The Nazi Hunters

On April 15, 1944, the day of his forced exile from his village of Dobradovo, Hungary, Zeev Sapir is a 20 years old. Living with his parents and five siblings, he is roused from his home and ordered to leave by local gendarmes—armed police collaborating with the Nazis. Sapir and his family are moved to the town of Munkacs, into a disused factory ground. As the conditions deteriorate, Adolf Eichmann visits the group of displaced, promising them that their troubles are temporary, that they are being moved for their safety, and that they will be promised housing and work. However, they are instead sent by train to Auschwitz, where Sapir and his family are separated; he never sees them again. Sapir is given a tattoo, A3800, and forced to move bodies from the very gas chambers he believes his family were sent to and died in. Sapir himself expects to die; indeed, many are killed in order to conceal the camp's true purpose. Sent to the Gleiwitz concentration camp in late 1944, he is supposed to be executed but escapes into the forest, where he is rescued by the Russian army. Eighteen years later, in 1962, in Jerusalem, 38-year-old Sapir is again face-to-face with Adolf Eichmann. Following the war, he emigrated to Palestine, and became a teacher. He relates his first meeting with Eichmann, the horrors he faced in Auschwitz, and his escape from the concentration camps for the prosecutors, judges, and witnesses at Eichmann's trial. Above all, he identifies that the man under trial in Jerusalem is the same man Sapir saw during the war—Adolf Eichmann.

Sapir is critical for the story and its themes. By identifying Eichmann and testifying to his crimes, he is doing more than supporting the prosecution: he is also reconstructing the history that Eichmann tries to flee from, and destroy. To this end, Sapir's survival represents still one more aspect of the horror of the Holocaust—the attempt not merely to destroy lives and communitiesbut to erase history, and to suppress memory. His ability to stand before Eichmann, the court, and the world represents the victory of truth, justice, and the restoration of history.

Before being sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal lived and worked as an architect in Poland. During the Holocaust­, he lost his mother and his wife. Liberated by the American army, he dedicates himself immediately to going after those responsible. Having spent time in twelve separate camps, he is able to identify ninety-one influential Nazi commanders. Wiesenthal is hired by Allied Investigators, and first begins hearing about Adolf Eichmann from survivors and Jewish groups in Palestine and Europe. From this limited information, he begins to piece together Eichmann's role in the SS and Holocaust.

Wiesenthal is consummately determined—even obsessed—with finding those responsible for the Holocaust. Like many survivors who joined the hunt for Nazi war criminals, he feels a deep sense of personal obligation to find those responsible for the deaths of his friends and family. Wiesenthal also displays guilt for having survived when so many did not. Unlike some of the other professional spies and investigators, Wiesenthal cannot separate his own emotional trauma from the task, and is frequently rocked with doubt and despair as wrong turns are made, and the trail leading to Eichmann intermittently goes cold. However, Wiesenthal's deeply-personal motivation allows him to perseverewhen he fears the rest of the world is "moving on."

Sylvia Hermann is a teenage girl living in Buenos Aires in 1956. By chance, she meets Nick Eichmann in town and takes him to her father, Lothar, with whom she lives. Believing the Hermanns to be German expatriates like himself, Nick boasts of his father's former high rank in the Third Reich. Having read in a newspaper that Adolf Eichmann may be hiding in Argentina, Sylvia goes to investigate, finding a middle-aged living with the Eichmanns. Only a teenager, Sylvia has an intelligence and courage beyond her years; her initiative in seeking out the Eichmanns, with the help of her father, proves instrumental to the investigation.

Lothar Hermann is a resident of Buenos Aires and member of the German expatriate community. Few in the community know he is half-Jewish. Fewer know that he was imprisoned in 1936 at Dachau for socialist organizing, and was blinded by Gestapo beatings. Although Lothar hid his heritage and raised his daughter, Sylvia, to be Christian, he is nonetheless alarmed and intrigued at Nick Eichmann's disclosure, and he and Sylvia investigate. He quickly becomes certain that Nick Eichmann's father is none other than the fugitive Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. He will not be convinced otherwise, a characteristic that irritates the more "professional" investigators in the Mossad and Shin Bet. Early missteps cause the Israelis to lose faith in Lothar, though he is vindicated in the end.

Fritz Bauer is the Attorney General for Hesse, in West Germany. He is the son of a Jewish textile dealer, and spends nine months in a concentration camp. After the war, he returns to West Germany to help foster the new, democratic West German government. For Fritz Bauer, this means first and foremost bringing the perpetrators of the Holocaust to justice. In this role, Bauer is aggressive and persistent. In time, working with investigators such as Simon Wiesenthal, the whereabouts of Adolf Eichmann become his prime concern. Bauer's partnership with the Hermanns is significant, as it shows the scope—and riskiness—of his trust. Lothar Hermann tells Bauer in a letter that Adolf Eichmann is living in Buenos Aires. Like the Hermanns, Bauer is treated skeptically by Israeli security and intelligence agents. However, he is undeterred, threatening to attempt to extradite Eichmann formally if the Israelis do not act. Although he is unaware of the full risks of the mission, his impatience and tenacity spur the Mossad and Shin Bet to action.

Isser Harel is the Chief of the Institute of Intelligence and Special Operations, also known as the Mossad. He is 5-foot-2 and speaks in rapid Hebrew. He was born to a family of Orthodox Jews whose business was stolen in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917. He emigrated to Palestine with forged papers, and in 1942 joined the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary organization, and later its intelligence bureau, the Shai. Learning the skills of the trade rapidly, he runs Shai operations in Tel Aviv and wins the trust of David Ben-Gurion in 1948 by forecasting a Jordanian invasion from informant sources. After the founding of Israel, Harel goes from the Shin Bet—Israel’s internal investigatory bureau—to the Mossad, becoming its head by 1952. Harel's approach to intelligence and clandestine operations is highly energetic and bold, yet simultaneously cautious—even meticulous—and above all else, professional. Even with a case as explosive as Adolf Eichmann, Harrel takes measured steps, checking on the legitimacy of Fritz Bauer and verifying and reverifying Eichmann's status and identity in Buenos Aires. Harel is an intelligence professional, and has a more conventional approach than the prior investigators and hunters. This has both positive and negative consequences: his professional approach allows for better planning, but his caution frustrates others such as Simon Wiesenthal, Fritz Bauer, and the Hermanns. In fact, Harel's conventional view causes him to overlook Eichmann's "wretched little house" in Buenos Aires, in the mistaken belief that so prominent of a former Nazi could not possibly live there.

Despite this, Harel, being an intelligence professional, knows how personal motivations and emotions can compromise the work; this is a concern of his when choosing the team to capture Eichmann. He wants his men to be strongly motivated, yet knows that Eichmann is so desperately sought-after, that mistakes are more likely than usual. In some ways, Isser Harel's own cautiousness is an over-corrective reflex of the strength of his emotions and convictions. Personally charged by the Prime Minister of Israel, he is determined to catch Adolf Eichmann, yet unlike the others, is aware of the substantial risks involved. However, Isser Harel is not above calculated risks; consequently, he is a hands-on leader, go as far as flying to Argentina to personally oversee the final stages of the operation. This is another serious risk, yet one he deems necessary to the success of the operation. Isser Harel trusts his agents, yet knows that high-level decisions will have to be made with little time to spare. His feeling of responsibility, yet air of professional detachment is inspired by the knowledge that this mission is beyond any kind of personal feeling or desire for retribution, but has significance for the future of Israel, and all people.

Zvi Aharoni is the chief interrogator for the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security bureau. Aharoni is recommended by Haim Cohen, the Israeli Attorney General, and is known for his "cold intelligence"; he is deemed exactly the kind of person needed for the capture of Adolf Eichmann. Aharoni has misgivings about the way the operation has been conducted, particularly in regard to relying upon the non-professional Hermanns for the initial steps. However, he is completely loyal to Isser Harel, and sets off for Argentina at once to verify the Hermanns' story. In Buenos Aires, he lives up to his reputation for meticulousness and professionalism, using his extensive knowledge of the Buenos Aires area to track Eichmann to his humble residence, and obtaining a photograph of Eichmann to use in his eventual capture.

An interrogator by trade, Aharoni notably does not employ the harsh brutal methods of other Nazi hunters, preferring to trip up subjects by overwhelming them with detail. This method is vindicated in his interrogation of Eichmann, whose identity he verifies through a flurry of seemingly-unimportant questions. Having memorized Eichmann's entire biography, he has little trouble fishing for the right details. Once Adolf Eichmann is in their custody,Aharoni is also the most restrained emotionally, going as far as to bring Eichmann a glass of wine, to wear him down. Although this angers the others, it aids in persuading Eichmann to accept being flown to Israel for a trial.

Avraham Shalom is 33 years old when he is called upon by Isser Harel to join the team. Already the Shin Bet Deputy Head of Operations, his unassuming appearance and ease working undercover are sought after. Originally from Vienna, he has suffered personally from anti-Semitism before, having been beaten by his classmates at the age of 9, while his teachers did nothing. With the help of another Shin Bet agent, Rafi Eitan, he chooses the remaining members of the team.

The stress of this mission however, challenges Shalom. At the airport, he forgets his false name on his forged passport—an impossible mistake for an experienced agent. Once in-country, however, he becomes calmer, working through the initial tasks, such as securing the safehouses, obtaining the equipment, and tracking Eichmann more methodically.

Peter Malkin is a Shin Bet agent picked for his athletic ability, operational style of thinking, and skill with disguises. Expressive in his emotions—especially when compared to the others—he has a deeply-personal stake in the mission, as his older sister, Fruma, and her family perished in the Holocaust. It is decided that he will be the one to confront and physically overpower Eichmann, and he takes this task seriously, rehearsing over and over. Although a veteran of the Shin Bet, he knows that he will have extreme difficulty in controlling his feelings, in order to get the job done.

In Buenos Aires, the morning of the capture, Malkin is beset with the memories of those murdered in the Holocaust, but focused on the task. His professionalism is such that even when Eichmann is on trial in Jerusalem, he reveals to no one that he was responsible for helping bring the criminal in. He breaks his silence only to his mother, on her deathbed.