The House on Garibaldi Street

by Isser Harel

  Late in the evening the whole task force gathered for my last briefing. Since Tira had been chosen as the future ‘prison’ for Eichmann and his guards, I wanted as little movement as possible about the house, so we met at Ramirn. That evening I strove to impress upon the men the unique moral and historical significance of what they were doing. They were chosen by destiny, I said, to guarantee that one of the worst criminals of all time, who for years had succeeded in evading justice, would be made to stand trial in Jerusalem, the capital city of the nation which lost six million of its people to the murder apparatus he controlled. For the first time in history the Jews would judge their assassins; and for the first time the world would hear, and the young generation in Israel would hear, the full story of the edict of annihilation against an entire people. Everything depended, I explained, on the action we were about to take. It was a sad thing that in fulfilling such an exalted moral and national mission we would have to resort to force and strike an indirect blow at a friendly state. We were by no means happy about it, but for us this was a necessity and no censure could be attached to it. We deeply regretted that we were compelled to use such methods, but there was no way of serving morality and justice other than through this specific operation.

  After this introduction I told them I had implicit faith in their ability and resourcefulness and was certain of their success. And then I gave them instructions in case of mishap. First, I said, once Eichmann was in our hands we must under no circumstances whatsoever let him go or allow him to escape, even if it should entail the arrest of one individual, or a few, or even the entire team involved in the capture. If anything should go wrong, the team must hold on to Eichmann until he is put into the hands of a competent authority. If the team was caught, all must admit they are Israelis, but they must make it clear that they are acting on their own initiative and that their sole motive was to ensure that the war criminal Adolf Eichmann was brought to trial.

  I could sense that the men were all keyed up and that each was engrossed in moral stocktaking.

  At this point Ezra Eshet asked a question. ‘How long do you think we’ll have to sit in prison if we’re caught?’

  ‘A good few years,’ I replied.

  Ezra then made a request on behalf of all of them: if such a thing happened, would I please give their love to their families and take care of their wives and children. I promised immediately, of course. No further questions were asked, and there was dead silence for a few minutes. Ezra had expressed the wishes of the whole group. It was clear to me that they were determined to continue the operation, come what may.

  The rest of the group must get away by train to the interior of the country or to neighboring states. They would act similarly in case of mishap before apprehending Eichmann, or in the event he was able to escape capture by using physical force. If either of these two possibilities should occur, the men would have to find their own way out of Argentina. I presume, I said, that any hunt for us would start in Buenos Aires, at hotels and at the airport. It could quite safely be assumed that for the first few hours after the operation the trains would not be searched.

  I was sure I had no need to give these instructions, for I believed, and so did my men, that we would succeed. This was no fantasy. The men had invested their strength, their spirit, and their intelligence in planning and preparing the operation down to its last infinitesimal detail, and I knew their capability could be relied upon.

  Those last couple of days before the operation we rented a few more safe houses and apartments. Near Tira we found a spacious home that would have been suitable for housing the prisoner and his guards if not for the staff of servants which went with it.

  As Tira might be too confined to accommodate Kenet, who was to be interrogator, and all the men who would be on guard duty, I thought we had better have another house nearby for those who didn’t have to be at Tira all the time. The code name for the new house was Eleazar (one of Aaron’s sons).

  In addition to the two apartments we had in the city -Maoz and Ramim – we rented two more as emergency reserves and as substitutes for Maoz should we be compelled to remain longer than anticipated. Their code names were Moledet (Homeland) and Kohelet (Ecclesiastes).

  By the time of the operation we had seven places at our disposal. Yitzhak went to live openly at Tira on the morning of May 10. He played the role of the foreign businessman in South America who was taking a short holiday in Buenos Aires. He let it be known that he would be bringing a woman to the house who would not necessarily be his wife.

  As zero hour drew near, I instructed all the men still lodging at hotels to check out and move into our own safe houses. There were several reasons for this. First of all, their daily program was unusual enough to cause curiosity among the hotel employees. And secondly, leaving now would prevent questions about why they disappeared on the very day of Klement’s capture. I wasn’t prepared to take a chance that the hotel staff would forget the peculiar habits of the guests who disappeared at the same time as Klement.

  And so Rafi, Avrum, and Ezra stayed at Ramim the nights of May 9 and 10. The next day Zev, Ezra, and the doctor moved into Tira, and Avrum and Kenet settled themselves at Eleazar, while Ilani and Shalom Dani remained on at Maoz. Rafi was to transfer from Ramim to Tira on May 11.

  At that stage I was meeting Shimoni and Klein almost every day. One day they told me that a different parking spot would have to be found for our plane – the plan to leave it in the private Argentine airline’s maintenance area had to be dropped because when Klein went there he found the place surrounded by soldiers. When he asked what was going on, he was told that a few American U-2 spy planes had arrived. I agreed that we had to find some other place for our plane.

  Later, Klein suggested that the plane be parked at the other end of the airfield, in the area belonging to the Argentine national airline. This area, more than five hundred yards from the main airport building, had very few guards on duty at night. We even found we could approach it from the main road without having to go through the fenced-in section of the airport. After checking his information I approved the change, and Klein attended to the formalities. The usual procedure at the airfield was for planes to be towed by tractor to the apron in front of the main building prior to take-off, and once there they were handed over to their crews. But, on my instructions, Klein requested the field authorities to allow us to alter the procedure on the grounds that the tractor might damage the front wheels and that the plane could easily taxi onto the tarmac. There were no objections.

  Since Klein had proved himself to be in command of the situation, I thought Shimoni had better return to Israel immediately after the capture to personally supervise all the preparations for the flight. I asked him to send Adi Peleg to me as soon as he arrived in Tel Aviv. Shimoni had been scheduled to leave on May 10, but when the capture was postponed until May 11 Shimoni’s departure was also put off for another day. I didn’t want him to leave until the date of the capture was definite, but at the same time I wanted him to be out of the country before it was carried out, to avoid any suspicion of his having taken part in it. I told him that on the afternoon prior to his departure he should try to be seen by as many people as possible so that he would have an unshakable alibi. I arranged with Klein also that he should make a point of being in some public place that same afternoon where he couldn’t fail to be seen by all his new friends.

  It was May 10. Most of the men were already at Tira completing the preparations for a possible siege after the capture. Yitzhak, the official tenant of the house, drove to the city to buy food, household utensils, and heaters. On his way back, while still some distance from the house, he collided with another car and both vehicles were badly damaged – fortunately, both he and the other driver came out of the accident with only slight injuries. To avoid police intervention Yitzhak took all the blame on himself and asked the other man to give him an estimate of the damage to his car. Without any bargaining Yitzhak paid him the whole
amount in cash. He arrived back without the car and the supplies. Ehud and Eli drove to the scene of the accident, unloaded Yitzhak’s car, and towed it to the rental company.

  Toward evening Rafi and Avrum went out on a reconnaissance of the roads from Tira to the target area. They wanted to get to know the parallel roads so that if necessary they could dodge pursuers by passing from one road to another. They intended winding up their reconnaissance with a surveillance in the vicinity of the Klement home in order to obtain one last confirmation of the man’s habits.

  The previous day’s experience had taught them a lesson, so they took care to be in the target area ahead of time. When they arrived in San Fernando, however, they saw a crowd ahead of them and soon found out why: a scooter and car had crashed and a man had been badly injured in the collision. As Rafi and Avrum sat there, looking on, some of the bystanders opened the door of their car, carried in the injured man, and imperiously demanded to be driven to the hospital. By the time they completed their act of mercy it was too late to have any hope of seeing Klement.

  They took a pretty dim view of this. Since Saturday and Sunday were not working days, no surveillances had been maintained. On Monday they had come too late, and today, Tuesday, they missed Klement because of the accident. Could they still undertake the action after four consecutive days without surveillance?

  Disappointed and disgruntled, they came to meet me at the café where I was scheduled to be at that hour. We went over the facts again: On nine working days Klement was seen arriving home at the same time. Nothing had happened in the last two days to indicate that Klement’s habits had changed. It was only because they had arrived late that they had failed to see him.

  I was strongly against the idea of putting the operation off for one more day. The advisability of an extra surveillance to confirm that the situation was unchanged didn’t justify a postponement. I issued instructions for the capture to be put into effect as planned, on May 11. Rafi and Avrum beamed.

  Dina Ron was the last to join the task force. On Friday, May 6, Drori telephoned her at home and asked her to come to the office at four o’clock. The man who handled the operators’ traveling arrangements was with Drori when she arrived, and he was the first to speak.

  ‘So, you’re going?’

  ‘I don’t know a thing about it,’ Dina replied.

  Yael Pozner had joined them by then, and without any preamble she asked Dina, ‘Are you prepared to go overseas?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A cable has come from Isser. He wants you to leave without delay,’ Yael said.

  ‘Very well.’

  Yael looked at Dina questioningly. ‘Don’t you want to know where?’

  ‘You’ll tell me.’

  ‘What’s your guess?’

  Dina hardly paused. ‘Is it the place I came back from not long ago?’ she asked.

  ‘No. It’s South America.’

  ‘Fine,’ Dina said without hesitation. ‘And what should I say at home?’

  After some discussion it was decided that she should tell her family she was going to an international conference.

  On Sunday, May 8, Yael informed Dina that she must be in Buenos Aires on the evening of Tuesday, May 10, at the very latest. Someone would meet her in Europe with appropriate documentation and further details; he would be waiting for her in the lobby of a certain hotel and would find her with the help of the hotel staff.

  Dina was given her operational instructions in Drori’s office. She was told that the day after her arrival in Buenos Aires she would meet someone she knew at either eleven in the morning or five in the afternoon, at one of four cafés she must go to in specific sequence.

  Sunday afternoon she flew to Europe. She left her luggage at the airport and went to the travel agency whose address she had been given. She received a ticket to Santiago, Chile, on a flight which made a stop in Buenos Aires.

  She then went to her rendezvous in the hotel lobby. Preferring not to approach the hotel staff, she surveyed the people sitting in the lobby until she noticed a man who appeared to be waiting for somebody. She went up to him and asked, ‘Are you waiting for somebody from Mrs. Pozner?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ the man replied courteously as he rose from his easy chair. ‘Please sit down.’ He gave her her papers and said, ‘I don’t know your plans, but to be on the safe side I bought two tickets to the theater. Would you care to join me this evening?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Dina replied, ‘but I can’t. I must fly to Paris today.’

  Her polite escort went with her to the air terminal in the city. As they walked in, she heard her name – her new name, naturally – over the loudspeaker. The man accompanied her to the information counter and heard the clerk say, ‘The flight to Buenos Aires will leave on time, madam. There is no change in the schedule.’

  Dina blushed, but her companion, polite to the end, pretended not to have heard.

  Despite the assurances of the clerk at the information desk, the plane was an hour late in taking off. On its arrival in Spain an announcement was made that it would be another four hours late in taking off. In fact she was held up there for twenty-four hours, and the entire journey was a continuous series of delays. At the next intermediate airport there was another two-hour delay, and by the time they reached Buenos Aires they were more than a day late. Instead of arriving on the evening of May 10, Dina arrived on May 11 at night, and when she went to reserve a room at the hotel she’d been instructed to go to, she was told it was full. So she had to go to another hotel.

  17

  DURING THE morning of May 11 Zev completed Eichmann’s detention ‘cell’ at Tira and built an emergency hideout. Considering the conditions he was working under, he did wonders; all agreed that the hideout he had installed would stand up to any routine police search.

  Then came a final inspection – of equipment, materials, and provisions. A few things were missing which would be required before the operation and for the first few days after it, and some of the men went out to fill the gaps. Time was pressing, and all knew they must hurry back to the base. At the same time they were ordered to proceed with the utmost caution, since on that particular day none of them could afford to be mixed up in a road accident or even a minor traffic violation. At this stage we couldn’t do without one single person or one single vehicle – each and every one of them had been taken into account for the operation.

  Rafi, Avrurtl, Kenet, and Ezra drove to the city to return the rented cars which weren’t needed for the capture itself. The task force kept the two operational cars, and a third for general use. It was important for us not to use any vehicle that could have been seen at any time in the target area and could now be recognized. The members of the team also changed their appearance and were given new documents and papers. From now on there would be no apparent connection between the men who had been wandering around the target area, staying at hotels, making purchases at various places in the city, renting cars, and those who would be going out in the late afternoon to capture Eichmann.

  That morning I left my hotel early, before the day staff came on duty. I didn’t announce beforehand that I intended leaving. The night workers who made up my account were very sleepy when they totaled my bill and called a taxi to take me to the ‘railway station.’

  I deposited my belongings in a locker and set out, a completely free man, on a long tour of the cafés of Buenos Aires. It was a rainy day and my morning walk refreshed me. This time I directed my steps toward a distant area where I had not had any previous rendezvous, nor had the men of the task force ever had occasion to go to that quarter in spite of their many reconnaissances in its environs.

  An hour later I reached the first café on my list. Despite the early hour it was already open – which was not just good fortune. On my list of hundreds of cafés I had noted opening and closing times next to their names and addresses. A single mistake on the list could cause a great deal of confusion and lead to a lot of running around and a
great waste of time.

  New contact arrangements had gone into effect that morning. The object of these was to make things difficult for anyone who might try to shadow me or any of the men on the operational or auxiliary teams. So far, anyone who needed me could find me in one of the cafés on the list, and they could all find each other in case of need. Now I was running a dual system of communications. I still visited the various cafés in sequence, but now these were closer to each other so that more frequent meetings could take place. Whereas previously I spent only the first half of every hour in a certain café, I could now maintain almost uninterrupted contact as it took me only about five minutes to get from one café to the next.

  Also I put a contact man, Meir Lavi, on a ‘beat’ parallel to mine, covering cafés on parallel streets. I knew his itinerary and he knew mine. And the whole task force knew how both of us were moving. They were told that if everything went according to plan they could come straight to me afterward, but if something went wrong they should go to the other man. These safety measures had to be meticulously observed. Similarly, I told them that if I saw that I was being shadowed, I would try to warn the liaison man and then disappear. So if any of them came to meet me and didn’t find me they must go immediately to the contact man, who would pass on my warning and tell them where I would be after I had shaken my tail.

  The contact man didn’t have a clue about what sort of operation he was involved in. He swallowed the cover story I told him to explain why we were going to such lengths to safeguard ourselves, and it didn’t take much to make him understand that on no account was he to divulge what he was doing.

  For the concluding meeting with the operational team I chose a restaurant, so that we could talk while eating and thus save time. Rafi, Avrum, Kenet, and Ilani sat down to lunch with me. To enjoy a little privacy we put two tables together in a far corner, and to justify occupying such a large table for so long a time we ordered a first-class meal. Between courses we made final arrangements for the operation.