About Executing Eichmann

In 1961, former Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death by an Israeli court for his role in the mass killing of Jews during the early 1940s. Eichmann was eventually hanged, but his execution raised moral questions among the Jewish intelligentsia of the time, and that debate has continued into the present. There was no serious doubt that Eichmann, as one of the chief Nazi figures responsible for the implementation of the Final Solution, deserved to die. But some raised questions about both the trial process and the effect that his execution would have on Israel's identity and perceived role in the world (wondering whether his death would seem a matter of justice or revenge). Florence Jammot's remarkable documentary assembles a wide array of archival material that helps to place the overall discussion within the context of the day—taking cognizance of Israel's economic problems and the political realities that faced the nation's leaders, including David Ben-Gurion, but ultimately concentrating on the positions adopted by intellectuals such as Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem, Yehuda Bacon, and Hannah Arendt. Many of them pleaded unsuccessfully for a commutation of Eichmann's sentence, some arguing that Israel's representation of an ethical ideal was even more important than statehood. Along the way, present-day philosophers and historians revisit the debate, noting—and sometimes regretting—the centrality of the event to Israel's sense of mission, while also emphasizing its importance in keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust. The film has a few technical flaws—at one point an English interview with Arendt is overlaid with a French voiceover—but as a whole this is an important contribution to a fuller understanding of a key historical incident. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)