Killing the SS Page 14

  Yet despite the repulsion most feel, a minority are on Eichmann’s side. A worldwide wave of anti-Semitic violence followed the news of his kidnapping from Argentina. Israel was roundly attacked in the worldwide press for its aggressive behavior, and the United Nations Security Council cast a resolution condemning the Eichmann kidnapping—a response that many in Israel also considered an act of anti-Semitism.4

  Another criticism of Israel comes from an unlikely source: Lothar Hermann, the blind concentration camp survivor who first helped the Mossad find Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He now lives in poverty and is angry about the lack of financial compensation he received from Israel. Just a few weeks ago, on March 23, 1961, Hermann suffered a nervous breakdown and was taken to a police station to explain his erratic behavior. Hermann claimed to be Josef Mengele, an admission that promptly saw him arrested. It would take twenty-four hours before the truth came out, but in that time, news flashed around the world that Mengele had finally been found.

  But the Angel of Death is still very much a free man. Meanwhile, Eichmann was transported one hundred miles from a prison cell in Haifa to the city of Jerusalem one week ago. He now lives in a jail built especially for his incarceration on the top floor of the Beit Ha’am facility. A ten-foot-high fence surrounds the building. Elaborate security measures are in place for all in attendance at the trial, as well: everyone entering the building must step into a cement cubicle for a complete physical search. No personal baggage is allowed in the courtroom.

  Finally, the trial begins.

  “Beth Hamispath,” booms the voice of the court usher—“House of Justice.” He is an older gentleman who delivers the words with polished theatrical flair. The Israelis are intent on avoiding the absurdity of a show trial, but the power of those opening words cannot help but remind Adolf Eichmann that this court will be completely unlike the Nuremberg Trials. There, the crimes against the Jews were just a portion of the war crimes being prosecuted. The Eichmann trial will focus completely on atrocities—and it is the Jews who hold the fate of this Schreibtischmörder in their hands.5

  As the three Israeli judges, all dressed in black robes, enter the makeshift courtroom through a side door, each of the 756 spectators rises to their feet. The judges take their seats on a platform near Eichmann. Below them sit court stenographers and two translators. Eichmann himself occupies the lowest row on the stage, so the Nazi must twist his head awkwardly up and to the right in order to see the men who will decide his fate.

  “Are you Adolf, son of Adolf Eichmann?” asks presiding judge Moshe Landau, a balding man with a solemn disposition.

  “Jawohl!” confirms the defendant, now standing at sharp attention.

  “You are accused before this Court in terms of an indictment containing fifteen counts. I shall read the indictment to you and this indictment will be translated for you into German. This is the indictment against you on behalf of the Attorney General,” says Judge Landau.

  Eichmann remains standing as the charges against him are read aloud. His defense attorney, a thickset German named Robert Servatius, listens from his table across the room. Servatius, a World War II soldier in the German Wehrmacht whose fee is being paid by the Israeli government, has brought his pretty blond secretary with him from Cologne. She now sits to his left.

  Each charge in the fifteen counts is read aloud by Judge Landau, then reiterated with a lengthy list of details. It is a recitation that lasts for almost ninety minutes.

  * * *

  “Did you understand the indictment?” Landau asks once all counts have been thoroughly explained.

  “Jawohl!”

  Yet defense attorney Servatius spends the next three days of court engaged in a series of stalls and delays to gain a tactical advantage. It is not until Monday, April 17, that Judge Landau is allowed to ask for Eichmann’s final plea. In that time, the world’s attention has been diverted from the proceedings by the stunning launch of a Soviet rocket that sends astronaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit around the earth. But as amazing as that might be, the spotlight remains fixed on the Eichmann trial—and the courtroom at Beit Ha’am packed with journalists eager to witness every word.

  “The defendant will rise,” Landau tells the former SS commander.

  Eichmann does so but no longer does he snap to attention. The many hours in court are making him weary. The smart military bearing is missing from his countenance.

  “You have heard the indictment,” says Judge Landau.

  Eichmann knows the charges all too well. His most recent interrogator was not Zvi Aharoni, who is now engaged in other undercover activities, but police inspector Avner Less. The two men have met on ninety different occasions, culling 270 hours of testimony. All of Eichmann’s words have been taped so that they can be replayed. The text version comes out to 3,564 typed pages. Inspector Less has not only shown this transcription to Eichmann, but he has also allowed the war criminal to make changes. So as Judge Landau asks the accused man whether or not he is innocent, Eichmann is thoroughly aware of each and every damning word he has spoken over the last eleven months. A less arrogant man would meekly submit to the power of the evidence against him: not Eichmann.

  “I am not guilty,” the Nazi replies in German.

  * * *

  More than twenty years have not diminished the horror. Heinrich Grüber was a German Protestant theologian who was outraged by the ongoing harassment and deportation of German and Austrian Jews to concentration camps. He had petitioned Adolf Eichmann and Hermann Göring, trying to protect Jews and Christians of Jewish descent. On December 19, 1940, as he made ready to travel to a death camp to offer encouragement to the afflicted, the Gestapo surrounded Grüber’s office and arrested him.

  More than two decades later, he has traveled to Israel to offer his testimony in court. He takes the stand against Adolf Eichmann on May 16, 1961:

  PRESIDING JUDGE MOSHE LANDAU: What is your full name?

  WITNESS HEINRICH GRUEBER: Heinrich Karl Ernst Grueber.

  Q: What was your occupation before the outbreak of the War in 1939?

  A: In 1939 I was a parson in an eastern suburb of Berlin, at Karlsdorf.

  Q: Dr. Grueber, do you know the Accused?

  A: I know his name and I used to know him, but I would not be able to identify him now.

  Q: You did meet him in Berlin, did you not?

  A: Yes.

  Q: In his office at Kurfuerstenstrasse 116?

  A: Yes.

  Q: What were the subjects discussed when you appeared in Adolf Eichmann’s office?

  A: I went there very often and raised all the questions of importance to us. Questions about emigration, questions about treatment of the Jews and everything of importance—I raised them all in the office, unless they were matters concerning other authorities.

  Q: How did Adolf Eichmann behave?

  A: Well, I had the impression—and I hope the Accused will not take it badly—but quite honestly, I must say, having come here without any hatred or feelings of revenge, the impression I had of him was that he was a man who sat there like a block of ice, or a block of marble, and everything you tried to get through to him just bounced off him.

  Q: Did you sometimes manage to achieve your purpose in going to see Eichmann?

  A: As far as I remember, either I heard a “no,” or I was told you will receive a reply, come back. But I do not ever remember being given a decision with a “yes.” I do not remember any such instance where I left the room with a positive decision, normally it was a “no” or a reply to the effect “you must wait, you will receive a reply.”

  Q: Mr. Grueber, do you remember whether during these meetings or conversations the Accused ever referred to his superior’s instructions, which he had to ask for or receive?

  A: As far as I remember, everything was in the first person, i.e., I order, I say, and I cannot; I am not aware of a single instance in which he may have said: I have to consult a superior authority.

  Q: Towards the end
of 1940 you were arrested, Dr. Grueber, were you not?

  A: I was arrested on 19 December 1940.

  Q: You told the court that you were transferred to the Sachsenhausen camp. Was that an SS concentration camp?

  A: Yes, all concentration camps were under the SS.

  Q: When did you leave Sachsenhausen?

  A: October 1941.

  Q: Where were you transferred to?

  A: To Dachau.

  Q: Who were the people with you in the Dachau camp?

  A: Do you mean the people in charge, or my fellow prisoners?

  Q: Your fellow prisoners.

  A: There were about 700 clergy in the special camp: The Jews and the clergy were isolated from the other prisoners.

  Q: My first question about the Dachau camp concerns the conditions in which you and your fellow clerics lived.

  A: Just like everywhere else, it was an existence of utter uncertainty, because we were totally at the mercy of the SS troops, without any protection or rights. If someone was shot, it was of no consequence.

  Q: Can you tell the Court about transports of prisoners from Dachau for killing by gas?

  A: I had already experienced that in Sachsenhausen, particularly with a theologian with whom I was friendly, who was with one of the first “transports of invalids”—i.e., of people not capable of working. People were selected, usually some 300 for each transport, they were taken to the gas installation; the relatives were notified shortly afterwards that the person in question had died, and in spite of all medical efforts it had not been possible to save him.

  Q: When you were in Dachau, did you hear of Majdanek and Auschwitz?

  A: Not only did we hear about them, we also saw something of them, lots of clothing of those gassed in Auschwitz was sent to Dachau for sorting. Whole wagonloads arrived. When in the first consignment we found a pair of tiny children’s shoes, we were all shocked to our inner souls by this, and we men, for all that we were used to terrible things, had to struggle with our tears, because it brought all the suffering of these children before us. Then more and more children’s shoes arrived, and that was something which was part of the most bitter suffering we went through.

  Q: Dr. Grueber, can you tell the Court about the various medical experiments carried out on the inmates of Dachau?

  A: Yes, I myself almost underwent something of the sort. Many of my friends and colleagues were—I cannot say used—abused in such experiments. There were all sorts of experiments, injections of Phenol, malaria, cold-water experiments where they were thrown into ice-cold water, air-pressure tests, where people were placed in a bell jar and air was pumped in or out, and many died. They were normally people not capable of working, who were used as what we called guinea pigs.

  * * *

  Dr. Grüber’s testimony lasts for approximately two hours. His words are immediately transmitted by the press all over the world. He has received threats against his life by unnamed forces of evil for agreeing to testify, but the people of Israel are so moved by his selfless behavior that hundreds write him letters of thanks. But this is just the beginning. There will be no letup in the accusations against Adolf Eichmann.

  * * *

  On August 2, 1941, one year after France surrendered to Nazi Germany, occupied Paris swarmed with German soldiers, combing the streets, looking for Jews of all ages. A particular focus was the 11th arrondissement, an administrative center of the city where the Jewish population was most dense. Soldiers went house to house and business to business, checking personal documents. Georges Wellers, a Jewish Russian-born scientist who became a naturalized French citizen in 1938, bore witness as four thousand Jews are arrested.

  Wellers was the father of two children. His wife was not Jewish. He knew this would only protect him from arrest for a short period of time. Nevertheless, he remained in Paris. Twenty years later, sitting on the witness stand at the Beit Ha’am courtroom, Georges Wellers recounts that day.

  STATE ATTORNEY GABRIEL BACH: When were you arrested, Mr. Wellers?

  WITNESS GEORGES WELLERS: I was arrested on 12 December 1941.

  Q: By whom?

  A: By a single policeman who came to my home at five or six in the morning.

  Q: A policeman?

  A: One single German policeman.

  Q: When were you deported to Auschwitz?

  A: On 30 June 1944.

  Q: How did you arrive there?

  A: I arrived in Auschwitz on the 2nd or 3rd of July; I no longer remember. There was one small detail, but it was a very special detail, because I was in a wagon where there were only men. There were no women, and I had a group of friends; there were a dozen of us and we had decided to escape, to slip away in the course of our journey. We had already prepared this; we had sawed away at part of the wagon. To our misfortune, at a certain point, not very far from Paris, the train stopped and the Germans noticed what we had done.

  Q: In what kind of train were you deported?

  A: It was a goods train, as was always the case. Only one convoy left in a passenger train, the first convoy of 27 March 1942. All the others always left in goods trains. We were seventy and eighty in a wagon, shut in, and, throughout the whole journey, we were never given anything to eat. We were given something to drink once in the course of the journey.

  PRESIDING JUDGE MOSHE LANDAU: How many days did the journey take?

  WITNESS WELLERS: Four days.

  STATE ATTORNEY BACH: How many people were there in the train altogether?

  WITNESS WELLERS: The convoy consisted of 1,000 people. If there were sixty to seventy people in a wagon that means there were twenty to twenty-five wagons.

  Q: When the convoy of 1,000 reached Auschwitz, was there any sort of selection?

  A: Yes, of course. When the train arrived, the wagons were opened and everyone on the train had to get off. We formed a sort of column, or Indian file, and we had to pass before two officers in German uniforms who did not ask any questions. This happened very quickly. We hardly slowed our pace before these two officers, and one of the two officers made us a sign to go to the left or right.

  Q: In this selection, how many people out of the 1,000 have remained alive?

  A: In my convoy, I think there are three or four of us.

  Q: When you tried to escape from the train, did you know where the train was going?

  A: No, I had no idea, and I had no idea what was going on at Auschwitz itself.

  Q: Until you actually reached Auschwitz, you had no idea that the deportations to the East were for the purpose of extermination?

  A: No, I did not know this and we did not know it. We knew very well that the London radio spoke about the gas chambers, but we didn’t take it at all seriously. We thought it was propaganda—we didn’t believe it was really so.

  * * *

  But the horrors of the death camps were all too true. Kalman Teigman, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, was shipped to a Polish compound known as Treblinka on September 4, 1942.

  PRESIDING JUDGE MOSHE LANDAU: Did you believe that you were in an extermination camp?

  WITNESS KALMAN TEIGMAN: At the beginning I did not believe it. When I arrived, I saw what was going on there. Later on, the train again moved on, and we continued our journey for almost the whole night. Towards morning, we reached the station at Malkinia. By then, I was standing near the window, and I noticed that Polish men, railway workers, were making signs to us that we were travelling to our deaths. They drew their hands across their throats, as a sign for being slaughtered. At all events, no one wanted to believe it. “How could it be that they could take young, fit people and send them straight to their deaths?” We did not want to believe this.

  Once again, the carriages moved, and we came to a certain place. Suddenly we heard shouts in German: “Everybody out, and take all your possessions and parcels with you.” Of course, they began immediately hitting people with their rifles and clubs, shooting people who did not manage to get out quickly, most of them elderly peop
le, sick persons, and those who had fainted, and those met their deaths in the freight cars or near the platform. And then we assembled on the platform, and they made us run in the direction of the gate. The gate led into a large yard.

  Q: Was this already inside Treblinka?

  A: Yes, this was inside the Treblinka camp.

  Q: You arrived at the platform. What happened to you at the platform?

  A: As I have already said, they opened the freight cars and shouted at us to come out and take with us our personal belongings and parcels. A large number of people were killed on this platform or inside these freight cars, such as those who fainted or those who were not quick enough. On the double, at lightning speed, they made us run towards the courtyard in which those two huts stood. Next to the gate, men were standing, men of the SS and Ukrainians, and here, right away, the sorting began. They shouted to the women to go to the left, and to the men to go to the right. I did not want to part from my mother so soon. Precisely at the gate, I received a blow on my head from something, I think it was from a stick, and I fell down. I got up immediately, for I didn’t want to receive another blow, and by then my mother was no longer at my side.

  Q: After that, did you see your mother again?

  A: After that, I did not see her again.

  Q: How many young people were there with you?

  A: When we entered the camp, out of the entire transport, they took four hundred people—of course, after sorting, after selection. Two hundred remained in Camp 1, and two hundred young people were sent to the camp where there were the gas chambers. This I learned afterwards, for I did not know about it at the beginning.

  Q: Do you want to add something about the Lazarette? Did something happen in connection with the Lazarette immediately after you arrived?

  A: Yes.

  Q: Where was that?

  A: I see it here. [He points it out.] And, in fact, it was here, at the end of the camp, next to the second gate. This Lazarette was a pit that had been dug out and fenced with barbed wire, and near it, at the entrance, stood a hut painted white, with markings of the Red Cross, and there was also a sign there: Lazarette.