#7 Hunting Eichmann

I've been interested in the Holocaust for as long as I can remember.  I know that it sounds a little macabre to be interested in something as horrific as the deaths of so many people, but I have reasons.  I think whenever the Holocaust is brought up that everyone asks the question "how could that have happened?"  My interest in the Holocaust is an attempt to answer that question, but also a personal quest to make sure that I'd be the one with enough hutzpah to make a stand for innocent people.  It's the reason that I don't take many things at face value, especially when someone or a group of people is being demonized.  It's the reason that I'll spend hours researching political one liners.  It's the reason that I look for primary sources.  It's the reason that I'm a skeptic.

"Hunting Eichmann" is just as much about apprehending a Nazi war criminal as it is about coming to terms with the reality of the mass killings of World War II.  Adolph Eichmann was the SS Lt. Colonel in charge of the Final Solution.  He managed the transportation of the Jews to the ghettos, and to the concentration camps.  He oversaw the movement of millions of people, knowing full well that the end result would be their death.

The book was captivating.  It usually takes me a couple of weeks to get through an almost 14 hour book, but this one was less than a week.  I found myself listening to it while waiting for my kids to finish their school work, or while I was studying for my tests.  And of course, I looked for more housework to do so that I could listen longer.

My obsession with listening was motivated by wanting to follow the story of someone who had to pay for what he did.  I've followed stories of the victims, those that survived and those that didn't, but outside of Oskar Schindler, I haven't followed the story of any Nazis.  "Hunting Eichmann" follows his war years, the early post war years, his exodus to Argentina, his capture, his trial and his execution.  I can't say that when he was hanged, that I felt any sense of peace.  It's difficult to feel that a penance has been paid when so much life has been lost.  At first I thought that the book was about Eichmann, but upon finishing it, I feel that it really was more about the Israelis and their coming to terms with there being no way for retribution to be made.