Years long hunt ends
On June 1, 1962, a rope in the Israel’s Ramla prison snapped taut. The small bookish man at the end of the rope struggled briefly as he had taken his last breath. Momentarily the struggling ceased, and the man was dead.
A decades long investigation into the crimes of Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) Obersturmbannführer (Lt Col.) Adolf Eichmann had come to an end. Eichmann had been known as the architect of Hitler’s “final solution” and had been a key organizer in the deaths of millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazi regime.
He managed to escape a brief detention at the end of the war be posing a German soldier using forged documents. By 1948 he had escaped to Argentina and was living under an assumed name.
Mossad and Shin Bet agents were tasked with identifying and locating war criminals after the establishment of the State of Israel. They were able to locate Eichmann living in relative poverty on Garibaldi Street in Buenos Aires.
Israeli agents were able to track his movements and learn his routine. On May 11, 1960, they quietly captured and drugged Eichmann. Days later he was again sedated placed on a plane dressed as a flight attendant and returned to Israel to stand trial.
His trial was an international spectacle that garnished both accolades and criticism from around the world. Eichmann was convicted on 15 counts of crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership in a criminal organization. He was sentenced to death by hanging, a far better fate than many of his victims.
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