmann’s cell, as he had on previous occasions. “Tonight I shall not discuss the Bible with you,” Eichmann said to him. “I have no time to lose.”
The minister left, but then an unexpected visitor walked into Eichmann’s cell. Rafi Eitan.
The abductor stood facing the condemned man, dressed in a prisoner’s light brown uniform. Eitan said nothing. Eichmann looked at him, and said in German: “I hope that your turn will come after mine.”
The guards led Eichmann to a tiny room that had been converted to an execution chamber. He was placed on a trapdoor and a noose was slipped over his neck. A small group of officials, journalists, and a doctor, all allowed to be present at the execution, heard his last words, spoken in the Nazi tradition: “We’ll meet again . . . I have lived, believing in God . . . I obeyed the laws of war and was loyal to my flag . . .”
Two police officers behind a screen simultaneously pressed two buttons, only one of which worked the trapdoor. Neither knew who had the controlling button, so the name of Eichmann’s executioner remains unknown. Eitan didn’t see the actual execution, but heard the thud of the trapdoor.
Eichmann’s body was incinerated in an aluminum oven in the prison courtyard. “Black smoke rose toward the sky,” wrote an American reporter. “No one said a word, but it was impossible not to recall the crematoriums at Auschwitz . . .”
Shortly before dawn on June 1, 1962, a swift boat of Israel’s coast guard passed beyond Israel’s territorial waters. The engine was turned off, and while the boat drifted silently a police officer cast Eichmann’s ashes into the Mediterranean.
The wind and the waves dispersed the remains of the man who twenty years earlier had merrily declared: “I’ll jump laughing into the grave, happy at having exterminated 6 million Jews.”
At the deathbed of his mother, Zvi Malkin thought of his massacred relatives, of his sister Fruma and her small children, perished in the Holocaust. He bent toward his mother and whispered to her: “Mother, I got Eichmann. Fruma is avenged.”
“I knew you wouldn’t forget your sister,” the dying woman whispered.
Chapter Seven
Where Is Yossele?
While Isser, his agents, and the captive Eichmann were waiting in their Buenos Aires safe houses for the arrival of the Britannia “Whispering Giant” aircraft from Tel Aviv, the ramsad was busy with another project. Isser had decided to check the rumors that another Nazi criminal was hiding in the city: Dr. Josef Mengele, “the angel of death,” the monstrous doctor who would receive the trainloads of Jews on the Auschwitz platform and indifferently send the healthy-looking ones to work and the weaker, the women, children, and old people to the gas chambers. Mengele had become a symbol of the Third Reich’s cruelty and madness. After the war he vanished, quite possibly to Argentina.
Mengele came from a rich family. While he was in hiding, they continued to support him, funneling large sums of money to him. The money trail, followed by Mossad agents, led to Buenos Aires; yet so far they had failed in their efforts to find Mengele.
But this time they were lucky. In May 1960, shortly before the Britannia landed in Buenos Aires, Isser’s agents found Mengele’s address. The man was living in Buenos Aires under his real name! Apparently, he was sure he was well protected. Isser sent his best investigator, Zvi Aharoni, to check the address, but Mengele was not at home. His neighbors told Aharoni that the Mengele couple had left for a few days, but they would soon be back. Excited, Isser summoned Rafi Eitan. “Let’s watch and follow,” he said, “and when Mengele comes back, we’ll kidnap him, too, and bring him to Israel together with Eichmann.”
Rafi refused. The Eichmann operation is very complex, he said; we captured one man and we have a good chance of succeeding in getting him on the plane and bringing him to Israel. But another operation for the capture of a second man would increase the risks tremendously. It would be a serious mistake.
Isser gave in, and Rafi made him an alternative offer: “If you bring Eichmann to Israel and keep his capture secret for a week, I’ll bring you Mengele.”
“How will you do that?” Isser asked.
“We still have a few safe houses in Buenos Aires from the Eichmann operation, which nobody knows about. Let’s keep them. When you take off with Eichmann, on your way to Israel, I’ll fly with Zvi Malkin and Avraham Shalom to one of Argentina’s neighboring countries. You’ll arrive in Israel and keep Eichmann’s capture secret; nobody will know we did it, and nobody will look for us. We’ll return to Buenos Aires then, we’ll take Mengele. We’ll keep him in one of our safe houses and after a few days we’ll bring him to Israel.”
Isser agreed. When the Britannia, with Eichmann on board, took off for Israel, Eitan, Shalom, and Malkin flew to Santiago, the capital of neighboring Chile. They intended to return to Buenos Aires after a day or two, if Eichmann’s capture was kept secret, and to launch Op
eration Mengele.
But the following morning all the world’s media announced in their headlines the capture of Eichmann in Argentina by the Israelis. It was out of the question that some of the leading Mossad agents would return to Argentina and carry out another kidnapping. Rafi and his friends had to abandon their project and return to Israel.
Later, Isser Harel told Rafi that he had asked Ben-Gurion to keep Eichmann’s capture secret for a week, but the Old Man had refused. “Too many people know already that Eichmann is in our hands,” Ben-Gurion allegedly said to Isser. “We won’t be able to keep the secret any longer. I’ve decided to inform the Knesset of his capture, this afternoon.”
Eichmann’s capture was announced—and Israel lost its chance to bring to trial one of the most sadistic criminals in history.
Shortly after the Eichmann capture, Mengele felt the ground was burning under his feet. He moved to Paraguay and vanished until his death of a heart attack almost twenty years later, in February 1979.
In early March 1962, Isser Harel was summoned by Ben-Gurion. The Old Man greeted him warmly, chatting with him for a while about various subjects. What does he want? Isser wondered. He knew Ben-Gurion well, and was sure that he hadn’t invited Isser in for small talk. The two men liked each other, and were similar. They were both short, stubborn, and decisive, born leaders of men, dedicated to Israel’s security; they both weren’t ones to waste time and words. And since Eichmann’s capture they had become much closer.
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