The Eichmann trial

Summary: The capture of SS officer Adolf Eichmann by Israeli agents in 1960 and his subsequent trial by an Israeli court electrified the world. The public debate it sparked on where, how, and by whom Nazi war criminals should be brought to justice, and the international media coverage of the trial itself, was a watershed moment in how the civilized world in general and Holocaust survivors in particular dealt with the legacy of genocide on a scale never seen before. Historian Deborah E. Lipstadt gives us an overview of the trial and analyzes the effect that the survivors' courtroom testimony--which was itself not without controversy--had on a world that had until then never fully understood what those in the camps had actually experienced. As the world continues to confront the ongoing reality of genocide, this trial of the century offers a legal, moral, and political framework for coming to terms with unfathomable evil.