May 11, 1960
Mossad Captures Adolf Eichmann in Argentina
Historical context
On this day, May 11, 1960, Israeli agents captured Adolf Eichmann near Buenos Aires. He was tried in Jerusalem in 1961 and hanged in 1962.
Archive record
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- Date
- May 11, 1960
- Verified sources
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On this day, Israeli agents seized Adolf Eichmann near his home in a Buenos Aires suburb. Living as Ricardo Klement, he had organized deportations of Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe, including the 1944 deportation of more than 400,000 Jews from Hungary. After 1938 he had helped run the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna. He escaped U.S. custody after the war and reached Argentina.
Lothar Hermann, a Holocaust survivor in Argentina, and his daughter Sylvia identified the family after Sylvia dated Eichmann’s son Klaus. Fritz Bauer in Frankfurt received the information and it reached Israeli authorities. The 1960 capture was carried out by Israeli agents, not by Simon Wiesenthal.
Eichmann was flown to Israel on 20 May 1960. David Ben-Gurion announced the capture to the Knesset on 23 May. Tried in Jerusalem in 1961, he was convicted and hanged on the night of 31 May–1 June 1962.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Operation Eichmann · Yad Vashem · Yad Vashem View source
- Adolf Eichmann · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum · Holocaust Encyclopedia View source
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