Friday, October 24, 2014

First Paragraph

Adolf Eichmann is an icon of the twentieth century, of the Nazi regime and the genocide it waged against the Jews. The much-used official photograph of the smiling young SS officer with filmstar looks who deported millions of Jews to the death camps seems to personify all of the perpetrators of the Nazi genocide. The ubiquity of this image is equalled by that of Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961, sitting or standing inside a bulletproof glass booth. Its power lies in the way it encapsulates the satisfying story of the perpetrator meeting justice at the hands of his former victims. In this picture the killer is now safely incarcerated; but his one-time prey allows him the dignity of a hearing, evincing the humanitarian values he trampled. Eichmann thus seems to be a metonym for the entire history of the Nazi persecution and mass murder of the Jews as well as its legacy. Along with Hitler, Himmler and perhaps Reinhard Heydrich, he is the face of Nazi mass murder. 

- From Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a "Desk Murderer" by David Cesarani

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