All language subtitles for BBC.The.Eichmann.Show.Documentary.1080i.HDTV.docuindex.org.MVGroup_track3_[eng]

during the Second World War.

This programme contains some
scenes which some viewers
may find upsetting.

I'm in front of the building where,
in only a few hours' time,

what's been described as "the trial
of the century" will begin.

And the eyes of the world will
fall upon Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi

responsible for organising the mass
murder of six million European Jews.

On April 11th, 1961,

former Nazi Obersturmbannfuhrer
Adolph Eichmann

of the German paramilitary
organisation known as the SS,

entered the
District Court of Jerusalem

to be tried by the
Government of Israel.

Eichmann had been a Senior State
official in Germany

during the Second World War.

He was in charge of the forced
movement of millions of Jews

across the continent of Europe.

Many were transported and
killed in concentration camps.

One of the survivors of the camps

and a witness at the Eichmann
trial was Yehuda Bacon.

At the age of 14, Bacon had
been an inmate of Auschwitz.

There was this very famous glass
cell where they put in Eichmann.

He couldn't look longer
than a very short time.

He didn't want to look into my eyes.

TRANSLATION ON FOOTAGE: 'The
Commander took pity on us and said,

' "Children, it's very cold outside.

' "Perhaps you can get warm
in the gas chambers." '

The trial of Adolph Eichmann
was recorded for television

and shown in 37 countries.

Stay in close on Eichmann.

Copy.

It was the world's first global
TV documentary series.

Camera one on the judge's bench.

A member of the production team
who sat in the control room

was Alan Rosenthal.

He was just 21 years old
at the time.

Then I came into the gallery
and looked at him -

a man in a black suit, quite tall,
rather scrawny, rat-like fellow,

thin-faced, twitching eyes, gestures
that he was trying to control.

The trial of Eichmann
lasted four months.

HE SPEAKS IN GERMAN

A committed member
of the Nazi party,

in 1933, Eichmann was appointed
head of the department of the SS

responsible for Jewish affairs.

In 1942, the policy of the
German state towards the Jews

in all the territory that they
controlled changed dramatically.

A policy of forced migration
became one of mass murder.

Gabriel Bach was deputy prosecutor
at Eichmann's trial.

The Gestapo and the SS
and the Nazi regime...

The only one who was kept
all during the war

as Head of the Jewish Department
of the SS was Eichmann.

In court, Eichmann was accused
of helping to organise

the mass murder of
millions of Jews...

..a programme of murder
that cost the lives

of some 1.5 million children.

The charge sheet reflected the deep
hatred Eichmann felt for the Jews,

a remarkable hatred noticed
even by his fellow officers.

I was sitting in my office in
this prison and I was reading

the autobiography of Rudolf Hess.
He was the commander of Auschwitz.

Hess explained, "When I
and my colleagues had to push

"the children into the gas chambers,
my knees were getting a bit wobbly.

"But I was always afterwards
ashamed of this weakness of mine

"because Eichmann explained
to us that it was

"especially the Jewish children
that have to be killed first.

He says, "Because where is the logic
that you kill a generation

"of older people and you leave alive
a generation of possible avengers

"who can afterwards
create that race again?"

In his glass box, Eichmann's manner
was lifeless and unemotional,

his voice sharp and high-pitched.

HE SPEAKS IN GERMAN

These traits made it hard for people
at the time to read his mind

and form part of the
living memory of people today

who were involved in the trial.

When you looked at him,
of course you wondered,

"What was he thinking?"

You were wondering, "Who is this
man? What's going through his mind?"

For me, it was a question of
how could such an evil arise

and get so much power?

He can do everything.
Kill, do this, do that.

Our generation has
to tell of the abyss

which is, in my opinion,
in every human being.

Who is Eichmann?

What really was this man and how
on Earth could this situation

of the Holocaust come about?

Those are the questions that
start off from the trial

that go with you forever,
not just on a day or a week,

but are totally resounding with you.

How could this happen?

How could people behave that way?

TRANSLATION ON FOOTAGE: 'I felt him
take the child from my arms.

'The child cried out and was shot.'

LOUD GUNFIRE

Get close on his eyes.

Close on his eyes.

With statements from
over 100 witnesses

and consideration
of 16,000 documents,

the prosecution took 56 days
to make its case

in the trial of Nazi war criminal
Adolph Eichmann,

in Jerusalem, 1961.

It was a comprehensive record of
what was described at the time as

"a gigantic human
and national disaster".

Gideon Hausner, the Attorney General
of the State of Israel,

in his opening address said,

"I am speaking in the name
of six million who are not here

"to accuse you because
you killed them."

So that was the main thrust
of the prosecution.

Eichmann had been an important
figure in the Nazi regime

of Adolph Hitler in Germany.

He had been responsible for managing
the deportation and forced migration

of Jews from their homes, right
across the continent of Europe.

When Germany was defeated
by the Allied powers in 1945,

Eichmann escaped into hiding
in Argentina, South America,

taking the name Ricardo Klement.

Investigators tracked him down

and in 1960, he was snatched by
secret agents and brought to Israel

to be tried for his crimes
against humanity.

'Do you know now what
these trucks were?'

TRANSLATION ON FOOTAGE: 'Yes,
now I know what they were.

'They were trucks where
people were locked up inside

'and where gas was
piped into the trucks.'

The survivors were very happy that
somebody showed an interest in them.

Before that, nobody really took
a serious interest in us.

At the trial, Yehuda Bacon
shared his experience of

the extermination camp of Auschwitz
and the suffering and humiliation

of those selected for murder
in its eight gas chambers.

Bacon was 14 years old at the time.

There were people
who didn't know what it is

and where they go, nothing.

The SS told them, "Hurry up,
where you put your clothes,

"put your shoes nicely together.

"There's soup or coffees
waiting for you."

And they went in and
then what they saw,

they saw a shower.

It has no holes.

So there was a shower only to
bluff you in the first minute.

People who couldn't...
Who were cripples, I mean,

who had artificial legs
and so on and so forth,

there was a kind of slide.

They throw the people and they
landed just before the gas chamber.

Auschwitz, Treblinka,
Belzec, Sobibor and Chelmno

were some of the most
important extermination camps

listed in the indictment
of Eichmann.

Chief Prosecutor Hausner's
assistant remembers the testimony

of one camp survivor in particular,

a memory made famous by the
feature film Schindler's List.

The survivor had been deported
by freight train from Hungary

to Auschwitz in May 1944 with
his wife, 12-year-old son

and 2½-year-old daughter.

The SS Commander, when he came
there, he sent his wife to the left.

Clearly that went
to the gas chambers.

"The little girl to the left...

"and your son, your son -
run after your mother."

And the witness said, "I looked, my
wife was swallowed up in the crowd.

"I couldn't see her any more.

"And my son was swallowed up,
I couldn't see him.

"But my little daughter,
she had a red coat.

"And that little red dot,
getting smaller and smaller,

"this is how my family
disappeared from my life."

Now, I heard this for the first time

and my little daughter was exactly
two and a half years old

and I had bought her a red coat
two weeks before that,

and when I heard
the witness say this,

it cut off my voice completely.

I suddenly couldn't utter a word.

The television was on me

and I started playing
with my documents.

It took perhaps two
or three minutes.

HE SPEAKS IN GERMAN

That was a feeling that hasn't
left me until this very day.

There was one witness
who summed up everything for me.

His name was Yehiel Dinur

and on the stand, he was asked
to describe Auschwitz.

And he said, "For us, Auschwitz
was like another planet."

TRANSLATION ON FOOTAGE: '..out of
this planet of Auschwitz.'

Auschwitz, another dark,
malevolent planet

casting its evil shadow
on the Earth.

And he said this...

and then he collapsed on the stand.

Camera three, ready.

Take three.

Camera four, ready.

The trial of Adolph Eichmann was the
first documentary television series

that was broadcast around the world.

Stay on the bench of the judges.

It took place in 1961,

16 years after the end
of the Second World War.

For prosecutors and survivors alike,

it was an historic opportunity
to share some of the truth

of the murder of six million Jews
in the Holocaust.

The importance of the trial is
that it told the Jewish story

of the Second World War
for the first time.

It gave a face to the Nazis.

Before the trial started,
some teachers called me and said

that there are many
young people in Israel

who don't want to hear
about the Holocaust.

Why? They feel a certain
feeling of shame.

He cannot understand
how millions of people

can let themselves be destroyed
without defending themselves.

But we wanted to show how they
were misled up to the last minute

and couldn't defend themselves.

The recording of the trial
was the brainchild

of American television producer
Milton Fruchtman.

Fruchtman had made
documentary films in Israel

and features in the United States.

In the television drama
The Eichmann Show,

Fruchtman is played by actor
Martin Freeman.

On Fruchtman's team,

a young production assistant,
Alan Rosenthal.

The first time I met Milton,

here was this producer who
I knew had come from Hollywood,

so I was a little bit in awe.

But in fact, he turned out
to be a very, very nice guy.

A good guy, a mensch, as we used
to say in Hebrew or Yiddish.

Leo. Milton. Leo Hurwitz.
I cannot tell you how...

Fruchtman hired Leo Hurwitz to
direct the recording of the trial.

Hurwitz had made social documentary
films on poverty, hunger

and racism in the United States.

He'd been blacklisted in the 1950s
for his Communist sympathies

and then couldn't get work.

The team that produced the
recording of the Eichmann trial

have acute memories of the man.

I'd like to introduce you
to your camera operators.

'He was one of the greats
of American documentary.

'He was nervous. He was edgy.'

Nobody could do the job
as well as he could.

He could get very agitated
and quite cross about things.

He was a very intense man, really.

OK, stop, stop. Stop!

If something went wrong,
he would let you know.

The Israeli Prime Minister agreed
to the recording of the trial

only if it was approved by the
judges presiding over the case.

What is clearly taking place...

We are here to...
on the cameras.

Fruchtman was in for a shock.

The three judges
came into the courtroom

and the Chief Justice Landau
looked out and said,

"There will be no television.

"There will be no cameras
in this courtroom."

The judges had thought that cameras

would distract from
proceedings of the trial.

Well, when I looked out, I realised
I had made a big mistake.

I had left cameras
out in the open, visible.

And of course, it could be
disturbing for the witnesses.

They could become self-conscious,
concerned about testifying

and all that sort of thing.

Fruchtman and Hurwitz came up
with an ingenious solution.

Conceal the cameras
by inserting them

into the walls of the courtroom.

The judges approved.

Take three.
'And on the following day...'

In the recordings of
proceedings of the trial,

the camera direction of
Leo Hurwitz was exceptional,

as his son, Tom, remembers.

Camera four, ready.

Let's go close on Eichmann.

No, no, not the witness.

Eichmann.

Here we had the drama unfold
shot by shot,

question by question,

the way a film would be cut.

From close-up to close-up,

from reaction shot to reaction shot,

from detail and hands
and cutaways to the audience.

It made it a real live drama.

In the production control room,
the atmosphere was intense.

I'd been in control rooms before.

Not many, but I had been in a few and
they were kind of lively and tense.

But this one was deadly serious.

For the production team,

the experience was one
they would never forget.

TRANSLATION ON FOOTAGE: 'I lay near
my wife and two children

'and I wanted them to shoot me.'

In the television room, for four
hours, you've been looking at hell.

You've been looking at the
blackness of the human soul

and you'd go out
and it was too much.

You'd go out and there'd
be blue skies, the birds...

Kids were playing in the street.

To adjust these two worlds
was one of the hardest things.

A world of blackness,
evil and darkness

and a world of light,
of humanity, of life.

It became very depressive,
actually, depressing you.

It could easily get you into
an awful mood of misery, really,

that you couldn't get out of.

You had to be very careful
about that.

The trial was a landmark
moment in history.

'We found girls carrying
discs with boys names...'

And for many of those who took part,
a pivotal moment in their lives.

The trial of Adolph Eichmann was
a key moment in the development

of the State of Israel.

It opened a new chapter
in the country's history,

just 12 years after the
War of Independence ended in 1949.

I'll never forget the first
moment of that trial

when these judges came into
the courtroom with the emblem
of Israel behind them

and that man who's only
object in life had been
to destroy that people.

When he stood up to attention

before a sovereign Jewish nation
and sovereign state,

the importance of the creation
of the State of Israel

suddenly became clearer to me.

The trial was intentionally framed
to influence public opinion,

to raise awareness of the scale
of the murder of Jews.

TRANSLATION ON FOOTAGE:
'But it was his word

'that put gas chambers into action.
He lifted the telephone...

'and railroad cars left for
the extermination centres.'

Gideon Hausner made it appear
as though there were only

two Adolphs responsible for the
destruction of the Jewish people

during the Second World War,

Adolph Hitler and Adolph Eichmann,

with almost nothing
and no-one in between.

So it was an extraordinarily
powerful case.

HE SPEAKS HIS OWN LANGUAGE

It had taken some six months to
carefully select 112 survivors

to testify at the trial for maximum
impact upon the viewing public.

THEY SPEAK THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

TRANSLATION ON FOOTAGE: 'The SS man
came up.

'He took the baby
from my sister's arms

'and handed it over to my mother.

'Then he also took the
five-year-old boy to my mother.'

TRANSLATION: 'And they are
no longer alive?' 'No.'

'And no longer is your mother?'
'No.'

In the words of an Israeli
journalist who covered the trial

for a national newspaper, "What
had been silenced and repressed

"gushed out and became
common knowledge."

HE SHOUTS IN OWN LANGUAGE

Over 80,000 Israelis attended
court during the trial

and the stories of the atrocities
that were shared shocked the world.

At the heart of many of the
testimonies lay the terrible truth

about the largest
extermination camp of all...

Auschwitz.

Prosecutor Gabriel Bach
remembers the testimony

of one survivor in particular.

He was one of 200 children
who were put into a gas chamber,

the doors locked...

And then he described how
the children began to sing

in order to give themselves courage.

And when at first nothing happened,

the children began
to shout and to cry.

A train had arrived
with potatoes at Auschwitz

and there were not enough
SS men to unload it.

So the commander of the SS there
had the glorious idea,

"Why not use some of the children
to help unload the train

"before they are killed?"

So they opened the door
and they took out 20

of the nearest to the door,
he was one of those.

And then they closed the door

and the other 180
were killed right away.

Auschwitz was a filthy,
dirty place run by...

barbaric, sadistic, murderous men,

in which the lives of ordinary human
beings were made utterly miserable,

tortured, humiliated
before they were killed.

The recording of
witnesses' experience for television

by producer Milton Fruchtman
and his team,

and its broadcast to audiences
around the world,

sharpened global understanding
of Nazi murder as genocide

and as a distinct chapter
of history.

We recorded over 1,000
miles of videotape.

Excerpts of the trial
were sent to 56 countries

throughout the world
that had television.

80% of the German population...

had seen between 30 minutes and
one hour of television excerpts

of the Eichmann trial.

The accused also sought to
influence public opinion

through his appearance
and manner in court.

During extensive interrogation
and cross-examination,

he sought to portray himself
as a particular kind of character.

HE SPEAKS IN GERMAN

Eichmann saw himself
as a soldier, a warrior.

He believed that
he was an honourable man

doing a difficult but important job.

He was a good citizen,
not a monster.

And that's what he wanted
the world to understand

and posterity to understand.

Influencing public opinion
was central to the trial,

for both the prosecution
and Eichmann himself.

But this was a judicial process

and if Eichmann failed in his
defence, one fate awaited him...

execution.

At his trial in Jerusalem in 1961,
Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann

looked every bit
the smart professional,

in his sharp suit, studious
spectacles and rigorous manner.

But did this cold correctness
conceal a ruthless character?

At one point Eichmann said,
"I delivered them to the butcher."

And by that he meant,

"I wasn't responsible

"for the mass shootings in Russia,

"I wasn't responsible
for the extermination camps,

"but I was responsible
for registering Jews,

"for rounding them up,
for getting them on the trains,

"for transporting them across Europe

"to places where they would
be unloaded and murdered
within an hour."

SHOUTS IN GERMAN

In the 1930s, before the outbreak
of the Second World War,

Eichmann was a senior figure in the
Security Service of the Nazi Party

in Germany, with responsibility
for what was described as

"de-Jewification" of the country.

From 1939 onwards,

as perception of the Jews
in Nazi Germany changed,

so the policy of forced migration
changed over time

to one of extermination.

Eichmann and the men around
him believe they're in a war

to the death, "It's them or us.

"We exterminate the Jews
or they exterminate us."

The Jews were the enemy.

They were a global power involved
in a great international conspiracy

against the German people and
the Aryan volk, the Aryan people.

Six million Jews, about two thirds
of the Jewish population of Europe,

died in the systematic programme
of state-sponsored mass murder
that followed.

Almost half of these were killed
in extermination camps...

..the remainder in ghettos that
isolated Jews from non-Jews

across the continent...

..by mobile killing squads and by
the forced movement of prisoners.

Eichmann was blamed for it all.

TRANSLATION ON FOOTAGE: 'After
everything had been wrung out of

'them, yet he was the one who
planned, initiated and organised

'or instructed others to
spill this ocean of blood.'

Eichmann's defence...

he was an unfortunate middle-ranking
officer in state security,

responsible solely for
the transportation of Jews.

HE SPEAKS IN GERMAN

'He depicted himself as hapless,

'as someone who really had
no choice in the matter.'

He wasn't making up the policy,
he was simply implementing it

and it wasn't up to him
to question what the big bosses,

as he used to call them,

had decided should be
the fate of the Jews.

Through most of the trial, Eichmann
sat and listened to proceedings

alone, unmoved, looking
at times almost removed.

TRANSLATION ON FOOTAGE: 'I couldn't
have anticipated

'when I joined the Nazi Party...'

Under cross-examination,

his responses were detailed...

very detailed.

HE SPEAKS IN GERMAN

Eichmann's defence lawyer told him,

"Be boring, be bureaucratic.

"Be pedantic.

"You don't want to look a slavering
monster who wants to grab Jews

"and tear them limb from limb.
You want to present yourself

"as a sort of middle manager,
a rather harassed bureaucrat.

"That you're dealing with genocide
is something that should be

"as far away from your expressions,
your concerns, as possible."

At trial, Eichmann and the wider
world was exposed to the horror

of Nazi murder when films shot
at the time of the liberation

of the concentration camps
were shown to the court.

Cross-examined for 50 hours,
Eichmann's defence finally buckled.

TRANSLATION ON FOOTAGE: '..had been
told by the Reichsfuhrer...

'No, if the Reichsfuhrer
had told you that he was,

'would you have shot him?'

HE SPEAKS IN GERMAN

Prosecutors demonstrated

that he threw himself into tasks
with fervour.

He seized the initiative.

He had a choice.

If there was one moment, it was
the moment when the court heard

that he had told his colleagues in
Berlin in the last weeks of the war

that if he was going to
have to jump into his grave,

he would jump into his grave gladly,

knowing that he was taking
five million Jews with him.

Now, that disrupted any image
people had of him

as someone who just took orders
in a rather mindless way.

And I think after that, for him,
there was no going back,

there was no getting him
out of that.

On 11th December 1961,

the three judges at trial presented
their 211-page judgment.

It took them 15 hours to read.

Eichmann was guilty of crimes
against the Jewish people,

against humanity, against Slovenes,
Poles and Gypsies,

guilty of war crimes.

And he was sentenced to death.