64 Friday, July 15, 1983
•
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
'Eichmann Interrogated' Covers 275 Hours of Interviews
By PROF. ARNOLD
AGES
TORONTO — "Eich-
mann Interrogated: Tran-
scripts from the Archives of
the Israeli Police."
edited by Jochen von Lang
and Claus Sibyll and trans-
lated from the German by
Ralph Manheim, with an
introduction by Avner W.
Less, has just been pub-
lished by Lester & Orpen
Dennys (American dis-
tributor: Farrar, Straus &
Giroux).
In 1960, some 20 years
after his participation in the
round-up of European Jews,
Adolf Eichmann was cap-
tured by Israeli agents in
Argentina and brought to
Israel to,-stand trial for his
crimes.
Avner W. Less was the
police interrogator assigned
to the Eichmann dossier be-
cause of his German back-
ground and experience in
police work. He spent 275
hours closeted with
Eichmann and from their
conversations 3,564 typew-
ritten pages of testimony
resulted.
The interrogation of
Eichmann as recorded in
this volume provides the
reader a matchless re-
cord of the Nazi mind, its
convoluted processes
and psychological in-
terstices. The tran-
scripts are important
also because while they
cover certain materials
dealt with at the
Adolf Eichmann and
Belsen.
Eichmann trial, most of
the testimony has not
been made public hereto-
fore.
This is not to suggest that
there are any sensational
revelations in the volume.
What emerges rather is a
more nuanced portrait of
the man whose chief obliga-
tion during World War II
was to arrange for the
shipment of Jews to the
Nazi death camps.
Throughout the mam-
moth interrogation sessions
Eichmann returned con-
stantly to the same princi-
ple — "Befehlsnotstand" —
literally, "command re-
straint." He repeated to
Less scores of times that
whatever he did was done in
response to direct orders
from above and that the re-
sponsibility for the death of
special
department
which the Nazis set up to
consolidate the "final
solution" of the Jewish
question the
euphemism for the an-
nihilation of European
Jewry.
Interrogator Less, who
had done considerable
homework on Eichmann's
role in the Holocaust before
he met the Nazi for the first
time, confronted the latter
on many occasions with in-
criminating documentary
evidence of Eichmann's in-
a crematorium at Bergen- iquitous activities.
Part of this evidence in-
six million Jews devolved cluded papers showing that
upon his superiors, Heyd- Eichmann had been present
at the 1942 Wannsee Con-
rich, Himmler and Pohl.
In his exchanges with the ference in Berlin when the
Israeli policeman, murder machinery was first
Eichmann tried to portray set in motion.
Eichmann's response to
himself as a friend of the
Jewish people, arguing that this evidence was the claim
in the pre-war years he had that his presence at the
attempted to secure the re- meeting was of no signifi-
lease of Austrian and Ger- cance. He was merely a
man Jews by facilitating minor officer who took no
their emigration. He told part in the deliberations.
Less that his work in the Eichmann was equally
Gestapo security agency in- adamant in denying any re-
volved his mastering of sponsibility for what was
modern Jewish history, occurring in the concentra-
tion camps.
Yiddish and Zionism. In
1937 he was sent to Pales-
When shown ample
tine to investigate the pos-
documentation, such as
sibility of large scale Jewish
affadavits by Rudolph
immigration into the coun- Hoess ( commandant of
try.
Auschwitz), Dieter Wis-
With the outbreak of liceny (an Eichmann
the war Eichmann be- subordinate) and others
came attached to the in-
attesting to Eichmann's
famous IV Bureau 4, a
complicity in the organ-
ization of the death
camps, the prisoner dis-
missed such indictments
as examples of cowardly
people trying to wriggle
out of their responsibility
for what had happened.
Many of the comments at-
tributed to him in which
he was alleged to have
celebrated the death of
European Jewry were
"pure theatre."
While Eichmann denied
steadfastly any role in the
operation of the death
camps (despite Hoess' tes-
timony that it was
Eichmann who had
suggested the use of prussic
acid for the gas chambers)
he did not deny knowledge
of them. There are several
sections in the transcripts,
moreover, where Eichmann
describes the scenes of in-
credible depradation which
he witnessed during visits
to Auschwitz and other
camps.
Pushed to admit respon-
sibility for the Holocaust,
Eichmann would go only so
far as to acknowledge his
role in arranging for the
transport of Jews from var-
ious European centers to
the concentration camps.
Interrogator Less tried on
several occasions to get
Eichmann to see the con-
nection between his role as
transporter of Jews to the
concentration camps and
the subsequent fate which
awaited them there
Eichmann was willing to
concede a general involve-
ment IAA no specific respon-
sibility in the actual kil-
lings. Protestations of inno-
cence were a constant in the
Eichmann testimony.
Through almost 300
hours of intense interro-
gation _ Eichmann's
robotoid persona never
cracked. No matter how
incriminating the evi-
dence he would always
pary his interlocutor's
thrusts by denying the
veracity of statements
cited or by justifying his
own behavior on the
basis of obedience to
oaths he had taken.
In one pathetic exchange
Eichmann told Less that he
would never again take an
oath even in the courtroom
where he would be tried be-
cause he was now being
called to account for the
consequences of oaths he
had taken to Hitler.
It would take a battery of
psychiatrists to unravel
the Eichmann personality._
One thing they would un-
doubtedly agree upon —
that Eichmann was for all
intents and purposes a well
adjusted individual.
And that is what is espe-
cially terrifying in reading
the Less transcripts. If such
phlegmatic individuals
could be transformed into
such ruthless and compe-
tent executioners, what
does this tell us about man
in general?
University Life Presents Unique Problems for Israeli Students
By J. CHESKY
other universities do not
have that particular
Israel's university year problem. For instance,
opened last September with the Hebrew University
nearly 70,000 registered for has men and women
full-time studies at the students on alternative
country's six major univer- floors.
sities. Of them, 70 percent
The Hebrew University
are undergraduates and however, has its own prob-
one-fourth are in their first lems, one of which is that it
year.
has two parallel student
Of the major universities councils, neither of which is
— Tel Aviv, the Hebrew recognized by the univer-
University, Ben-Gurion sity. That dispute is now in
University of the Negev, arbitration.
Bar-Ilan, Haifa and the
The Israeli student is
Technion, Tel Aviv is the older than his counterparts
largest, with 17,000 stu- from most western coun-
dents.
tries because he enters uni-
The Hebrew University, versity after the army.
with its four campuses, is There are many married Is-
the most sprawling. It is raelis at university. "For
also the most politically these reasons," says the
volatile. The school year Hebrew University assis-
opened with a strike by the tant dean of students, "he is
lecturers, who are protest-
less involved in university
ing the erosion of their life than the regular stu-
salaries.
dent abroad. He wants to
Ben-Gurion University
finish as quickly as possible,
is involved in a dispute
get his degree and start
between religious stu-
making a living.
dents and non-Orthodox
It is regrettable that Is-
dormitory students over raeli students don't seem to
the issue of mixed dor- have the time for the in-
mitories. Most of the tense intellectual experi-
World Zionist Press Service
ence that universities pro-
vide abroad. In fact, the
2,000 overseas students at
the Hebrew University are
far more interested in ex-
tracurricular activities
than the Israelis."
Because Israel is, a
young state, there are no
really old universities.
Even the Hebrew Uni-
versity established on
Mount Scopus in
Jerusalem in 1918, is far
from old. In the 1948 war,
the campus was virtually
cut off from the rest of Is-
Students in the - library on the Hebrew University
rael, because it became
campus
in Jerusalem where books are requested by
an Israeli enclave in computer.
Jordanian-held territory.
So a new campus was
campus gives one the feel- five ways. -
built down below on
ing of walking through a
As in other sectors in Is-
Givat Ram, near the
computer, with its color- rael, many of the university
linesSet.
coded, numbered halls, students were called up for
In 1967, with the reunifi- arched four-meter-high reserve duty in the war in
cation of Jerusalem, Mount windows, skylights and ac- Lebanon. The country's
coustic ceilings.
universities made special
Scopus became accessible
Its library, while not as arrangements to compen-
and the construction of a
large as the National Li- sate, giving them more time
modern campus began. To-
brary on the Givat Ram to prepare for exams and
day, it is nearly complete as
campus, is ultra modern, allowing them free use of
an indoor campus, with the
buildings connected by cor= with computer terminals, photocopiers. Dormitory
rather . than c :d rent was not charged for the
ridors because of the heavy
catalogues.
time students were away
rains and high winds in
More than on any other and special arrangements
winter. A walk through the
campus, disputes between were made to allow students
Jewish and Arab students to pay university fees in in-
erupt at the Hebrew Uni- stallments.
versity. Last year, one re-
Until last year, the Israeli
sulted in violence.
student was not interested
When the disputes in volunteering for commu-
turned violent, the uni- nity assistance programs.
versity stepped in and The head of the community
appointed two commit- development program at
tees, to punish the guilty the university, Yair Sagi,
and to help the Arab stu- believes this is because of
dents deal with their the heavy personal com-
frustrations in construc- mitments Israeli students
have.
However,
generous
scholarships for participa-
tion in such programs has
helped boost their enroll-
ment to about 1,500. The
main volunteer program is
PERAH. Students adopt
youngsters from poor
neighborhoods, help them
with their studies and taken
them to programs at the
university and to museums.
Another • successful
program is leadership
training. Students from
underprivileged back-
grounds are taught the
dynamics of poor
neighborhoods and how
the Israeli system relates
to them. "The idea of the
program is to train citi-
zens to become involved
in their neighborhoods,
not as professional social
workers, but as ordinary
citizens who are willing
to give of their free time,"
Sagi explains. The pro-
gram also arranges job
interviews for its
graduates at develop-
ment towns and commu-
nity centers, with the
hope of placing them
where they can help.
Sagi feels that Israeli
students are becoming more
aware of the community.
The fact that 1,500 people
volunteered for his program
this year, as opposed to
practically no volunteers
five years ago, would seem
to prove him right. Within
the next five years, he hopes
to boost that figure to 4,000.