THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

The landlady did not lie, and nevertheless my father was not murdered. Eichmann andthe landlady had both sinned in the crimeof German obedience, like many others whocould not lie, only obey. The Eichmann trial presented two fundamental problems:capital punishmenton one hand, and the limits of obedience on the other.I wonder what could have been done differently. I pray that the Israeli criminal coderegarding the Nazis and their collaborators will remain a legal monument and not beused again. Despite the forty-plus years that have passed, the trial still makes merestless. I feel it was a turning point both personally and collectively; I can still feel theaftershocks. On the one hand, the trial undoubtedly had a major part in forming mypersonality as a firstgrader, and as a man today. It assured me in my self-confidentIsraeli-ness. He was confined in a glass booth and I was roaming free, walking pastthe People’s House—now the Gerard Bachar Center—on to school and back home.Sometimes I walked alone by the People’s House, looked around and then spattoward the detainee behind the bulletproof glass, just to prove (almost) to him and tomyself that I was not afraid. I liked my streets and trusted that the soldiers wouldguard the beast well and not let it roam the jungle and hunt me and my dear ones. Ihad a father from Germany, a mother from Hebron, and two sisters, all of us namedafter dead people whom we had not known. Today, I cannot escape the feeling thatthe glass cage has expanded so much that it confines us and disconnects us from theworld, from the universalism and humanism that I wish to be part of. In the wake ofthe Eichmann trial, everything that was buried with great emotional toil during theyears from Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 to BenGurion’s announcement in 1960resurfaced. The trial was like the cork capping a fermented drink in a bottle. Almostthirty years of upheaval turned into an endless flow of talk that wished to express all:pain and trauma, rage and frustration, vengefulness and feelings of guilt.In those days political correctness did not exist, and no one paid attention to thehidden meanings of the drama. In any case, no one asked. Could a nation thatclaimed to be the victims’ heirs and their embodiment appoint itself judge to try itsmurderers? What about impartiality and the presumption of innocence? But from themoment that Eichmann landed in Israel, the whole country—newspapers, crowds,politicians—proclaimed his guilt. Everyone said he must die. For one rare moment the