SOURCE:
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/603823/eichmann-capture/
The Driver Is Red.
“Operation Finale” is a travelling exhibition that tells the story of the pursuit of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who made his way to Argentina after World War II. At his trial, Eichmann insisted that he was “just following orders” when he arranged for millions of European Jews to be transported to death camps. Jim Axelrod examines the actual glass booth that Eichmann sat in during his trial in Israel, and spoke with former Mossad agent Avner Abraham, who curated the exhibit, now at the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg.
Dec 22, 2019
Video by Randall Christopher
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/603823/eichmann-capture/
The Capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann
THE ATLANTIC SELECTS
Capturing the Architect of the Holocaust
Dec 22, 2019
Video by Randall Christopher
He could see the hairs on the back of Adolf Eichmann's neck. Seated behind the architect of the Nazi genocide on a crowded bus rolling through Buenos Aires in 1960, Mossad special agent Zvi Aharoni thought of the family members who'd died at Eichmann's direction, and he thought of the justice still to be served. Thanks to Aharoni, a German-born Jew, the Nazi SS lieutenant colonel who arranged the transportation of European Jews to concentration camps before fleeing to Argentina in 1950 would be executed within two years. It's a fascinating tale, recounted in Randall Christopher's animated documentary, The Driver Is Red. Like many young people, the American filmmaker grew up ignorant of the Holocaust. But since learning of Eichmann's crimes, he feels so compelled to share the story that he's made his film available online for free, per the San Diego Downtown News.
"Adolf Hitler had galvanized the hatred of the whole nation," an actor reads from Aharoni's book in the 15-minute, award-winning documentary that's played at more than 100 film festivals since premiering in 2017. "These events sprang from a democratic society with values and culture not much different from what we have today in the West," Christopher tells the Atlantic. "But in voting for Hitler to do things like get rid of the communists and to bypass a dysfunctional Parliament, [Germans] also voted in favor of a situation where World War II and the Holocaust would be a possibility." Such a scenario was once thought unthinkable in the US. But a recent survey found 58% of Americans believe an event like the Holocaust could happen again. Indeed, Christopher sees it as a possibility if Congress "remains dysfunctional and unable to work together." (Read some of Eichmann's last words.)
The Driver Is Red.
In the final days of World War II, as the Red Army advanced on Berlin and the Third Reich teetered on the edge of total military collapse, Adolf Hitler famously shot himself in his bunker. A wave of suicides would follow—high-ranking Nazi officials such as Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Philipp Bouhler, and Martin Bormann killed themselves before being captured by Allied forces. Many war criminals, however, managed to escape. As many as 9,000 Nazi officers and collaborators found refuge in South America; the majority fled to Argentina, which had maintained a close relationship with Nazi Germany.
Among those who evaded capture was Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS lieutenant colonel who masterminded the identification, assembly, and transportation of European Jews to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. After the fall of the Third Reich, Eichmann, who had come to be known as the architect of the Nazi genocide, was apprehended, but escaped from a detention camp and went into hiding in Austria. An Austrian-born bishop, Alois Hudal, helped Eichmann obtain falsified identity documents issued by the Vatican, enabling him to get an Argentine visa and an International Red Cross passport. (Hudal eventually admitted to abetting Nazi war criminals.) In the years following the war, Argentine President Juan Perón, a longtime admirer of Hitler’s and other fascist regimes, had established a network of so-called ratlines—escape routes—through ports in Spain and Italy to smuggle thousands of former SS officers and Nazi Party members out of Europe.
As the Nuremberg Trials brought Nazi war criminals to justice in 1945 and 1946, Eichmann lay in wait. In 1950, a fugitive who had assumed the alias of Richard Klement boarded a steamship to Buenos Aires. He would establish a middle-class lifestyle in the suburbs of the city with his wife and children, working at a Mercedes-Benz factory.
The thrilling story of how it all came crashing down is told in Randall Christopher’s new animated documentary, The Driver Is Red. A Holocaust survivor who was living in Buenos Aires became suspicious about his daughter’s new boyfriend and his family. Armed with surreptitious photographs of Klement, the father alerted Israeli intelligence, and Eichmann’s identity was confirmed beyond reasonable doubt. Mossad Special Agent Zvi Aharoni was sent to Buenos Aires to orchestrate an illegal surveillance and abduction scheme, Operation Finale. Eichmann was apprehended in 1960 and smuggled to Israel, where he would finally face justice. He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity and was executed in Jerusalem in 1962.
Christopher’s film noir–inspired animation depicts the dramatic story of Eichmann’s capture. The actor Mark Pinter, reading from Aharoni’s book about the historic Nazi manhunt, lends the late Aharoni’s voice. “The first words Adolf Eichmann uttered to me were, ‘I have already resigned myself to my fate,’” wrote Aharoni, a German-born Jew who escaped with his mother and brother on one of the last trains out of Germany before World War II.
Christopher told me he made the film because he grew up largely ignorant of the Holocaust. This is an alarming trend. A recent survey found that 22 percent of Millennials admitted to not having heard of the Holocaust, while 41 percent of Americans and 66 percent of Millennials said they don't know about Auschwitz.
“In my opinion, we simply must make a deliberate, dedicated effort to know the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust—the most catastrophic event in human history,” Christopher said. The filmmaker believes it is especially important to study Weimar Germany, because “these events sprang from a democratic society with values and culture not much different from what we have today in the West.”
“People simply didn’t recognize that certain decisions and policies—though maybe not so terrible in themselves—open the door for more dangerous scenarios,” Christopher continued. “Nobody was voting for World War II when they voted for Hitler. But in voting for Hitler to do things like get rid of the communists and to bypass a dysfunctional Parliament, they also voted in favor of a situation where World War II and the Holocaust would be a possibility.”
Christopher believes that if the U.S. Congress “remains dysfunctional and unable to work together,” this might pave the way for a similar autocratic leader—something once considered “unthinkable in America.”
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