Hunting Eichmann (19 page)

Ben-Gurion was unequivocal that he wanted Eichmann taken alive, to stand trial in Israel for his crimes against the Jewish people. Cohen was apprehensive about the legality of such a move, as he had already discussed with Harel. From a purely legal perspective, West Germany had much more of a right to try Eichmann than Israel, which had not existed when the crimes were committed. Nonetheless, Ben-Gurion told the Israeli attorney general to investigate the matter further and arrive at a justification.

As for the operation itself, Ben-Gurion had complete faith in Harel, writing confidently in his diary that night, "Isser will deal with it."

Three weeks later, on Christmas Eve, those in West Germany who looked fondly on the Nazi past acted. In Cologne, two young men painted huge swastikas and
JUDEN RAUS
(Jews Out) across the walls of a recently constructed synagogue and on a memorial dedicated to those who had fought in the resistance against Hitler. Over the next several days, there was an outbreak of anti-Semitic attacks and demonstrations across West Germany, and police had to be stationed outside synagogues and Jewish cemeteries to prevent further desecrations. In total, 685 Jewish locations throughout the country were painted with swastikas. These were more than the isolated actions of a few hooligans, and Jewish leaders in West Germany asserted that the scene "evoked pictures that bring to mind the November days of 1938."

Chancellor Adenauer promptly broadcast on the radio that these acts were not to be tolerated, but it was plain that much more was needed to tamp down the rise of neo-Nazism. The German Reich Party, a right-wing group with Nazi sympathies, had made gains in the recent election. Membership in militant and nationalistic organizations was increasing, as was the number of newsletters and daily papers, book clubs, and discussion groups whose readers and members hated the "Bonn democracy" and aimed to "correct the accepted facts" about Hitler and German war guilt.

The attacks also highlighted the fact that numerous former Nazi Party officials held many important government posts in the new Germany. They accounted for a third of Adenauer's cabinet, a quarter of the Bundestag, and a sizable percentage of the civil service, judiciary, and Foreign Ministry. In addition, eight foreign ambassadors were former Nazis. Adenauer had stonewalled in the face of a recent campaign, largely organized by his political opponents, against the proliferation of such individuals in the government. Most notably, he had refused to fire Hans Globke, the minister for refugees Theodore Oberländer (a Waffen-SS officer who had once demanded the extermination of the Slavic people), or the interior minister Gerhard Schröder (a former Nazi storm trooper leader).

Also troubling was the fact that the recent war criminal trials conducted by Erwin Schüle and Fritz Bauer had done little to change the "almost nationwide need to pull the blinds on the past," as a
New York Times
reporter described the mindset in West Germany. Even the country's schoolteachers were found to be incorrectly instructing their students on the nature of Hitler's regime. A ninth-grade textbook devoted only a single paragraph to the "Jewish question" during World War II. Extermination camps were not mentioned once. All of these trends drew critical notice in Israel.

Soon after the Cologne incident, the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee asked Harel about the potential of a Nazi revival. Even to these high officials, Harel could not reveal the first major blow he intended to deliver to combat this revival: the capture of Adolf Eichmann. He was more convinced than ever that Ben-Gurion was right: the fugitive's capture, and the public airing of his crimes in a trial, would remind the world of the Nazi atrocities and the need to remain vigilant against any groups who aimed to repeat them. Already the Mossad chief had tasked Aharoni with his mission to Argentina, another agent was investigating the Eichmann and Liebl families in Europe, and Harel was looking into transporting their captive covertly from Argentina when the time came.

Harel had also taken steps to keep Eichmann unaware of the hunt for him in Buenos Aires, particularly after the potentially disastrous announcements by Tuviah Friedman in the press. First, on his advice, Bauer held a press conference in Frankfurt and declared that his office was seriously investigating the presence of Eichmann in Kuwait, saying he had a tip that the fugitive Nazi was in the employment of a sheik and serving as "an influential middleman between German and Kuwaiti companies." Coincidentally, this declaration was made the day before the wave of anti-Semitic attacks. Second, Harel arranged through Bauer for Schüle to contact Friedman once again, urging him to cease his public campaign for a reward for Eichmann. "Please make sure no publications, no speeches, and no proceedings of any kind are conducted in connection with the Eichmann case," Schüle wrote. Third, the Mossad chief used his influence to put an end to a separate investigation by a local Jewish organization in Buenos Aires that had interviewed Lothar Hermann about the contents of his letter to Tuviah Friedman. Fourth, Harel quashed a request by a Knesset member to David Ben-Gurion on December 25 to "take suitable measures in order to bring about Eichmann's apprehension and punishment" by asking the legislator to withdraw his request, because any reply would impair their efforts.

At the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, Harel was equally obtuse, but he assured those in attendance, "I am planning an action that, if successful, could mean a death blow to this outburst of neo-Nazism." Now that he was completely behind the mission and had the sanction of the prime minister, he would see this action through to the end.

12

ON MARCH
1, 1960, Zvi Aharoni presented himself to immigration control at Ezeiza Airport, an hour outside Buenos Aires. His Israeli diplomatic papers identified him as Mr. Rodan, a staff member of the Foreign Ministry. He explained in his rough Spanish that he had traveled to Argentina to investigate reports of an outbreak of anti-Semitism in South America. The guard eyed the passport and then its holder.

Aharoni had the kind of long, sober face that made it difficult to divine his thoughts, an advantage in his interrogation work. Those who knew him said that he saw the world as being streaked with tragedy. Over the course of his thirty-eight years, he had tricked death numerous times, and every time he had wondered why he had survived while others had not.

Two weeks before Kristallnacht, the night in November 1938 when Hitler's thugs ransacked Jewish shops and homes throughout Germany, Aharoni left Berlin with his mother and younger brother to immigrate to Palestine. Every other member of his family was killed in the Holocaust.

Living on a kibbutz in the hills of lower Galilee, the youth learned to speak Hebrew, ride a horse, and fire a rifle, and he came to know intimately what it was like to sit in the pitch-darkness and wait for an attack. For most of the next ten years, he carried a gun, serving first as a guard at the kibbutz and then as a member of the Jewish Settlement Police. In 1943, he joined the British army. His unit was stationed in Cairo, then in Italy, where he interrogated high-ranking German prisoners. At war's end, his attempt at civilian life was thwarted by the 1948 War of Independence, in which he saw heavy fighting. Numerous times he faced certain death: ambushed in broad daylight outside the kibbutz; caught in an attack by a U-boat at sea; surrounded by Arabs, alone on a hilltop in Palestine, protected by a single rock, which was gradually being chipped away by bullets; retrieving a two-inch mortar in an open field under constant gunfire; finding an unex-ploded shell inches from his feet. Each time he had lived, while those fighting alongside him had not.

By the summer of 1949, now a captain and company commander in charge of two hundred men, Aharoni found himself facing a new enemy: typhoid. In the hospital, life slowly drained from him. He was so sick that his wife, whom he had met at the kibbutz, could not even ask him what they should name their newborn son. Once again he survived, but he was too weak to rejoin the army. By happenstance, he ran into someone with whom he had served in Italy, who suggested that he join the Israeli security services. One of their former commanders was deputy chief of the Shin Bet. Before long, Aharoni found himself sitting across from Isser Harel at a Jaffa café. Harel asked him a few questions about his past, then asked what Aharoni thought about the violent, right-wing dissident groups, such as the Irgun. From Harel's tone, Aharoni knew enough to answer, "I am absolutely against them." Two days later, he was invited to join the Shin Bet as one of two men responsible for interrogations. In the following years, he built up the Shin Bet investigations branch, trained numerous new recruits, and attained the rank of division head, just below the deputy chief of the entire organization.

Now, newly arrived in Argentina, Aharoni was operating as a Mossad agent for the first time—a far cry from his usual line of work. Harel, who had waited for him to finish another assignment before sending him to Buenos Aires, hoped that the interrogator's relentless, unemotional determination would lead him to Eichmann. At passport control, Aharoni passed his first test when the guard stamped his documents, allowing him to enter without inspecting the sealed diplomatic pouch under his arm. That pouch contained everything the Israelis knew about Eichmann, including the most recent intelligence from Bauer, which had taken several weeks for them to obtain covertly.

Waiting outside the airport in the sweltering heat was "Yossef," the security officer at the Israeli embassy, with whom Aharoni had worked for several years in Tel Aviv. On the ride into the city, Aharoni stared vacantly at the thick rows of trees lining both sides of the highway, knowing well that he would soon have to take some risks to prove for certain that Klement was Eichmann. Another "maybe" in the file would be useless. Harel needed a definitive answer before he could launch a mission. Given how long their target had lived freely in Argentina, Aharoni hoped that Eichmann had grown less suspicious and would not flee at the slightest feeling that someone was observing him.

Yossef brought Aharoni to the Israeli embassy—he was the only person there who knew the true purpose of Aharoni's visit. Aharoni locked his Eichmann files in a safe; after long study, he knew most of the facts by heart. Later, Yossef drove him to his hotel. On the way, Aharoni detailed to him the kind of help he would need, particularly since he was alone, unfamiliar with the city, and had a poor grasp of Spanish. In every country, Aharoni knew, there were Jewish volunteers, known as
sayanim,
who were available to assist Mossad agents, whether it was with surveillance, transport, safe houses, or medical aid, or simply by standing on a corner and waiting for a messenger. They did not require compensation, and they knew not to ask questions or to utter a word about what they had done. Without them, the small Israeli secret service would not have had anything like the reach it actually had. Aharoni would need their help.

Two days later, Aharoni drove slowly down Chacabuco Street in a rented Fiat. "Roberto," a twenty-year-old Argentine student with a black pencil mustache, sat next to him holding a street map. Having volunteered for other operations in the past, Roberto kept his inquiries to a minimum.

As they drove past 4261 Chacabuco, Aharoni glanced at the small house with its unkempt garden. He stopped a few blocks away on a side street, pondering how he could get a good look at whoever lived in the house. He fished a postcard of a tropical island, which he had picked up at the airport, out of his pocket and told Roberto to write on the back, "Have just returned. Best regards, George," along with a fictitious name and address. Aharoni told him to jot the name Dagosto (a variation of Dagoto, the name Lothar Hermann had found one of the electric meters at 4261 Chacabuco registered to) and 4263 Chacabuco in the sender box. The address did not exist, but the card would provide Roberto with an excuse to ask neighbors if they knew the sender. Because the postcard lacked a stamp and postmark, Aharoni warned the youth not to allow anyone a close inspection.

Roberto ventured off while Aharoni waited in the car. Two years had passed since Sylvia Hermann had walked down this street. The Nazi fugitive might well have switched neighborhoods, and if he had, he would be very difficult to find in a city of more than 5 million people spread across seventy-one square miles. For all Aharoni knew, Eichmann might have moved to another city, country, or continent.

Twenty minutes later, Roberto reappeared, hurrying back to the car. He waved the postcard and smiled, then climbed into the passenger's seat. He had spoken to a young girl outside the house about the Dagosto family and had peered, undetected, through the windows of 4261 Chacabuco. Nobody in the neighborhood was named Dagosto, but the house was empty, and Roberto had glimpsed some painters working inside. Klement no longer lived at the address. Worse, he had probably vacated the premises very recently. If Aharoni had not been delayed in Israel on that other job, he would have arrived before Klement had moved. Now he needed a new plan.

Across the globe, Mossad operative Yaakov Gat was in a village in West Germany waiting for the return of his partner, Michael Bloch. Harel had recruited the two men to investigate the Eichmann and Liebl families. Bloch, who spoke fluent German, was spending the morning at the local café, chatting casually with villagers to see if they knew anything about Eichmann's family. Every attempt to speak to Vera Eichmann's sister Eva, to see if she knew where Vera lived, had been met by the same wall of silence that Gat had encountered over the previous six weeks with the other members of the family. This was revealing in itself, indicating that the family had something to hide.

Forty years old, tall and slender as a reed, Gat was a Shin Bet agent based at the embassy in Paris. He was in charge of finding East German, Hungarian, and KGB spies who were passing intelligence to Egypt. He was also a leading representative of the Mossad in Europe. Given that Harel ran both organizations, the lines between the two were often blurred. Born in Transylvania, Gat had a personal stake in the operation to find Eichmann. He and his immediate family had survived the Nazis by moving away from the region, annexed to Hungary in 1940, but many in his extended family, including half of his father's family, had remained behind and been sent to extermination camps by Eichmann. At the war's end, Gat had left for Palestine but had been captured and detained in a British camp for illegal émigrés in Cyprus until the state of Israel was declared. Gat's paratrooper cousin advised him that his agile mind and preternatural calm would serve the security services well. He was willing to take a job with them as long as he never had to wear a uniform, as recollections of the fascist Romanian soldiers were still distasteful to him. He underwent a five-week training program, learning self-defense and how to pick locks, open envelopes, handle a camera, break a tail, and surveil a target, among other skills. Then he was sent out into the field to actually learn how to be an operative.