by Isser Harel
Eichmann awoke out of his semisleep several minutes before takeoff, after the engines had already been started. His first question was whether it was a four-engine plane. From his tone it was obvious that the question wasn’t so much technical as it was motivated by plain concern for his own safety – he wanted to make sure he was being taken to Israel in an aircraft capable of making such a long journey. I couldn’t help thinking of the millions he had arranged to transport in packed, airtight cattle cars, without food, drink, or sanitary facilities.
Immediately after take-off the doctor examined him again and found his condition satisfactory in every way; he would certainly be able to take the long flight without any special treatment. He recovered quickly from the drug, and as soon as he felt better he asked for a cigarette. His opaque goggles, which had been replaced as soon as the drug wore off, prevented him from seeing the people around him, but he was alive to what was happening on the plane. He listened to the regular throb of the engines and remarked, ‘It’s a very smooth flight. You’ve got good pilots.’ He was, to be sure, a seasoned traveler: during the war he had covered the length and breadth of Europe – by train, car, and plane – directing his vast manhunt.
The copilot, Vedeles, came to shake hands with me and congratulated me on the operation. He asked, ‘What about Martin Borman and Josef Mengele?’ I told him that had it been possible to start the operation several weeks earlier Mengele might also have been on the plane.
Adi Peleg came to ask permission to tell the crew who the stranger was. I told him it would be better to wait until we were farther away from Argentina’s shores, but he was persistent. He appealed to me again and again, until I couldn’t resist him any longer. He gathered the crew and said, ‘You have been accorded a great privilege. You are taking part in an operation of supreme national importance to the Jewish people. The man with us on the plane is Adolf Eichmann’
His words created a buzz of excitement. Most of the crew didn’t need explanations about the part Eichmann had played in the annihilation of European Jewry; some of them had experienced personally the horror of the years when this man was in command of the ‘Final Solution’.
Arye Fridman was busy in the cockpit when Adi made the announcement about the passenger. Back in the cabin, he noticed the excitement of the other crew members and gathered immediately that this was connected in some way with the air of mystery that had surrounded the flight.
Then he saw Adi and, with sudden urgency, as if he just couldn’t wait a second longer, asked, ‘Adi, who’s that man in dark glasses?’
Adi looked at him for a moment and said, ‘What, don’t you know? That’s Eichmann!’
The next few minutes are still a little confused in Arye’s memory. Suddenly he was running to the forward galley, and there he stood and sobbed his heart out. Adi stayed with him, talking to him, but Arye didn’t hear a word. His sobs seemed to take on an existence of their own, no longer subject to his will or his natural sense of shame. He wept for a long time.
Afterward he turned to go into the first-class section, but they stopped him and said he wasn’t allowed any closer to Eichmann. Later he would be given permission, when he had calmed down a little, but now, in his present agitated state, definitely not.
Arye regained control of himself. The tears had dried on his cheeks, and he was finally permitted to go up close to Eichmann. When Arye saw the man sitting next to Eichmann offer him a cigarette, his self-control broke for an instant and he said, ‘You give him cigarettes! He gave us gas!’
Eichmann turned around when he heard the voice, but the goggles prevented him from seeing who had spoken. Arye felt he was disturbing the men guarding the prisoner so he went away.
Later he came back and sat down. Right opposite Eichmann he sat, his eyes glued to the murderer’s face. But Arye wasn’t seeing Eichmann. He was seeing a completely different sight. He was seeing his little brother Zadok dragged along by a German soldier. He was so little, Zadok, all of six years old. A six-year-old was a sure candidate for death those days, because he belonged to an inferior stock, because he couldn’t be of use in one of the factories producing arms and equipment for the German army. A Jewish boy of six had no prospects: he was too little to live but big enough to die.
Arye was bigger, so he lived. He was big enough to fool the Germans into thinking he was a man. So Zadok was now a heap of ash and he, Arye, was head mechanic for a big airline, the man who got ready the plane that was bringing Eichmann to the State of Israel.
It was purely by chance that he was sitting here while Zadok and his mother and the rest of his brothers were gone. It wasn’t even a miracle. Just blind chance, an oversight on the part of the angel of death.
How many times had he cheated death? At least ten. The first time was in the days of the great pillage, when Germans of the Volksdeutsche came looking for the treasures of the Jews and he was alone in the house. He was eleven then, and he knew that his uncle kept some of his merchandise in the attic, but he made up his mind not to talk. He would die but he wouldn’t talk. And a German flung him to the ground and pinned him down under his great weight and held a dagger to his throat. He screamed then, and cried, and begged, but he didn’t talk. Then he lost consciousness and the German threw him down the stairs. And he remained alive.
Then there were two German ‘actions’ at Belzice, Arye’s home town in Poland. Twice the Germans came at dawn, in a tumult of cries and shots, and dragged men, women, and children out of their houses, the first time to take them outside the town and mow them down with bullets, and the second time to transport them to the death camp at Treblinka. He and his family had the two hideouts his father and grandfather had constructed, one in the cellar and the other behind a false wall in one of the rooms. And he remained alive.
The Germans established a ghetto in the town, in the section close to the synagogue, and there they also brought Jews they had collected from elsewhere. Inside the ghetto they carried out the third ‘action’. After the whole family had gone into the hideout, the little brother was missing. Arye ran to get him to the cellar but didn’t manage to get inside himself; he ran out of the town and hid in a tobacco field for half the day. As he left the field, one of the local inhabitants caught him, saw he was a Jew, and handed him over.
At the railway station he saw some of his relatives and joined them. The Jews were standing in a long line in the front of the station, a line about a quarter of a mile long. At the head of the line someone was screaming – there where the first ones were being loaded onto the train – screaming that there was chlorine in the carriages. Not many Germans were about, and most of the guards were local police, some on horseback. At a certain moment their terror subsided and the Jews in the death line started running, escaping, scattering in all directions. Arye ran with a cousin of his to a nearby wheat field. The whole day they ran and hid, ran and hid. In the evening they came to a village where they knew some of the farmers. They stood on the outskirts for a long time, hesitating. Eventually they smothered their fears and went to one of the farmers to ask for bread and milk. He threw them a piece of coarse bread and told them to get out immediately, he wasn’t looking for trouble.
Where to now? They decided to go back to the town, first to the synagogue to see if anybody was still there. Yes, a few Jews had come out of their hiding places as night fell. Germans were patrolling the streets with their local henchmen, announcing through loudspeakers that the Jews had nothing to fear, the ‘action’ was over and they could come out now. It wasn’t until very late at night that Arye and his cousin dared steal into the family hideout.
But how long could they stay? There was reason to fear that the Poles would hand over the Jews still hidden in the town, and Arye’s father decided it was time they got away. He led the family on a night journey, with several other relatives, to the home of a Polish farmer in one of the villages, a man to whom he had previously entrusted furniture and other articles of value. The farmer was panic-strick
en, but his wife wouldn’t let him send them away. The ten Jews dug a hiding place in the straw of the barn and covered it over with dung. For several weeks they stayed, until winter came. The farmer told them that people were beginning to get suspicious because of the large quantities of bread he was buying, and he demanded that they leave his farm. At night they dug a new hole under the threshing shed, and at dawn left their first hiding place. But instead of going into the camouflaged hole, they hid in the snow nearby. Soon a large group of farmers came with pitchforks and scythes, stabbing and punching at the hay strewn above their hideout, and then set the threshing shed on fire. Arye and his family had cheated death once again.
From then all they could do was roam the fields and forests and steal food to keep alive. When they heard that there was still a ghetto in their town they put all their effort into getting back inside it. But the ghetto was a trap. One morning at dawn the Germans surrounded it. They collected all the old women and children in one party, and the young women in another. Arye wanted to remain with the men, but he was too small and they pushed him out of the group. He hid in a public toilet and then came out again. This time he stood on a large stone in the middle of the men, and the Germans were fooled and let him be. Fifty men were led away and the rest herded into the synagogue. In the evening shots were heard, then bloodcurdling screams. The fifty men came back very late and told them they had been forced to dig a mass grave for the women and children.
The next morning the men were marched to a work camp in the vicinity, some of them pushing carts with tools in them. As he was walking along with the rest of the prisoners, Arye saw his little brother Zadok sitting in a cart. The boy told him that while the big slaughter was going on he hid behind a pile of stones, and afterward, when he saw them taking the Jews out of the town, he joined the marchers. Arye took his hand and held on tight. On the way they found their father, who was also one of the marchers. When they reached the camp, commanded by a man named Feiges, a muster was called and all the children and old men were taken out of the line Zadok hid in the camp lavatory, but the Germans found him, and Arye and his father saw a German dragging little Zadok into the group sentenced to death. They were led outside the camp to be executed, all the old people and the children, and a Jewish work party was sent to bury them.
The rest were pushed into huts. Later they were sent out to work in different factories. Arye worked at a plant manufacturing airplane parts. He saw his father at night, when the two surviving members of the family lay on a straw pallet and were glad that at least they were together. An uncle of Arye’s was in the same camp, but he was shot down in an escape attempt. And then there was the time when several prisoners were caught stealing food, and the camp commander Feiges gouged out their eyes with a wooden peg while all the Jews in the camp had to stand and watch.
If Feiges thought that his brutal act would be a deterrent to the rest of the prisoners, he soon found out his mistake. A few days later several youngsters broke into the SS guardroom, took all the arms, and ran away. The guards went on a rampage, beating and killing the other prisoners. The dreaded parade was called and Arye was one of those sentenced to die. All that night, and until the following afternoon, Arye and the other condemned men lay outside on the ground, waiting for death. Then the guards appeared and announced that they would kill every alternate man. A new muster was formed and Arye was reprieved once more. The Germans repeated the process the next day, and again Arye was spared. About a hundred were ultimately shot.
A year and a half passed, and all the prisoners were transferred to Maidanek, where Arye worked as a mechanic in the SS garage. Maidanek was one of the places where they brought Jews from other countries to be liquidated. Russian prisoners were also there, in an adjoining camp. As the approach of the Russian army became imminent, all the Russian prisoners were killed, and several hundred Jews whose names appeared on a list prepared in advance were shot. The rest were evacuated by train or on foot to Auschwitz. Many died on the cruel march and many were sentenced to death during the selection on their arrival at the camp. Arye was sent with the condemned, but at the last minute a man came along looking for workmen, and when he saw Arye he said a young fellow like that could still be useful to them. He took him out of the line of walking dead and sent him to have a shower and get a striped uniform. That was when they tattooed the number on his arm, the number he bears to this day: 18466. Then he was transported with the other workmen to Gleiwitz, where they were given soup and bread. And Arye was given something else, a present from heaven – his father, whom the luck of the draw had also brought there.
When the Russians crossed the Visla, and Gleiwitz was under bombardment from the air, the camp was evacuated; the prisoners were marched to another camp in Upper Silesia. They hadn’t been there half a day when the Gleiwitz camp commander arrived to take back some of ‘his’ prisoners. Most of them were pleased and went with him – to continue their sufferings. Arye and his father stayed where they were. As the Russians drew nearer, the Germans manning the watchtowers began firing incendiary bullets into the wooden huts. Many of the occupants burned to death. Arye and his father found shelter in an abandoned warehouse made of concrete and didn’t burn.
Several days later they learned that the Germans had deserted the camp, so they set off toward the forest, where they ran into a Russian patrol and were told to keep going in the same direction. A few miles farther on they met more Russians, among them an officer who addressed them in Yiddish. Then Arye and his father knew they had defeated death.
Arye sat opposite Eichmann and relived the years of blood and bereavement. He didn’t speak. He just remembered, and the remembering squeezed mute tears from his eyes.
No one bothered him. All understood they must leave him alone. A long while later he got up, wiped away the tears, and stood for a minute next to the murderer, his eyes shining. The people watching even thought they saw a bewildered little smile playing on his lips.
At last he walked out of the first-class compartment. And from that moment on he displayed no further interest in Eichmann.
I put off my visit to the first-class section until the crew’s interest in Eichmann had subsided a little. One reason for this was the atmosphere of tranquillity in the empty tourist cabin during those first few hours. The second reason was my desire to avoid attracting the attention of the men who didn’t know what I was doing there.
When I finally went forward, I saw Eichmann sitting upright, evidently wide awake, in the seat next to the window. He couldn’t see me, of course, but he could feel someone looking at him and twisted uncomfortably in his seat.
The doctor told me that Eichmann was very well indeed and had completely recovered from the drug. He was still cooperating with his guards, the doctor said, and presumably he would continue to do so throughout the flight. We decided that if there was no change in his behavior we wouldn’t drug him again. We arranged with the plane’s officers that the crew wouldn’t leave the aircraft when we landed at Dakar, but that if the authorities insisted that the plane be empty during refueling- a standard requirement-the doctor would tell them that on no account must the sick member of the crew be moved, that he and two others would stay to look after him.
I told Eichmann’s guards not to put too much trust in his good behavior. They must keep constant watch that he did not get hold of anything he could use for a suicide attempt. The men guarding Eichmann during the flight were Ezra Eshet, Zev Keren, Yoel Goren, Uri Haran, and Yehuda Carmel. Eichmann’s food was prepared according to the doctor’s specifications, so that he could be drugged if necessary without injuring his health.
During the first part of the journey Vedeles also helped to attend to Eichmann. To set a good example for the rest of the crew he was ready to help with even the less pleasant tasks. He never ceased marveling at Eichmann’s healthy appetite. Vedeles himself couldn’t eat a thing from the moment Eichmann was brought on board.
I talked with my own men only when no
ne of the crew were around. Otherwise I pretended not to know them.
It was, on the whole, an easy flight for the passengers, but the crew had their work cut out for them. In order to reduce fuel consumption they tried to fly at the highest possible altitude. Many times they had to dodge the clouds floating in the tropical skies at the most convenient flight altitude. There was a stage when they were very gloomy about the fuel supply and were considering the possibility of landing at Freetown, Sierra Leone, instead of Dakar. The idea didn’t appeal to us very much, from the perspective of security. I preferred Senegal to Sierra Leone. Apart from that, we couldn’t fly from Freetown to Lydda without another intermediate landing. In fact, even the direct flight from Dakar to Tel Aviv involved serious problems, but we hoped to be able to overcome them. In the end, after a precise computation of all the data, the pilots decided to continue on to Dakar, and we arrived safely after a flight lasting thirteen hours and six minutes.
We continued to be apprehensive as we touched down, though for a different reason. We didn’t know what sort of reception awaited us. For all we knew, there may have been a last-minute alarm at Buenos Aires, and perhaps a warning had already been cabled to Dakar to check the identity of all the passengers. True, we were confident of our ability to pass inspection – our precautions in this regard were very thorough – but another ordeal at the end of a tough operation was hardly a happy prospect.
But our fears proved to be groundless. Our reception at the airport was perfectly routine. Wherever we went the personnel were friendly, and our request that the passengers be allowed to remain on the plane during refueling was granted without hesitation.