2024 Hello , This week, I just discovered the movie Operation Fanale released last year tells the story of the young girl who helped catch Nazi War Criminal Adolf Eichmann. Sylvia Hermann was twelve years old in 1954 when she met and became friends with Eichmann's son. At the time, she didn't even know she was Jewish. Here's an updated edition of the story I first told you six years ago. Israeli intelligence agents got a tip in 1953 that Adolf Eichmann, the man who directed the extermination of four million German Jews, was alive and well in Argentina.
But it would take seven years and the help of a young woman to track him down and bring him to justice.
Girl Identified Adolf Eichmann on the Lam
Sylvia met Klaus Eichmann at the movies in Buenos Aires, home to many German Jews who'd fled the Nazi regime before WWII, and to a good number of Nazis who fled after. Both Sylvia and Klaus belonged to German families that had immigrated to Argentina. Possibly they became friends because they both spoke German and shared German culture, eventually they dated. Sylvia's half-Jewish father had been arrested by the Gestapo for being a socialist in 1935 and sent to Dachau for a short sentence. He managed to escape, but not before a severe beating left him
blind in one eye. Lothar Hermann moved to the Netherlands, where he married a German non-Jewish woman. They emigrated to Uruguay, then to Argentina where Sylvia was born in 1942. They did not raise Sylvia in the Jewish tradition, and her new friend Klaus' surname meant little to her.
Klaus' father Adolf Eichmann lived under a false name, Ricardo Klement, but it gives one an idea of how
comfortable Nazis were in Buenos Aires, that his oldest three sons retained the Eichmann name. Klaus never invited Sylvia to his home, though he visited hers a number of times. He told her his father had done "a lot" in the war, and freely made anti-Semitic comments, including voicing regret that the Nazis had not succeeded in killing all
Europe's Jews. Sylvia's father picked up on the Eichmann name right away. His parents and many other relatives had died in Nazi concentration camps. I read one unconfirmed report that Hermann wrote to Israeli authorities about Eichmann at this time. The
relationship between Syliva and Klaus ended when her family moved a hundred miles away. Then three years later, Sylvia read her blind father a newspaper article about the prosecution of Nazis for war crimes. The report mentioned a notorious Nazi who had never been found, Adolf Eichmann.
Could he possibly be Klaus' father? Sylvia's father contacted German authorities who in turn contacted Israeli intelligence. The Israelis needed
more evidence. They knew Argentina would be unlikely to extradite a suspected Nazi war criminal. If they were going to get Eichmann, they would have to kidnap him and sneak him out of the country in violation of Argentinian sovereignty. Isser Harel, head of the Mossad, explained why Israeli operatives couldn’t move quickly in this venture.
"The investigators could not risk the danger that their prey would learn he was being followed. Even more difficult was the necessity of identifying their man beyond the slightest doubt. The only thing worse than losing the real Eichmann
would be capturing the wrong one."
With no help from Israeli agents, Lothar Hermann and his daughter caught the train to Buenos Aries and located the house where Klaus lived. Sylvia walked up and knocked on the door. A woman answered. "Is this the Eichmann home?" Sylvia asked. Before the woman could answer, a middle-aged man appeared. Sylvia now asked if Klaus was home. The man said Klaus was working late. "Are you Herr Eichmann?" Sylvia asked innocently. He did not answer directly but admitted he was Klaus' father. Sylvia explained she was a friend looking for his son. They invited her in to wait When
Klaus arrived home, he apparently wasn't happy to see Sylvia and walked her to the bus stop. Still, this was not enough information for Mossad to act. Out of concern for her safety, Sylvia's father sent her to the United States where she lived the rest of her life.
Before Israelis acted on Sylvia's information, Eichmann and his family moved and it would be several more years before he was tracked to the San Fernando neighborhood in Buenos Aries and a newly
built house at 14 Garibaldi Street.
Harel told the story of Eichmann's capture in his 1975 book The House on Garibaldi Street. Before that few people knew about Sylvia and her father's role in identifying the Nazi war criminal.
The story is often called one of the best spy-thrillers of all time. Eichmann was nabbed on the street as he arrived home from work one day, held in a safe house, chained to a bed for ten days, then flown out of the country disguised as an injured member of an El-Al flight crew. You
can read a short version here...
Below Eichmann stands trial in Israel in 1961, secured in a bullet proof glass box.
In the first televised trial in history, Eichmann faced 15 charges, including crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and war crimes. The Mossad team that captured him were surprised he looked so ordinary, but as his horrendous crimes came out in court,
they stirred high emotions. People screamed and cried and wanted to attack and kill Eichmann on the spot.
He denied responsibility for the killing of millions of Jews, saying he was just following orders. Eichmann was convicted on all counts and sentenced to death. On May 31, 1962, he was hanged near Tel Aviv, his body cremated, and his ashes thrown into the sea.
Despite Syliva's critical identification of Adolf Eichmann, she and her father weren't recognized for their contribution for many years. “When we finally caught Eichmann in 1960, the chorus of famous and less famous
Nazi-hunters who claimed the credit for having found him became louder and louder,” Zvi Aharoni, the Mossad agent who interrogated Eichmann, said in a book about the capture. “The sad truth is that Eichmann was discovered by a blind man and that Mossad needed more than two years to believe the blind man’s story.” A $10,000 reward was offered by the Haifa Documentation Center to whoever provided information helping to locate Eichmann. Lothar Herman tried to claim the reward but was initially refused. Ten years after Eichmann's
arrest the Hermanns received official recognition the reward paid to Lothar. Sylvia lived a low-profile life in the US into her 80's, never talking about her part in the case.
Image Credit: James Bramel/Yad Vashem Since the movie came out last year, her bravery has become more well-known.
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Sources https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/what-the-film-operation-finale-gets-wrong/
Ben Kingsley plays Adolf Eichmann in the movie Operation Finale. Oscar Isaac plays Peter Malkin, the Mossad agent who apprehended the Nazi criminal in 1961 in Argentina.
As often happens when Hollywood gets hold of history, some facts are sacrificed to tell a story suited to the big screen. Here's an
article about what the movie got wrong. The writer says in reality, the Mossad wasn’t all that anxious to catch Eichmann. “One of the great myths of the postwar era was that Israeli agents were constantly scouring hideouts all over the world, relentlessly tracking down Nazi war criminals,” Andrew Nagorski wrote in “The Nazi Hunters.” “In the early days of Israel’s existence, there was simply not enough time, energy, or desire to hunt Nazis.” Buy or rent the movie on
Prime.
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