This is a photograph of Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. Eichmann is seen seated in an armoured glass booth specially built to protect him from any assassination attempt. He is wearing earphones through which he heard the translation of the testimonies. His is frowning and does not seem to be at ease. This photograph is one of the most famous photographs in Israel’s history and has been engraved in the public consciousness.
Adolph Eichmann was a senior SS commander and one of the main architects of the Holocaust. He was captured in 1961 by the Mossad and brought to trial in Jerusalem where he was sentenced to death by hanging.
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The Eichmann Trial – With the end of World War II, the world leaders attempted to bring the Nazi war criminals to trial. Adolph Eichmann had been a senior leader of the SS and one of the major architects of the Holocaust. He managed to avoid capture for many years and fled to Argentina. In a secret mission, the Mossad captured Eichmann in 1961, and the public trial subsequently opened in Jerusalem. The trial aroused considerable interest both in Israel and around the world and was broadcast live on television and radio. It was also one of the first opportunities for many to hear first-hand testimonies about the Holocaust and for survivors to finally share their terrible experiences. After nine months of lengthy hearings, the verdict was finally announced: Eichmann’s claim that he was merely following orders was rejected, and he was sentenced to death. On May 28, 1962 Eichmann was executed by hanging. This is the only case of execution in the history of the State of Israel. Eichmann’s body was burned, and his ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea, outside of Israel's territorial waters.
Holocaust – The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide and persecution of European Jewry by the German Nazi regime and its collaborators in Europe and North Africa during World War II. The Holocaust was implemented in stages from Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party’s first rise to power. From 1933 anti-Jewish laws were passed in Germany which excluded the Jews from German society. The Nazis also began to create a network of concentration camps where Jews and other “undesirable elements” of society were imprisoned in inhumane conditions. With the Nazi occupation of Europe during World War II, which started in 1939, the formal persecution of Jews was implemented in all the occupied countries. Jews were sent to ghettos, made to work in forced labour, and lived in appalling conditions. In 1942 the Nazis held the Wannsee Conference where they decided on the Final Solution which detailed the extermination all the Jews of Europe. Initially, more than one million Jews were exterminated by death squads named Einsatzgruppen, who were assisted by local collaborators. As of 1942 Jews were deported from the ghettos to death camps in Poland, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, where millions were murdered in gas chambers on arrival. Jews who were not immediately murdered were sent to force labour, and many died as a result of the harsh conditions, starvation, and disease. Jewish resistance was extremely difficult, but attempts to fight the Nazis were made by Jewish partisans and fighters in uprisings such as, most famously, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Sobibor Uprising. In 1944, as it became clear that the Nazis were losing the war, Nazi camp commanders began to close the camps and forced the survivors to march towards Germany. Already sick and weak from the years of violence, more than 250,000 Jews died on these death marches. The Holocaust came to an end with the defeat of the Nazis in May 1945. Six million Jews, two thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, were murdered with millions more experiencing tremendous suffering, violence, and loss. In addition to the Jews, millions of Roma (gypsies), homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, disabled people, and Soviet and Polish prisoners of war were also murdered during the Holocaust.
Yom HaShoah – Yom HaShoah (יום השואה), known in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, is Israel’s national day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust and the Jewish resistance during that period. Yom HaShoah is commemorated by a siren and memorial ceremonies throughout the country. The first official commemorations took place in 1951, and the observance of the day was anchored in a law passed by the Knesset in 1959. Yom HaShoah takes place on 27 Nisan, marking the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The idea of Holocaust Remembrance Day sparked a debate on how to commemorate such a tragic event – even the suitable date was deliberated. Some wanted to emphasise the rebellions and armed resistance and therefore saw fit to set this day on the day that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out; others sought to emphasise the disaster and destruction of the Jewish people and wanted to add the day to one of the days of national mourning, such as Tisha B’Av or the tenth of Tevet. Further opposition to the chosen date came from religious circles, due to the tradition not to mourn in the month of Nisan.
