MASS MURDERER #1 TRIES TO EVADE JUSTICE IN EICHMANN
The central task of the independent docudrama Eichmann, directed by Robert William Young, is to reveal how he was convicted. Although the drama features his kidnapping in Buenos Aires during 1960, and his signature on a document that he went to Israel of his own free will, the main focus is on seven months of interrogation in his prison cell by Avner Less (played by Troy Garity), whose extended family lost sixty members to the gas chamber, a clear conflict of interest. Filmviewers also view the family lives of both men, breaking the monotony. Eichmann (played by Thomas Kretschmann), of course, claims that he merely followed Hitler’s and Himmler’s orders to execute six million Jews and a half million gypsies, including a half million children, but Less is finally able to trap him with a crucial document, and his execution (after an appeal not covered in the film) follows in 1962. As credits role, a tape recording of Less delivers a message—Hitlers can never emerge in a democracy. Yet Hitler came to power in a democracy, so the purpose of the gratuitous sermon is unclear. (A more potent message is that Eichmann’s seizure was construed by the Israeli Supreme Court as the capture of a “fugitive from justice,” his trial a precedent for the principle of universal jurisdiction for serious offenses.) Nevertheless, having provided details about Eichmann not widely known, the Political Film Society has nominated Eichmann for best film on human rights of 2011. MH