THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

BECAUSE OF ADOLF EICHMANN, I CAN’T STAND VINEGAR OR anythingassociated with it. Eichmann was the reason that I spent hours arguing with my father,and also the reason I rediscovered my father years after his death. Because ofEichmann I will love my father forever. It turns out that Eichmann is much morepresent in my life than I knew before I embarked on this strange search for both myinner and my collective identity.When Mossad agents abducted Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, I was learninghow to read and write in the first grade. When Eichmann was caught, I was readyingmyself for a future free of worries. I was not told that Eichmann was brought toIsrael. Then, as now, I hardly read newspapers; then because I barely knew how toread—and now because I do. Yet I knew that something was happening. Workersplaced a huge container for trash halfway between my school and my home. I hadnever seen such an enormous container before. Galvanized metal garbage cans linedthe sidewalks, and the emptying of these cans in the early mornings, with the workersshouting “stop” and “go,” was an urban symphony. Suddenly, a frog-like greenmonster appeared, massive and intimidating, in the yard beside the neighborhood’sauditorium—the People’s House. They were building a courthouse for Eichmann, wewhispered to each other. We still did not know who this Eichmann was, much lesswhat a trial or a court was. The People’s House itself seemed grand and mysterious.