The Eichmann Trial – When Survivors Speak

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One of the extraordinary aspects of the Eichmann trial is that no one knew very much about the Holocaust when the trial began. Holocaust survivors did not speak about their ordeals at the hands of the Nazis until the trial. While over 60 years ago, Eichmann Trial Lesson Plans and Research into what drove Eichmann […]

The post The Eichmann Trial – When Survivors Speak appeared first on The Holocaust History - A People's and Survivor History - Remember.org.

Remember.org

One of the extraordinary aspects of the Eichmann trial is that no one knew very much about the Holocaust when the trial began.

Holocaust survivors did not speak about their ordeals at the hands of the Nazis until the trial.

While over 60 years ago, Eichmann Trial Lesson Plans and Research into what drove Eichmann became common in schools, from Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil to the recent release of “The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes,” shows a continuing fascination with how a “normal” person can choose to do seriously evil things.

To many, the Holocaust is an unspeakable remembrance, but the trial became a catharsis, and people told their tales. Gideon Hausner, Attorney General representing the State of Israel, called over 100 witnesses to the stand.

The courtroom was packed. After an emotional 16 weeks, Eichmann was found guilty on all 15 counts of the criminal indictment against him. He was hanged, his body was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea.

The effect of the Eichmann trial on survivors

During the trial, nearly 10,000 letters were sent to the Attorney General’s office. The contents of most were wracked with pent-up emotion. Over 5,000 of these letters came from Israelis, many of them children who could not understand why millions of Jews of the Holocaust let themselves be victimized without fighting back.

Many letters came from survivors, providing encouragement, telling their stories, often for the first time. Hate letters and letters which made physical threats also arrived. Eichmann also received hundreds of communications.

The trial and the accounts of the crimes against the Jews shocked the civilized world. For the first time, thousands of survivors became able to share their stories with their families and the public.

For 15 years, telling their stories was often considered impolite, and many survivors could not put into words what had happened to them, particularly when they feared that they would not believed.

Now they are part of the core curriculums of schools all over the world to remember, even as genocides continue, that the potential for truly evil acts isn’t limited to cartoon characters in movies, but to normal people like Adolf Eichmann.

Here’s some of the first Holocaust Survivor Testimonies from the Eichmann Trial
Rufeisen, Hela

Witness to underground resistance in the Krakow and Warsaw ghettos, Poland

961 Quote: 5/3/61: ATTORNEY GENERAL GIDEON HAUSNER: Towards morning you escaped?

RUFEISEN: Towards morning I decided that I would have to escape. The ghetto was on the eve of the “action,” and I was afraid that when my comrades learned that I had been arrested (for these were comrades that had come with me), I was afraid that they would do something in order to rescue me, and I didn’t want that as a result the time of the “action” would be advanced.

I decided that I had to escape, and at four o’clock in the morning I managed to run away, to penetrate into the ghetto. The place was very well illuminated by a large reflector. Four German and two Polish policemen pursued me and fired at me incessantly.

HAUSNER: You were wounded in your leg?

RUFEISEN: Yes, I was wounded in the leg, but I managed to get into the ghetto and once again return to my comrades.

HAUSNER: Did you participate in the operations of the revolt?

RUFEISEN: Yes.

HAUSNER: On 8 May 1943, together with an underground group you passed through the sewage canals and reached the Aryan side of Warsaw?

RUFEISEN: Yes.

HAUSNER: You remained hidden for some time, and afterwards you were sent with a group of Jews of foreign nationality to Bergen-Belsen. What happened? How were you caught?

RUFEISEN: I simply had no strength. I was crushed. After I had seen the Warsaw Ghetto in flames, and not one of my dear ones remained, there was no longer anything to fight for. At any rate I was broken.

There was also little hope that I would be taken into the forest. Although this was what I wanted …

 

 

1996 Quote: My first impression of Eichmann when I saw him in the glass cage, reminded me of a poem that had been written by the poet from Cracow, Mordehai Gebirtig.

In the poem, “my dream” he describes how he dreamt that the war was over, and suddenly he hears the sound of a chain, and he sees a glass cage, and inside it lies a naked man, like a corpse.

He doesn’t write Hitler, but everybody knows whom he refers to, and the people who pass in mass call out, “look at that scoundrel,” and everybody points at him, “he murdered my people, he murdered my people!” That was Gebirtig’s dream, but of course he writes it much nicer, than I tell it here.

 

Witnesses to the Eichmann Machine

Zimet, Walli Malka

Witness to bureaucratic functions of Eichmann’s office of emigration and property confiscation in Prague

1961 Quote: 4/27/61: ZIMET: I remember an occasion when there were already no more people for emigration…

DEPUTY STATE ATTORNEY YA’ACOV BAROR: When was that, approximately?

ZIMET: In 1940. And a group of persons had to appear there every day.

BAROR: Do you remember the size of a normal group that had to appear?

ZIMET: I don’t know, but I do know that when it was known that Eichmann was about to come, there was fear throughout the building.

There were no longer any people there who had visas for any country, and then Gunther made an urgent request to the community officials that, for this day when Eichmann was coming, they should bring along a large number of people, even with empty kits, so as to show that some kind of activity was in progress there.

And then several hundred persons lined up before the Zentralstelle and Eichmann appeared and was most satisfied to see people there, even though they only had blank papers in their kits. This he did not check.

BAROR: That is to say – they were there just for show?

ZIMET: Yes.

 

 

1996 Quote: I definitely did not want to testify. I had a terrible feeling. On the one hand it was terrible that I saw him.

On the other hand, it was good that I saw him in such a place as the courtroom. I was very relieved when the trial was over.

I think all Jews were relieved after the trial. Many people were sick during that time.

 

Selections at Auschwitz
Kleinman, Joseph Zalman

Witness to the selection process in the Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland

1961 Quote: 6/7/61: KLEINMAN: I stood there in total despair. I thought to myself, “My life is ending here.” Suddenly my brother whispered to me, saying: “Don’t you want to live? Do something!”

I woke up, as from a dream, and began searching for a way of saving myself. My mind worked rapidly. Suddenly I caught sight of pebbles scattered around me. I thought that perhaps I could be saved in this way.

We were all standing in line, at attention. Bending down without being noticed and I seized some handfuls of pebbles. Untying the laces of my shoes and I began stuffing pebbles into my shoes. Wearing shoes which were larger than my size.

I filled my shoes with pebbles under my heals and gained two centimeters. I thought that, perhaps, this would be sufficient. Meanwhile I felt I was unable to remain standing at attention with the pebbles in my shoes.

It wasn’t easy. I told my brother I was going to throw the stones away. My brother said to me: “Don’t throw them away, I’ll give you something.” He gave me a hat. I tore the hat into two pieces and I began inserting the rags made from the hat into my shoes, so that it would be softer for me.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GIDEON HAUSNER: Perhaps we could make it briefer, Mr. Kleinman. Did you pass the test?

PRESIDING JUDGE MOSHE LANDAU: But, nevertheless, let us hear how he got through.

KLEINMAN: I stood for ten minutes with the stones and the rags inside my shoes. I thought that perhaps I might reach the required height.

Meanwhile all the boys went on passing that spot. Two would reach the necessary height and two would not. I stood where I was. Ultimately my brother looked at me and said: “This is not high enough.”

Then I began to fear, perhaps I would fail because of nervousness, lest when I began walking, they would realize that I had something in my shoes. I asked my brother and someone else, who could look around better, that they should estimate what my height was.

Both of them said that I had no chance of reaching the desired height. So then I began looking around for a way to escape and get to the taller ones who had already passed the plank, the selection.

They were drawn up in ranks of hundreds, on the opposite side, and the shorter ones who had not reached the plank and the required height were lined up on the opposite end of the field. The shorter ones were trying to force their way into the second group. I also just stole my way into the taller ones.

 

 

1996 Quote: In my opinion the trial was a great thing. It saw to it that all the world would know what had happened to us during the Holocaust.

Without this trial, many things would never have become known, and history would have passed quietly over the whole matter.

 

“The trial was a breaking point for the younger generation in Israel.” 


Gurfein, Jacob

Witness to transport to Belzec concentration camp, Poland

1961 Quote: 5/1/61: ATTORNEY GENERAL GIDEON HAUSNER: Tell me, at the railway station when they packed you into a trail going to Belzec, when you thought that it was likely to go to Belzec, why didn’t you resist, why did you board the train?

GURFEIN: We no longer had any strength left. Very simply, we wanted it to end very quickly. This was in 1943. After so many years we did not have the strength to resist any more.

HAUSNER: You wanted it to end?

GURFEIN: We wanted to die more quickly.

HAUSNER: Then why did you jump from the window?

GURFEIN: There nevertheless was an impulse. For from the moment that we saw that the train was going in the direction of Belzec some spark was ignited. We saw someone jumping and some spark was kindled within people who wanted to save themselves. I wouldn’t have jumped, if my mother hadn’t pushed me forcibly.

 

 

1996 Quote: The trial was a breaking point for the younger generation in Israel. I think they started to understand what happened to the Jewish people in Europe then because from reading books or stories in the newspapers they could not understand it but when you see people alive in front of them and everyone explaining another story you know and such terrible stories, this was the point, the breaking point for them.

I think they started to understand what happened to the Jewish people during the war.

 

Maijdanek Memories Gutman, Israel

Witness to conditions in the Maijdanek concentration camp, Poland

1961 Quote: 6/2/61: ATTORNEY GENERAL GIDEON HAUSNER: Mr. Gutman, while you were in the hospital, did you see people being marched off to the gas chambers in Maijdanek?

GUTMAN: Yes, this happened once. I heard some noise, and whoever could stand on his legs jumped out of bed and ran to the windows. All this only lasted a few seconds, for we were chased back at once and not allowed to watch.

I saw this march of naked people. Amongst them I noticed a boy – I don’t know how old the boy was, perhaps ten years old. I saw that this boy was holding in his hands, in his arms, a child who was younger still.

And I saw two SS brutes – one was pointing at the scene to the other and laughing. I would like to say that there were moments like this when I tried to gaze into their eyes, to look stealthily, since to glance directly was too dangerous.

I wanted to see whether they showed any trace of scruples, of mental anguish whether there was any spark of humanity in their eyes.

And I constantly encountered the very same experience. Whenever we grieved – they were rejoicing; whenever they were able to maltreat us – they laughed, they were drunk with blood.

 

 

1996 Quote: And what happened during the– the-the Eichmann trial, that for the first time, the public here in our country and in the, especially young people in the country, yes, and the interest was enormous, they listened and they – they heard perhaps for the first time what happened to this kind of simple people which was the, their tragedy, what happened to their families, what happened to them, day by day, and – and this -this caused a very strong, a very profound change in the – the approach to the average survivors.

 

 

Sobibor Survivor
Frieberg, Dov

Witness to mass killings in the Sobibor concentration camp, Poland

1961 Quote: 6/5/61: We finished taking out personal belongings from one shed. Paul was our commander. It so happened that, between the rafters and the roof, a torn umbrella had been left behind. He sent one of our boys to climb up and bring the umbrella down.

It was at a height of seven to eight meters – these were large sheds. The lad climbed up through the rafters, moving along on his hands. He was not agile enough and fell down, breaking his limbs. Because he had fallen, he received twenty-five blows.

This appealed to Paul, and he went and called other Germans. I remember Oberscharfuhrer Michel, Schteufel and others. He called out to them: “I have discovered parachutists amongst the Jews. Do you want to see?”

They burst out laughing and he began sending people up, one after the other, to go on to the rafters. I went over it twice – I was fairly agile; and whoever fell- these were older people, or they fell out of fear – fell to the ground.

When they fell to the ground, they were given murderous blows, and the dog bit them incessantly. In the midst of all this, Paul began running around, went into ecstasy; when anyone was bitten, he put a bullet into him on the spot. All of those working went through this “game.”

The effect of the Eichmann trial on survivors

During the trial, nearly 10,000 letters were sent to the Attorney General’s office. The contents of most were wracked with pent-up emotion. Over 5,000 of these letters came from Israelis, many of them children who could not understand why millions of Jews of the Holocaust let themselves be victimized without fighting back.

Many letters came from survivors, providing encouragement, telling their stories, often for the first time. Hate letters and letters which made physical threats also arrived. Eichmann also received hundreds of communications.

The trial and the accounts of the crimes against the Jews shocked the civilized world. For the first time, thousands of survivors became able to share their stories with their families and the public.

For 15 years, telling their stories was often considered impolite, and many survivors could not put into words what had happened to them, particularly when they feared that they would not believed.

While this seems hard to believe today, 15 years after the Holocaust few were talking and worse, few were listening. The Eichmann Trial was the first trial filmed live, and the first opportunity to let Holocaust survivors speak and share what happened.

 

The post The Eichmann Trial – When Survivors Speak appeared first on The Holocaust History - A People's and Survivor History - Remember.org.