Eichmann on the Air: Radio and the Making of a Historic Trial

… I saw this reckoning going down to the very core of his
personality. I felt I was facing exposed nerves and any touch
could cause a great pain.” Levontine then declares that he would
prefer to talk formally, not subjectively. In answer to the question
of the historic meaning of the trial, he claims that there is never
any agreement on the meaning of specific events, even
generations after the event. Let alone that it is too early to discuss
its historic meaning: “We are now trying to tear the curtain that
hides the future. The future meaning, however, would not depend
on the effect itself but on the question of how it would be presented
in the future.” According to him, if the emphasis would be on the
rebellion in the Ghettos, it would strengthen the “national pride of
the young generation and the Zionist morale as well as its moral
spirit.” But if the emphasis would be on the helplessness in the
Shoah, it may bring about a negative attitude towards the
Diaspora, which might indirectly also reinforce the Zionism and the
stats of Israel through the “negation of the Diaspora and what it
done to the Jews.
Recorded when the first waves of the trial were already felt,
this program demonstrates yet again the public forum supplied by
Kol Yisrael for a variety of opinions to be heard. The only radio
station in Israel at the time—which was also a branch of the Prime
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