Eichmann's Executioner

by Astrid Dehe

  Nagar searches the sky. No cloud, no bird, no plane, just unequivocal blue, unmistakable as a piece of evidence. Is that it? Or perhaps the prisoner does not even mean something in the sky, perhaps he is simply indicating a direction, beyond the wall. That is where he came from, that is where his house is, there, somewhere, was his world?

  The prisoner repeats the sentence once more and then falls silent, crosses his arms back over his chest, lowers his head again, starts to walk. Tomorrow the verdict will be given.

  The Court

  The next day they take the prisoner to the capital; the procedure has long since become a routine, and as with every routine it feels like it will never come to an end. None of the guards could say how many times they have traveled this way over the last few months—fifty, sixty? The prisoner will know. Their destination is the Beit Ha’am, a new cultural center that has been temporarily converted for the trial. Rooms have been set up for the judges, the court archives, the prosecution, the defense, for those watching the proceedings, and for media representatives from all over the world. The courtroom is the hall intended for concerts and performances.

  There are screened-off walkways here, too. Nagar’s colleagues flank the prisoner, Nagar himself walks ahead. At the door to the courtroom they stop, wait for the session to begin. In the room—

  The day before yesterday, Nagar suddenly denied that he’d ever been in the Beit Ha’am with Eichmann. I’ve stopped being surprised by the fact that he’s always contradicting himself, but this was too much for me, too much for Ben. As if he wanted to retell the whole story without him in it.

  I don’t know what Eichmann said at the trial.

  What is that supposed to mean, Shalom? Of course you know. Every single word he said in court was translated.

  I wasn’t in the courtroom, Ben.

  Don’t say such nonsense, Shalom. It was you who told us how Eichmann arranged his pencils, how he stared at the defense, before he put on his headphones—

  I heard all that, Ben. I didn’t see it. My colleagues told me all about it. I was Eichmann’s guard after they’d convicted him. Afterward! They announced the verdict and then I was made his guard. I wasn’t with him in court. That was someone else who looked like me. Even Merhavi mixed us up sometimes. Yoram, he said, but he meant me, Shalom.

  You said there were twenty-two guards in Ramla, from the beginning until the end!

  There were, Ben. But they swapped out Yoram. He was—he was dismissed. I don’t know why.

  And then they took you because you looked like him?

  It was an order, Ben. What could I do?

  The television cameras of the Capital Cities Broadcasting Corporation are already running in the courtroom, hungry for pictures as they have been every day of the trial, they show the room in its entirety, pan across the ground floor, up to the gallery, where the chairs are still empty. The public waits outside; crowds of people started gathering at the gate hours ago, bringing with them a build-up of grief and hatred, and a call for retribution. The people talk, discuss, demand, laugh to lighten their souls.

  Inside the hall it is quiet, so quiet that the half-darkness seems even darker and the shapes in the room become hazy. Everything closes ranks, the place for the perpetrator, the victims, the judges. The attorney general and the defense lawyer are already there, deep in conversation next to the huge cupboard that separates the stage and the auditorium. A picture without sound; the microphones on the tables are still switched off. The camera moves, dissatisfied, until it finds what it has been looking for: a trapezoid-shaped box, built against the left-hand wall of the room, in front of a door that forms the back of the box. The remaining sides consist of wooden panels reaching up to waist height, on top of which stands a frame construction, made of white metal. Thick glass panels have been fitted into the frame on both sides, unbreakable and bulletproof. The front, which faces toward the three high chairs of the judges, is left open. There are three chairs in the box too, two plain chairs at the back against the door and one in front with armrests, pushed under a narrow shelf, which is fixed between the two side walls.

  The television camera captures the box like a still-life painting. An arrangement of objects whose minimalist imagery was perhaps intentional, perhaps coincidental, the result of practical necessity and improvisation. Someone is supposed to be made visible here, exposed to all glances and yet protected at the same time.

  A box but also a stake for the prisoner, not the center of the room but still the vanishing point. The ambiguity is reflected in the uncertainty of the name: glass box, booth, cage? The prisoner says: my glass cell, the dock.

  The doors are opened now. The gallery and ground floor fill up and a low, polyphonic murmuring penetrates the room. The men and women, victims, relatives of victims, journalists, politicians, writers are restless, exhausted by the tension, preoccupied with themselves, their stories, their dead, with everything in this room that they want to hear, see, understand.

  And, as always, they miss the moment when the door to the glass box opens and the accused is brought in. They do not see him until he is already sitting down, motionless as ever, his forearms resting on the narrow shelf that acts as his table, a writing case beside him, pencils in front of him, arranged as neatly as his tie. A man of medium height, mid-fifties, thick glasses, receding hairline. A clerk type, whose ability to appear unnoticed never fails to amaze. It is as if he circumvents time, as if one could stare at the box with the utmost concentration and still miss the transition from empty glass box to the box in which the accused sits. But perhaps the guards also use the protection of the murmuring, the unrest, the distraction, to bring him into the room. His arrival should not be an entrance. This is not a show.

  Three syllables are heard in a rising melody, as if a horn is being blown. The usher has announced the start of the session. The words are not comprehensible, although according to the journalists he cried Beit Mishpat—house of justice. The three judges enter the room, everyone rises, and with all eyes on him the accused, too, rises, lively and lithe.

  Nagar wasn’t with Eichmann in the courtroom, he insists on that. The man the cameras show beside the glass box is someone else, someone who looked like him, with the same build, the same astonished gaze, wearing the same odd mustache. Yoram, the man they dismissed. The Nagar in the courtroom wasn’t Nagar. Yesterday he went a step further: Eichmann wasn’t Eichmann, either.

  Let me tell you a story. Us guards worked double shifts. Twenty-four hours on duty and then we had forty-eight hours off. My shift always started in the evening. Merhavi had set it up that way. First the night with Eichmann and then the day with Eichmann. Handing over to the colleagues on the next shift, reporting to the director. When that was done, I packed my things and went to the bus station. I always waited there by myself, no one else ever took the bus at that time of day. But on this evening—

  Which evening?

  The one I’m telling you about.

  Which one are you telling us about?

  You’ll hear soon enough, Ben. On the evening in question, someone’s waiting, and turns around as I approach. He was wearing a large coat, a hat with a broad rim and a pair of dark glasses, sunglasses, even though it was getting dark already.

  This sounds like a film, Shalom.

  Hush! It happened just the way I’m telling you. I was tired, you see, I wanted to get home. And then there’s this guy standing there with sunglasses on, although it was getting dark. His hands were hidden in his coat pockets. It was spooky. I wanted to turn around and go back to the prison at first. But I was wearing my uniform. You never run away when you are in uniform. You know that, Ben. So I stay where I am—then he says something to me. Don’t you recognize me, Salaam? he asks. He spoke Yemeni! And he knew my name. I take a closer look, then I recognize him: an old friend from Sanaa. When I came here, to Israel, we lived together for a while. We hug each other, start talking about all sorts of things, he tells me that he’s working as a jour
nalist, I tell him I’m a policeman now. I know that, Salaam, he says. I know you’re guarding Eichmann. I was waiting for you, I need to talk to you. It’s important, Salaam, he says.

  But Merhavi had forbidden us guards to talk to anyone about our work. We couldn’t even tell our wives anything. Ora had no idea that I was guarding Eichmann, until—until the day. But my old friend knew. I said: Look, I can’t talk to anyone about it. All right, Salaam, he said. I can understand that. I’ll do the talking.

  I didn’t want to listen. I stared down the road to see if there were any car lights coming our way. Nothing. The bus didn’t come either. What could I do? My friend spoke and I listened.

  It’s all a huge fraud, Salaam, he said. What are you talking about, I asked, and he said: The trial. The trial is one big fraud. The man in the glass box isn’t Eichmann. He’s just pretending to be Eichmann. It’s all a farce, a play for the TV cameras, he said.

  A madman. What are you telling us, Shalom?

  Wait and hear, Ben. The man in the glass box isn’t Adolf Eichmann, he said. The real Eichmann works for the Israeli secret service. They need him here. He’s the best there is. Did you know that he was a news specialist for the Nazis before he organized the transports, Salaam? Gestapo, do you know what that means? Secret state police, he says. Mossad, do you see? And as no one is allowed to know—

  Know what?

  That Eichmann is working for our secret service!

  Rubbish!

  That’s what you say, Ben. He said the whole thing is complicated. He can’t tell me details, but he has got proof. Eichmann works for Mossad, at the highest level. And because no one must ever know, they’ve decided—

  Who?

  I don’t know. All he said was: They’ve decided to let Eichmann die. For appearances’ sake, of course. So they make up a fantastic story: Adolf Eichmann kidnapped in Argentina. Brought to Israel. Questioned, put on trial, sentenced. The Nazi pays for his crimes! But in fact it’s the other way around, Salaam, they are paying him. They give him money, a lot of money, to teach them everything he knows. He’s their master. No one must ever know. That’s what the trial is for. A farce. The script was written by a famous American author. And you are guarding the leading man, Salaam, he said. You and your colleagues, you are guarding an actor. While the real Eichmann watches behind the lines. He’s probably laughing because the man playing the prosecutor is such a ham, but maybe he’s annoyed, too, because they’ve chosen such a slow, untalented guy to defend him.

  Day after day you’ve been sitting in a cell with an actor, Salaam, he said. You taste the food for an actor to eat. You go to the toilet with an actor, you take an actor up onto the prison roof. Do you think the real Eichmann would grovel like that? Do you think he’d let himself be kidnapped just like that?

  Mad. Mad, Shalom!

  He can prove that Eichmann disappeared after the war, he said, with cases full of gold. They hunted him in the Alps, but he was in Argentina all along. He built himself a white villa in a park that was patrolled by guards with German Shepherd dogs day and night. He was friends with President Perón, walked in and out of the Government Palace whenever he liked. He received visitors from all over the world. Everyone came to seek his advice, Salaam, he said.

  Mossad was watching Eichmann even then, of course. They were informed of his movements. And at some stage they decided that he shouldn’t be working for Perón anymore, he should be working for them. They broke into his home, lay in wait for him, and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Since then, he has been living in Israel with his wife and his sons. But no one knows that he is Eichmann. They have given him a new name and a new identity. You actually know him, Salaam, he said. But it is too dangerous to let you know who he is.

  I didn’t know what I was supposed to think. My friend talked at me, quickly and excitedly, and smoked one cigarette after another. My head felt clouded in fog. I couldn’t think straight anymore.

  I can see you don’t believe a word I’ve said, Salaam, he said. I can understand that very well. I can prove everything I’ve said, but there is no time, I’ve got to be careful. Listen: The real Eichmann fractured his right hand in a motorcycle accident. He had to have several operations, it took months before he could use it again. During that time, he taught himself to write with his left hand. Later on, he went back to writing with his right hand, but then he fell down the stairs at his office and broke his right hand again. Since then he has always written with his left hand. And now, think, Salaam, which hand does the man you guard write with? I didn’t have to think: He uses his right hand, I said. There you go, Salaam, my friend said. They didn’t think of that. And they’ve made more mistakes. For the final proof, I just need to talk to the man you are guarding. A thousand dollars if you can find a way to smuggle me into his cell. Think about it, Salaam. I’ll be waiting here for you at the end of your next shift.

  And then?

  He didn’t turn up, Ben. I never heard from him again.

  But you didn’t believe him?

  What was I supposed to believe? Everyone said: That is Eichmann.

  The Verdict

  The accused is charged with crimes against humanity, crimes against the people of the victims, and war crimes. The charges include fifteen counts and the verdict is given over a period of fifteen hours, during which the three judges take turns to read. From the tangle of facts and puzzles, explanations and ambiguities, confirmations and doubts that are laid out on the table after more than one hundred days of trial, they have created a noose. A noose that bears the burden of the victims and of the law, a noose that will be used to hang the accused.

  Barely a soul in the room doubts what the outcome will be, barely a soul follows every part of the argument. The accused may be the only one who never loses the thread. He listens intently, hardly moving. Only the left corner of his mouth, a tic that is already well known. Occasionally he sits up straight, reaches suddenly for one of the pencils lying in front of him, scribbles a word or two on his notepad, leans back again, bends forward, puts down the pencil, straightens it in line with the others.

  Nagar, who is sitting by the half-open side of the glass box, watches the accused in the same way as he watches him in his cell. He is the only one in the room close enough to reach out and touch him. No need. He can feel this man already, against his will.

  The onlookers, prosecutors, and judges put the shifts between stillness and sudden movement in the glass box down to a nervousness that the accused is struggling to control, a desire to flee, triggered by growing fear—Nagar senses a kind of rhythm, a beating pulse that grows stronger with every twitch, every sudden movement forward, every pencil-grabbing motion. Stronger and louder. A sound pattern is created in Nagar’s head, interfering with the voices of the judges—the rattling of trains on the track. The accused, Nagar thinks, is following the judgment like a timetable; he notes the sections of the argument like passing stations, recognizes the movement of the points, the sidings where the account occasionally pauses before returning to the main track and pressing on, unstoppable.

  The man cannot escape who he is. He remains the specialist whom he has declared himself to be, the master of transport, even though it was not he who ordered this particular journey, who named the destination, and this time it is his own fate hanging in the balance.

  For better or worse he has chained himself to the trains. Since the days of the cross-examinations, those carriages filled with victims that shipped thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people to their deaths according to schedule have become his symbol.

  In the Reich, which fell sixteen years earlier, the accused was head of the subdepartment known as IV B 4. Responsible for matters relating to victims and eviction. Eviction, but also resettling, evacuation, and transportation, which saw communities ripped apart, divided into victims and perpetrators. The victims, it was decided, must be eliminated from the German people, a sanitary procedure, which the accused describes as a political so
lution. Division of space in order to ensure that the borders of the state were the same as those of the people. First the victims were ordered to leave the country, then they were transported away. Transport means bringing people or goods from A to B using an appropriate vehicle. The appropriate vehicle for carrying the victims to the specified destinations was the train. The transports were organized and overseen by the accused. Under the growing shadow of war, the political veil finally slipped.

  What had begun as a division of space eclipsed into a division of being, the final, irreversible division. The Reich transported its victims to their deaths, orders were given for their physical extermination. Gas chambers were erected at the destination stations, beside them crematoria. The transports were organized and overseen by the accused.

  The accused—

  They keep interrupting me. I write as if they are watching me all the time; I write as if I have to justify myself. To Nagar, because I’m still saying victims, still won’t say Eichmann, keep on saying Nagar, saying Nagar was in the courtroom, although, in fact, it was someone else, someone who looks like him. And to Ben, because I’ve lost my real purpose and have started writing a report, instead of telling Nagar and Eichmann’s story.

  Why are you giving us a history lesson, Moshe? Eichmann, the Nazis, what they were, what they did? I don’t want to know about that. It’s got nothing to do with Shalom.

  Moshe’s got us mixed up, Ben. It’s a different Nagar sitting there in court beside the glass box, being made to listen.

  You don’t understand, Shalom. I mean—

  I know Shalom doesn’t understand. But me, I do understand, Ben. I know what you mean, I know why you’re asking. I am writing about Nagar and Eichmann. I’m taking Nagar’s lead, I follow him, I see Eichmann with him, see Eichmann over his shoulder, see Eichmann in a way I could never see him in court. Eichmann has come into his own; he acts how he acts because he did what he did. This isn’t a history lesson, Ben. It’s a step back in order to see the bigger picture. To see the order of things and the disorder that is part of it all, just as Nagar is a part.