MODERN-DAY EICHMANNS

I was of late reading a book about the capture of Adolf Eichmann, the SS administrator of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” Eichmann helped carry out the eradication of the Jews from the earth. The plan ultimately failed, but Eichmann had wanted it to succeed. Another way to describe Eichmann’s role is that he was chief logistician of the Holocaust. He drew up the blueprints. An idealogue, he believed in his work. His work included planning the routes of the deportation trains, loading the prisoners into the train cars, and scheduling the arrivals at the killing centers: Auschwitz; Belzec; Treblinka. It was harder than it looked.

The success and popularity of the Nazi party in Germany—for one thing—convinced Eichmann that, as mass murder was so popularly accepted, it could not possibly be wrong. How could so many good and sincere people be mistaken?