I'm reading several books at the moment. One of them is "Hunting Eichmann". Adolf Eichmann was one of the major organisers of the Holocaust and, when the war finished, he eventually fled to Argentina. In 1960 he was captured outside his home on the outskirts of Buenos Aires by Mossad agents and, after being found guilty at a trial, was hanged.
The book starts off with a prologue telling you that Mossad agents kept watch on Eichmann every day for weeks or months. They hid in a car and watched him return home from work on a bus at precisely the same time every day. He then walked down the street and into his house. They eventually knew just when to pounce on him. When they were just about to pounce on him the prologue ends and Chapter 1 starts, leaving you on a cliffhanger.
The first few chapters tell you all about Eichmann's actions near the end of the war and then his actions just after the war was over, such as when he said goodbye to his wife and children at their Austrian home just before he went on the run from the Allies.
He was responsible for the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Near the end of the war, however, Himmler told him not to deport any more Jews because he wanted to use them as bargaining chips with the allies. But Eichmann, not wanting any Jews to escape deportation under his watch, still sent many to their deaths anyway.
The first couple of chapters of the book also recount the horrors that a young Hungarian Jew named Sapir had to put up with in Auschwitz. He, his mother and his three younger siblings were put on a train with thousands of other Jews from his town. They were herded like cattle into these empty carriages, the doors were closed and then padlocked. The people had no idea where they were going. During the journey many of the people in Sapir's carriage, who had been packed liked sardines into it, fainted or cried out for water. Eventully the train stopped at the station and the doors to Sapir's carriage opened. They were at a train station and a Nazi soldier gave Sapir a bucket and told him to get some water for them to drink. He went and filled his bucket up, but when he was returning to his carriage the same Nazi soldier deliberately knocked the bucket out of his hands and onto the floor, spilling the contents onto the floor.
The train then continued its journey. When they reached their destination the doors to Sapir's carriage, and all the other carriages, were opened and the Hungarian Jews were told to get off the train. They didn't know where they were but they could see a group of buildings and a large chimney belching out thick black smoke.
They were ordered to walk towards the entrance. As they started to do so Sapir heard an old man, who had been on the train with him, shouting out that he has left his prayer mat on the train. A man shouted to him: "What do you need your prayer mat for when you'll soon be in there?" As he said that he pointed towards the chimney.
When Sapir and his family reached the entrance a Nazi guard was directing each person to go left or to go right. He orders Sapir to go right and Sapir's family - his mother and younger siblings - to go left. At this the family became hysterical and tried desperately not to be parted but some guards grabbed them and Sapir was beaten. Sapir never saw his family again.
Whilst in an Auschwitz satellite camp Sapir was a slave labourer. He and his fellow prisoners started work at 4am and worked until 4pm. Sapir had to fill 45 wagons with coal during each shift. If he didn't do so then he would be given 25 lashes.
Sapir's other job was taking the bodies out of the gas chambers. Whilst doing this he suspected that his family had been killed in them. He had to drag each body into the yard and lie them on their backs, where someone else came along, cut off their hair and took out any gold teeth. Sapir then had to take the bodies and throw them into a ditch. There they would be burnt. A channel running down the middle of the ditch collected body fat, which was stored and later used to fuel the crematoriums.
One night, during the early hours in early 1945, the 3,000 inmates of the Auschwitz satellite camp were ordered outdoors into the freezing cold. They were told that the Soviets are coming and that they had to walk. Sapir did not know where they were walking to but he just knew that he had to do what they say or else he'd be shot.
The 3,000 of them then marched through the snow. They didn't know where they were going. Anybody who sat down for a rest or struggled to keep up were shot dead. Eventually they were all ordered to sit down by the side of the road. They were told that they didn't need to keep walking. Anybody who couldn't continue were able to wait there and a truck would come along and pick them up and take them to their destination. Sapir knew that it was a lie but just lay there in the snow and fell asleep. When he woke up he discovered that just 200 of them, including himself, had decided that they couldn't continue.
A Nazi guard them gave them all shovels, took them to a field and told them to start digging. The 200 Hungarian Jews knew they were digging their own graves. Despite this they just carried on digging.
After a while they were then taken to the cafeteria of an abandoned coalmine nearby. When they went in a man came out of a room carrying a huge pot of food. An SS officer said: "You must all be hungry!" Several of them barged to the front to be the first to get food. But all that happened is that the SS officer grabbed hold of each victim one by one, leaned them over the pot and shot them in the back of the neck. Sapir just stood there thinking he was about to die, listening to gunshot after gunshot.
Eventually, with all 200 dead except just 19, including Sapir, the SS guard was called into another room, so he stopped the killings. Sapir then somehow escaped and ran through some nearby woods. He fell over and knocked himself unconscious. When he awoke he found himself surrounded by Soviet troops, who saved him.
I'm assuming that Sapir's testimony at the trial of Eichmann - a trial which will probably be gone through in detail later in the book - helped to convict Eichmann of crimes against humanity.
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.... I know your thinking some peoples kids these days...
