This cartoon strip appeared in the Israeli newspaper Davar a month after Adolf Eichmann’s capture in Argentina and a year before his trial began in Jerusalem in April 1961. The title of the cartoon is “Law and Justice,” and it compares international law in 1944 during the Holocaust and in 1960 at the time of Eichmann’s capture. In the upper picture, labelled 1944, Eichmann is drawn chasing and shooting at a group of fleeing Jews. Next to this group are the feet of people lying on the ground, presumably already shot dead. In the background Jews can be seen behind barbed wire. An image labelled international law is covering its eyes and hiding, so as not to see the atrocities. In the lower picture which represents 1960, Jews are now chasing Eichmann who has dropped his guns. This time, “international law” is standing in between the Jews and Eichmann, protecting the latter from his pursuers. There is a striking difference between the stars that the Jews are wearing in the first picture and the Magen David that is worn by those chasing Eichmann in the second.
Adolph Eichmann was a senior SS commander and one of the main architects of the Holocaust. After the war, Eichmann was captured by US forces but managed to escape. After hiding in different places in Europe, Eichmann arrived in Argentina in 1950 under the false name of Ricardo Klement. Eichmann was living in Buenos Aires with his family when he was first sighted. Information of this sighting was passed on to the Mossad and Eichmann’s identity was confirmed. Argentina had turned down previous requests to extradite Nazi war criminals, so Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion decided that Eichmann should be kidnapped and brought to Israel for trial. Eichmann was captured on May 11, 1960, held in a safe house, and then smuggled on to an El Al plane and flown to Israel. Unsurprisingly, Argentina was outraged and stated that its international sovereignty had been compromised. On June 15, an official complaint against Israel was filed with the UN, and the UN convened a special session to discuss the incident. American-born Golda Meir, Israeli foreign minister at the time (and future prime minister) apologised for the breech of law but argued that it was fully justified. Ultimately, Israel admitted to the violation of Argentinian sovereignty, and Argentina agreed to bring an end to the dispute. Eichmann was put on trial in 1961 and coverage of the trial was shown live on Israeli TV. The trial proved a watershed moment for Holocaust survivors, many of whom had found it difficult to talk about their experiences before this time. With many of the survivors being called on to testify at the trial, Israel became more open to discussing the Holocaust and its effects. Eichmann was sentenced to death on December 15 1961, and following a series of appeals, he was hanged at Ramle prison on June 1, 1962.
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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.
