`WHY SHOULD I DENY IT?'
HOLOCAUST ARCHITECT EICHMANN CONFESSES IN UNEARTHED TAPES
Decades after his execution in Israel for crimes against humanity, newly unearthed audio recordings of Adolf Eichmann reveal how the architect of the Holocaust described his role in organizing the “Final Solution.”
For the first time, the Nazi war criminal, who maintained at his trial that he was nothing more than a “little cog” in the machine, can be heard, in his own words, defending the Holocaust that resulted in the death of six million Jews.
“If we had killed 10.3 million Jews, I would say with satisfaction, `Good, we destroyed an enemy,'” Eichmann says in one of the recordings, referring to the total population of Jews in Europe at the time of the Second World War. “Then we would have fulfilled our mission.”
The recordings are contained in a 180-minute Israeli documentary series, The Devil's Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes, which has captivated the nation since its release. It is the first time the recordings have been heard at length, but they have been known to exist for decades, The New York Times reported.
In 1957, years after fleeing to Argentina after the Second World War, Eichmann recorded 70 hours of interviews in Buenos Aires. The interviews were conducted by a Dutch journalist and Nazi-sympathizer, Willem Sassen.
The prosecution at Eichmann's 1961 trial had fought until the last day of his cross-examination to gain possession of the tapes after obtaining 700 pages of transcripts that Eichmann claimed distorted his words.
“He could hardly have been able to deny his own voice,” Gideon Hausner, the chief prosecutor, wrote in Justice in Jerusalem, his first-hand account of the trial.
The tapes were not obtained in time for Eichmann's trial, which took place a year after he was captured in 1960 by Israel's Mossad agents in Buenos Aires. Israel's Supreme Court denied the transcripts as evidence, with the exception of Eichmann's handwritten notes denying their veracity.
A wealth of other evidence was used to convict him, but he insisted until the end that he was only in charge of small tasks, such as train scheduling, and not responsible for the horrific crimes of Nazi Germany.
The recordings tell a different story. They depict a cold-blooded individual with a passionate hatred for Jews who played a lead role in the attempted extermination of an entire community.
“Jews who are fit to work should be sent to work,” Eichmann says in the tapes. “Jews who are not fit to work must be sent to the Final Solution, period.”
During the interview, he can be heard attempting to swat a fly before comparing it to Jews, stating that it had “a Jewish nature.” He also says that he “did not care” whether the Jews he sent to Auschwitz lived or died.
“This is proof against Holocaust deniers and a way to see the true face of Eichmann,” Yariv Mozer, one of the documentary's creators told The New York Times.
The tapes transferred between private owners before eventually landing in a German government archive in Koblenz. The anonymous owner intended them to be used for academic purposes and only a short clip was released two decades ago to prove the tapes exist, Mozer told the Times. In 2020, Kobi Sitt and Mozer, the documentary's creators, were granted permission to use the recordings which reveal the extent of Eichmann's brutality.
They received 15 hours worth of recordings, as Sassen had recorded over the rest after transcribing the conversations.
Mozer found inspiration for the series due to his status as the grandson of Holocaust survivors. He believes that the younger generation “will get to know the trial and the ideology behind the Final Solution,” the Times reported.
The tapes were made by Eichmann and Sassen, who aimed to publish a book after Eichmann's death. They met every week at Sassen's house and discussed, in detail, Eichmann's role in the Holocaust.
“It's a difficult thing that I am telling you and I know I will be judged for it,” Eichmann said. “But I cannot tell you otherwise. It's the truth. Why should I deny it?”
His confessions came as a result of his supposed annoyance towards anyone “who later denies the things he has done.”
THIS IS PROOF AGAINST HOLOCAUST DENIERS AND A WAY TO SEE THE TRUE FACE OF EICHMANN.
Eichmann previously evaded justice after escaping a postwar U.S. prison camp. He lived in Germany for years under a fake name before making his way to Argentina in 1950. He was unable to escape justice a second time, however. Following the trial where he was found guilty after ironically denying the things he had done, Eichmann was executed by hanging on June 1, 1962.
The three-episode documentary series was a joint production between Metro-goldwyn-mayer; Sipur, an Israeli company formerly known as Tadmor Entertainment; Toluca Pictures; and Kan 11, Israel's public broadcaster. They are currently in search of licensing partners in order for the documentary to be aired globally.