In recognition of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a collection of materials from the 1961 Adolf Eichmann trial is now available through a new advanced search tool, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Monday.
The trove of 380,000 pages, which includes court documents, correspondence involving the prosecution and then-prime minister David Ben-Gurion, testimonies, letters, lists, and photographs, is known as the “Bureau 06 Records.” The Israel Police assembled the collection in preparation for Eichmann’s trial, the statement said.
One such testimony is that of Yehiel Dinur, an Auschwitz survivor who collapsed while testifying at the trial. Dinur also went by the pen name Ka-Tzetnik 135633, “Ka-Tzenik” being a wartime term for a concentration camp inmate and 135633 being the number the Nazis tattooed on his forearm.
Dinur discussed his journey to Auschwitz, saying, “I saw Gestapo officer Dreyer, infamous for overseeing liquidations, during the assembly of transports to the station. We were forced into the train car with beatings and gunfire. Packed so tightly, we couldn’t breathe.
“By the time we reached Auschwitz, half the car was lifeless... From a distance, I saw the tall chimneys emitting thick smoke and sparks. We had heard rumors of gas chambers and crematoriums but seeing it confirmed what we feared – this was death.”
In his testimony, Dinur also described his encounter with Eichmann.
“I saw him at the zentrale [headquarters] during a Sonderkommando visit,” Dinur said. “The officers referred to him as Eichmann. His gaze was piercing, hypnotic, and terrifying, as though he was looking at me through the eye sockets of the death’s head emblem on his cap. I will never forget that gaze.”
OCR Enhancement
Thanks to the documents in the collection being digitized and enhanced with optical character recognition technology, users can conduct searches by keywords, names, locations, events, and dates, and translate documents with automatic tools.
Eichmann was in charge of organizing the “Final Solution” to exterminate Jews in the Holocaust and was hanged in Israel on June 1, 1962, after being convicted of committing crimes against humanity.