EICHMANN IN ISRAEL
Mayer, Milton
A Dialogue Eichmann. Who killed the Jews? Israeli. You did. Eich. Who, me? Isr. Who else? Eich. I thought that Hitler, Goeb-bels, Goering, and Hitler did it. Isr. They got away from us. Eich. I...
...Why, you couldn't give me a fair trial if you wanted to— and, confidentially, I don't think you want to...
...Perhaps if we could rid the world of the Jews...
...Or are you admitting that we Nazis were right when we said the Jews weren't human...
...The world knows already, and it doesn't care...
...They must forget the Nazis...
...Name one...
...Tell us what Morris Cohen said...
...You can't...
...But they are now the bulwark of the Free World...
...Some say it already...
...It was you who started it...
...Otherwise you will go on hating, and hatred makes people resemble the thing they hate...
...So I suppose the German people were guilty...
...Everybody but me...
...We don't have to kill you...
...You can't make people remember...
...Killing you did not protect us, remember...
...I thought you were "chosen" to do that...
...You will have a fair trial...
...But the Germans lost the war...
...Just like you...
...There are plenty of them...
...Who says Hitler was guilty...
...Atoned for, or avenged...
...My crime...
...And if they outnumber you...
...They penned you up in Germany, where we didn't want you either...
...It held that the soldier's obligation to the moral law transcended his officer's orders...
...That's what the Allies said when people begged them to turn the Nuremberg defendants over to a neutral country...
...That's what our Prime Minister says...
...Everybody but you...
...Never...
...Aside) That's how we "converted" the Jews...
...Not all of ours...
...Perhaps you will make an honorary Jew of me, if I am useful...
...They don't even mind being killed, as long as they can kill...
...And since when does the delegate have to take responsibility for the principal...
...We want Jewish justice...
...Because we want the world to know...
...He is the greatest industrialist in Germany now, and on his last birthday Adenauer sent him a telegram of congratulations...
...And what the Allies did to the Germans in 1943 and 1944 and 1945—believe me, that did not persuade the Germans to give up anti-Semitism...
...Of course not...
...You bashed in ours...
...The world hates the Jews because it has done him harm...
...My way you take a chance, yes, but at least you have a chance...
...Morris Cohen, the philosopher...
...He was the Head of State, but he was chosen by the German people...
...Why not hang the man who sold us the Cyclon-B for the gas chambers, or the man who had the contracts for the crematories, or the man who used the Jews for slave labor in his munitions plants...
...To your and the Arab's country...
...We are trying to save our civilization...
...The next time around, somebody will say it is all right to do wrong to you because you did wrong to me...
...What you're afraid of is justice, just like the Gentiles...
...Are you pretending to be a Christian so as to get away...
...That's a laugh, and the Tribunal knew it was a laugh...
...And when the war was over the Jews were dead...
...It was in 1941, and he was talking to an American historian who wanted America to enter the war against Germany, and the historian said, "I just want to bash in a few Nazi heads before I die...
...Why not the local policemen, thousands of them...
...Did that persuade people not to be anti-Semitic...
...But when the world sees that you no longer wish to do harm— even in retribution for harm done you—it will let you alone...
...No sensible Christian dares to...
...Our conquerors killed you first, by not wanting you...
...That's what they all said...
...The Americans wouldn't let you hang them now...
...We began too late, when our enemies gave us the green light by bombing and burning our cities in 1942...
...You won't talk your way out...
...To complete your pollution of the Aryan race...
...The Americans wouldn't let them come to America...
...But the Germans had to pay the penalty...
...They would have been shot if they had refused to round up the Jews for the death camps...
...But we got you back...
...Nobody ever wanted the Jews...
...No Jew will ever say we did wrong to you...
...How can you judge me...
...You have no right to do that...
...You claim to be "chosen...
...You mean that you have the "right" to do wrong because somebody else has done wrong to you...
...Besides, there aren't different kinds of Jews...
...You say that you have me, so you can keep me...
...What were we to do...
...Never...
...At your trial...
...We honor our wise men...
...An anti-Semite...
...That's why they accept war...
...We are a sovereign state...
...Nor will it for you, in the end...
...We only added the finishing touch, so to say...
...We do...
...You want "victim's justice...
...You can make that defense at your trial...
...Aloud) And his friends...
...you and your God of vengeance...
...We will do with you whatever is most useful to us...
...We will make it remember the Nazis...
...You mean that people who proclaim moral law and the law of humanity are not responsible for what other people do...
...We said that all Jews are not people, so you and we are not so far apart on that point...
...Never...
...And we would...
...You're trying to talk your way out of paying the penalty for your crime, that's what you're doing...
...Is it the business of the Jews to convert the Christians to Christianity...
...But I thought you wanted to save the Jews...
...It knows that he will return harm for harm if he can...
...This is your case...
...The whole thing was a laugh: Foreign generals hanging German soldiers for not disobeying superior orders...
...It never did care...
...What were you "chosen" for...
...But we were not your conquerors...
...The general who issued the order in behalf of the American government said, "A Jap is always a Jap-" Isr...
...Even then you will have hanged the wrong man...
...But the rest of the ninety-six per cent bashed in yours...
...I despise Christianity...
...To bash in the heads of the ninety-six per cent...
...Even we Nazis didn't think you were stupid...
...The same...
...Then we will die fighting...
...By showing the world (as our Prime Minister says) that anti-Semitism is dangerous...
...Why start with me then...
...Both, if possible, but avenged in any case...
...They wanted blood...
...Anti-Semitic Jews are not people...
...Who says so...
...Just like us...
...Did your Christ teach you to kill...
...Bring on your "Jewish justice," then...
...To Judaize our Christian country...
...But you represent them, too...
...That's what the Americans said when they kidnaped 113,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry in 1942...
...But I have no other weapon, just like the Jews in the Third Reich...
...Don't be stupid...
...It might help you some day...
...And you think you can protect yourselves by killing me...
...You can kill them trying to make them remember, but even while you are killing them they will say, "I forget...
...You amaze me...
...Ejch...
...But your way you lose for sure...
...If one Israeli was accused of killing another, you wouldn't let the victim's family judge the accused...
...You say so yourselves...
...They must remember the Nazis...
...Started it...
...If one of their own soldiers disobeyed superior orders, they'd hang him...
...First we must save our own...
...We know that nobody wanted os, so we came back to our own country...
...Why me...
...What you say may be true, but it won't get you off...
...In that case everybody has the "right" to do wrong, including Hitler...
...But not because we bashed in yours...
...We spared many useful Jews, even made honorary Aryans of them for DM...
...Don't you just make him more anti-Semitic...
...Are you serious...
...If a man hates the Jews, how do you convert him by beating him bloody and burning his house down...
...We are not responsible for what other people do...
...But so did the Jews in America who wanted their country to enter the war, like the man Morris Cohen talked to...
...Possession is nine-tenths of Eichmann in Israel by MILTON MAYER the law...
...And only Hitler was guilty...
...In the Third Reich nobody wanted the Jews, so they had to be exterminated...
...It never has...
...That again...
...Why don't you let me go and forget about me...
...Or to Sweden or India...
...The "final settlement of the Jewish question" was delegated to you...
...I got away from you, too...
...Tell us what he said, and we will consider it in possible mitigation...
...You mean that my punishment will persuade people not to be anti-Semitic...
...Why were they glad...
...Why don't you kill the British and the Americans...
...That's their only escape from wanting to kill—to forget...
...Does the law of humanity permit kidnaping a man to kill him...
...A trial...
...An anti-Semitic Jew, then...
...The British wouldn't let them go to Palestine...
...We were trying to save all civilization...
...Early in 1933 an American university president went to a rich Jew and said, "If you will give me $250,000 I'll bring all the greatest Jewish scholars of Germany over here," and the rich Jew said, "No...
...If you didn't hate me and I didn't hate you, I would tell you what Morris Cohen said in America...
...What...
...You see...
...Before that, you know, there were only lynchings, like your "punitive raids" on the Arabs and theirs on you...
...No government would dare declare war if it didn't know that its people want to kill...
...You are going to give me a "trial" when "there was not a single Jew in Israel who was not glad when he heard that Eichmann had been brought here...
...And we would, gladly...
...Everybody killed the Jews...
...Never heard of him...
...We'll start with you...
...You know, Caesar said of his victorious troops in Gaul, "Every day the conquerors become more like the conquered...
...Our Prime Minister...
...Everybody killed the Jews...
...We defended ourselves against the Jews, you defend yourselves against the Nazis, the Russians and the Americans defend themselves against each other, and so it always is...
...Your Prime Minister says, "I do not believe that there was a single Jew in Israel who was not glad when he heard that Eichmann had been brought here...
...There is the man you ought to hang...
...Why me...
...War lets them...
...No soldier disobeys his superior officer in any country...
...They wanted to kill, just like the Christians...
...To whom...
...You want us to let you go...
...That's what you say when you claim to represent "the Jewish people...
...But we can do what we want with you...
...But we have...
...The world says, "We can not be merciful because the enemy isn't...
...No, to the anti-Semites...
...Our Prime Minister says, "If one can not get a fair trial here, there are no fair trials in the world...
...why don't you hang the Americans for not letting you hang the Germans...
...Nobody wants the Nazis, so they have to be exterminated...
...It heard all about it at Nuremberg and didn't care...
...He had a chance to, a few months later, and you should have seen him fight for draft exemption...
...Heaven forfend...
...so why not...
...Christian country...
...But the Jews were dead...
...You accept Jesus, and the Christian denies him...
...That's what we told the Jews...
...But the really big shots were punished at Nuremberg in 1946...
...Yours...
...The British and the Americans exterminated them by turning them away...
...He had a mandate from them to do what he did...
...We did what was good for the Germans...
...I'm the only man in the world who doesn't want to kill...
...We were here first...
...At my what...
...on the contrary, the entire political and military machinery of the Third Reich had been mobilized to make them possible...
...They didn't have to...
...What I did I did in Germany...
...Remember Morris Cohen...
...If you could get them all in your power, you could hang.them all...
...But the law of every country forbids a man to judge his own case...
...That will "convert" him...
...We're not taking any chances...
...And Morris Cohen said, "My friend, bashing in heads is for the ninety-six per cent, not for the four per cent...
...Why start with me, then...
...That's what the Nazis said...
...Will you kill them, too...
...That's what we said to the Jews...
...You tell us a better way of combating evil...
...Of course I was...
...Let you go...
...And you "Christians" rejected vengeance...
...Why don't you turn me over to the Germans...
...A Jew is always a Jew...
...We had nothing to do with that...
...It's after the Communists now—and the anti-Communists...
...They wanted "victor's justice...
...They were afraid that the neutrals would find the real enemy—Everybody...
...The Americans didn't kill us...
...Don't judge all men by yourself, you Nazi swine...
...You will never collect it unless you hang me four million times...
...But he was a "leader of American Jewry...
...Never...
...Always that...
...I owe each of you a dozen deaths...
...But the important thing for you, I should think, was that the Jews were dead...
...There is a moral law that is higher than man-made law...
...Why not...
...But we belonged to the ninety-six per cent...
...That's what Goering said at Nuremberg...
...Why don't you save your money and just hang me...
...You are the plaintiff, not the judge...
...Or to Switzerland...
...To the Jews...
...We don't care whether we amaze you or not...
...Then the German people are guilty...
...It bores me to think of it...
...Our Prime Minister...
...Everybody wants to kill...
...We were your victims...
...And self-defense is always the justification against every enemy...
...The national enemy keeps changing, but the Jew is always the enemy everywhere...
...We have to protect ourselves, too...
...Not back...
...I was only a soldier, doing my duty...
...You don't know your own history, you "Israeli...
...Aloud) At Nuremberg the American prosecutor said that it was costing a hundred thousand dollars a day to conduct the trial, and Goering said, "All that money, just to hang us...
...We have to start somewhere...
...No, you did...
...But it didn't turn out that way in the end...
...And until that, we have to protect ourselves as best we can...
...If they injured Jews, they are our enemies...
...Why not hang Adenauer...
...Aside) We used to say "Jewish swine...
...Never...
...We do what is good for the Jews...
...We are not so ambitious...
...Then why don't you turn me over to the United Nations...
...But there are more Jews in America than there are in Israel...
...If you let me go, you show the world that the Jew has given up the God of vengeance for the God of mercy even if the Christian hasn't...
...Everybody wants to kill, and nobody wants the Jews...
...Listen to who's talking about "right...
...What could mitigate the killing of four million Jews...
...You Jews, above all...
...Just like us...
...We have a country of our own now...
...If we have to...
...You must, you must...
...Why don't you let me go...
...You are punishing me "in behalf of the Jewish people" for "crimes against the Jewish people...
...You say I killed the Jews, and you represent the Jews...
...That's the way it was with the Indians in America, with the kulaks in Russia, with the Christians in Rome...
...If you are found guilty in a fair trial, you will have to pay the penalty...
...Why not human justice...
...We Nazis understand that...
...Aside) Not that I minded doing it...
...I'm tired of killing...
...Aside) Our Fuehrer...
...You would have to hang all the American Jews (and, of course, non-Jews) who agreed with him...
...You violated the law of humanity...
...Most Christians do, though they sing hymns to it on Sunday...
...That's why you can believe me...
...You could have let us alone...
...There are too many Jews here already...
...400,000 apiece...
...It's true...
...not that time around...
...You will become Nazis unless you forget the Nazis...
...If you do, then you have to kill him...
...Aloud) I judge them by you...
...Why not hang them for not wanting to be shot...
...That's what our Fuehrer said...
...We can't put everybody on trial...
...So you were innocent...
...Go ahead and kill me...
...And how will my punishment accomplish that purpose...
...Never...
...If you'd got me back, you'd have had to get me back to Germany, where I came from...
...So did our Fuehrer when we exterminated the Jews...
...Because the murder of four million Jews must be atoned for...
...Of course, just as you will, if you die fighting...
...We are not answerable to anybody...
...It has forgotten the Nazis...
...You have never tried...
...Who says so...
...Is that the purpose of punishing me...
...The American Morris Cohen talked to said he wanted his country to enter the war to save the Jews...
...The Germans don't want you...
...Everywhere, always...
...Your Gestapo kidnapped me in Argentina and took me to a foreign country to kill me...
...Mayer...
...We don't argue with Nazis about justice...
...Because they smelled blood...
...Always that...
...The American prosecutor at Nuremberg said, "These crimes were not the aberrations of individuals...
...We were helpless and you killed us...
...But the Nuremberg Tribunal rejected the defense of "superior orders...
...Unfortunately, no...
...We Jews honor our Jewish philosophers...
Vol. 25 • April 1961 • No. 4
