Fifty Years since Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem

“When I stand before you O Judges of Israel, to lead the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann, I do not stand alone. With me are six million accusers. But they cannot rise to their feet and point their finger at the man in the dock with the cry ‘ J’accuse’ on their lips for they are now only ashes – ashes piled high on the hills of Auschwitz and the fields of Treblinka and strewn in the forests of Poland.”

With these words, fifty years ago this month, Israel’s Attorney General Gideon Hausner opened his case against Adolf Eichmann, one of the prime instigators of the Final Solution ( annihilation of  the Jews in Europe.)

Eichmann was found and kidnapped by the Israeli Mossad ( secret service) after a long painstaking search  in Argentina. He was smuggled aboard a  plane and brought to Israel, to Jerusalem, to stand trial for the crime of genocide of the Jewish people.

 

Throughout his trial he sat, totally expressionless, in his bullet-proof glass cage – through grave accusations and grueling, horrifying testimonies.

Eichmann’s trial was a turning point  for many people:

It had a profound effect on the world’s outlook on the Holocaust. Live television coverage kept viewers all over the world informed   day after  day constantly hearing about the horrors that the Germans  perpetrated.                                                                      It also gave holocaust survivors in Israel ‘permission’ to retell the terrors  they went through.   Until then they had felt they had  to suppress their stories and to try to become the consummate  ‘sabra’ – tough, brave and responsible for their own destiny.

This facade didn’t mesh well with the picture of the  victims of  the gas chambers and concentration camps, and so they had been encouraged to ‘forget’ their past.                                              

But when the trial opened, the nightmares and memories resurfaced and flooded out and the silence of thousands of  survivors was finally broken.

The new generation of Israelis looked at their relatives /neighbors/ fellow soldiers / work colleagues who had survived  Hitler’s inferno in a completely new light.

They learnt that bravery and courage doesn’t always have to show itself in physical fighting, but can be seen in retaining a human character in the face of inhuman treatment; in helping others under conditions when you could barely keep yourself alive.

Eichmann’s capture and televised trial showed  the world to what depths of depravity  human beings can descend.

Now  50 years later, there are people who want to deny that it ever happened.

No Holocaust.

No ghettos.

No round-ups and transportations in airless cattle trucks to suffocate to death,en route to being slaughtered

No concentration camps where millions were beaten and tortured to death and  fatal medical experiments were carried out.

No gas-chambers spewing human  smoke.

No death marches.

No  total destruction of hundreds of Jewish villages and communities.

Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial to the Holocaust, has now put 200 hours of  the Eichmann trial  on YouTube so the testimony and the truth can be heard once again  by all. ……… But  probably the only ones  who want to hear it  are those who  know that it’s true.

We must continue to bear witness and show the insidious lies of the Holocaust deniers.

Prayer for the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces

Wishing you all a  Chag Sameach , a Happy Pesach (Passover) and may G’d  bring  peace, security, safety and stability  to His  Land and People.

 

Pesach (Passover) cleaning

In one corner lie mounds of rubbish (garbage if you’re reading this in the United States) and inside the cupboard shine the clean, empty, re-covered shelves, waiting to be filled with Pesach (Passover) products.

(that opened packet of crisps on the top shelf was my reward for all hard work. It won’t be there for long!)

 

Shop til you drop has  a completely new meaning before Passover.

OK I admit it, that pile is also not the most nutritious section of my shopping but it’s what was on the floor when I got my camera out!

Pesach cleaning is my nemesis. I love it and hate it. I hate the thought and the necessity – but I love the result.

And I know that without the necessity it would never get done.

For those of you not in the know, before Passover the house basically gets turned upside down and inside out swept and scrubbed, washed and wiped, cleared. and cleaned, tidied and traumatized – and I didn’t just use that word because it went well with the flow, but my poor house doesn’t know what’s hit it.

All year it’s left alone to gather dust and disorganization and wallow calmly undisturbed – and suddenly, without any warning, over a three week period around spring time it gets hit by a cleaning tornado.

The blessing of cleaning for Passover is that there’s a finite time – it all has to be ready by ………. well this year it’s April 18^th – after that ………………..too late.

Now if I had to rely on the vague possibility of spring cleaning at some time or other, it would never happen.

To all my millions of fans and blog readers  (after all my hard work I’m entitled to exaggerate slightly) I wish  you all a Happy Pesach / Easter.

Don’t work too hard – take time to relax and appreciate all we are blessed with.

This time last year my sister in Teaneck, New Jersey was homeless after a terrible storm. It has taken a full year of building, decorating and negotiating with insurance companies, but a few weeks ago they  finished the rebuilding and decorating.

Thinking back serves as a reminder that there are plenty of things far worse in life than Pesach cleaning.

HOW CAN JUDGE GOLDSTONE MAKE AMENDS TO ISRAEL?

“ Take a feather pillow- cut it open and let the feathers scatter in the wind. Wait a day and then go and gather up all those feathers”

The above scenario is, according to tradition, what the tale-bearer  was told to do to make amends for the ‘lashon Hara”   (disparaging remarks) he spoke   about someone .

In other words, it is impossible to truly make amends for sullying someone’s name.

 

How much worse is it when an ‘eminent ‘ ‘impartial’ judge publishes a damning judgment against an entire country, the State of Israel, full of lies, false accusations  and fabrications. Judge Goldstone’s report which accused Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity, caused hatred against the country , destroyed its name and the reputation of its army, one of the most humane armies ever to reluctantly take  up arms.

Eighteen months later, for some reason which is not yet clear, Goldstone decides to admit that his report was without foundation, totally wrong and was  set up to be biased against Israel from the start.

Is Judge Goldstone’s conscience clear now after that op-ed in the Washington Post?

It shouldn’t be.

Now he has to travel the world from country to country, to the United Nations and all European and international organizations and gather up the  feathers sullied with lies, hatred and Jewish blood that he has thrown to the wind.

Only when he has confessed his libelous and slanderous crimes  to all those  he persuaded to accept his report as ‘factual and honest’ ,will he be able to beg Israel’s forgiveness.

And still it is too late – for those feathers can never be gathered up again.  Words, once said, can  never be unsaid and reports once written can never be unwritten.