The
Eichmann
Trial in
Retrospect
by Abba
Eban
Thesis
• He who cannot remember the past is
doomed to repeat it (Santayana)
Memory is the father of conscience
Paragraphs 1, 2, 3
• Examples of
evidence that
were examined at
Eichmann’s trials
are introduced
First one
• Memo about furnaces to gas bodies in
• Businesslike tone of the memo contrasts
with the horror of the content)
Second evidence
• Acknowledgement
of inquiries about
the furnaces
Paragraph four
• Eichmann’s direct
association with the
holocaust is revealed
• Head officer of the
Secret Service
Paragraph 5
• Explanation of the asphyxiation procedure.
An example of a factual one similar to the
one produced at the trial
• Descendants
of the
holocaust
victims can
never forget
Paragraph 8
• Discusses the consequences of being
Jewish during Eichmann’s years in power
Paragraph 9
• Holocaust is still alive in the people who
were in some way part of it
• People “who committed, suffered, or failed
to prevent these things.”
Paragraphs 10, 11
• Eban discusses whether the holocaust should
be wiped from the tablets of memory
• Trial shows the
sublime and the
worst in
human
nature
Paragraphs 12, 13
• To answer the
question “we must
look to the future and
not to the past”
• Human conscience
must be awakened.
14
• Technological advances were
implemented without understanding
humanity
• Science used without realizing
consequences
• ( we need to control our inner domain)
15,16
• The trial occurred not for vengeance, but
to teach that discrimination, taking place in
small beginnings, leads to vast and
uncontrollable disaster
• He believes in limiting free speech
17-20
• How Jews were not considered part of
humanity
• “Education is the central core of moral
progress.”
• Not a matter of vengeance, but to prevent
a reoccurrence: the past conditions the
present
• Renaissance artists showed the human
soul drawn upward and down