Nazi Germany used six extermination camps, also called death camps, or killing centers, in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million people – mostly Jews – in the Holocaust. The victims of death camps were primarily murdered by gassing, either in permanent installations constructed for this specific purpose, or by means of gas vans. The six extermination camps were Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps also used extermination through labour in order to kill their prisoners.
The Reich Security Main Office was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as Chef der Deutschen Polizei and Reichsführer-SS, the head of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel (SS). The organization's stated duty was to fight all "enemies of the Reich" inside and outside the borders of Nazi Germany.
Heinrich Müller was a high-ranking German Schutzstaffel (SS) and police official during the Nazi era. For the majority of World War II in Europe, he was the chief of the Gestapo, the secret state police of Nazi Germany. Müller was central in the planning and execution of The Holocaust and attended the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, which formalised plans for deportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe—The "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". He was known as "Gestapo Müller" to distinguish him from another SS general named Heinrich Müller.
Chełmno or Kulmhof was the first of Nazi Germany's extermination camps and was situated 50 km (31 mi) north of Łódź, near the village of Chełmno nad Nerem. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, Germany annexed the area into the new territory of Reichsgau Wartheland. The camp, which was specifically intended for no other purpose than mass murder, operated from December 8, 1941, to April 11, 1943, parallel to Operation Reinhard during the deadliest phase of the Holocaust, and again from June 23, 1944, to January 18, 1945, during the Soviet counter-offensive. In 1943, modifications were made to the camp's killing methods as the reception building had already been dismantled.
The Holocaust—the murder of about six million Jews by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945—is the best-documented genocide in history. Although there is no single document which lists all Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, there is conclusive evidence that about six million were murdered. There is also conclusive evidence that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Operation Reinhard extermination camps, and in gas vans, and that there was a systematic plan by the Nazi leadership to murder them.
Peter Zvi Malkin was a Polish-born Israeli secret agent and member of the Mossad intelligence agency. He was part of the team that captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960 and brought him to Israel to stand trial for crimes against humanity.
John Banner was an Austrian-born American actor, best known for his role as Sergeant Schultz in the situation comedy Hogan's Heroes (1965–1971). Schultz, constantly encountering evidence that inmates of his stalag were actively conducting anti-German espionage and sabotage activities, frequently feigned ignorance with the catchphrase, "I see nothing! I hear nothing! I know nothing!".
Simon Wiesenthal was a Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. He studied architecture and was living in Lwów at the outbreak of World War II. He survived the Janowska concentration camp, the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, a death march to Chemnitz, Buchenwald, and the Mauthausen concentration camp.
Herberts Cukurs was a Latvian aviator and deputy commander of the Arajs Kommando, which carried out the largest mass murders of Latvian Jews in the Holocaust. Although Cukurs never stood trial, multiple Holocaust survivors' accounts, including the testimony of Zelma Shepshelovitz, credibly link him to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Siegfried Seidl was an Austrian career officer and World War II commandant of the Theresienstadt concentration camp located in the present-day Czech Republic. He also was commandant of the Bergen-Belsen, and later served as staff officer to Adolf Eichmann. After the war, in 1947, he was tried in Austria and convicted as a war criminal; sentenced to death, he was executed by hanging.
Theodor Denecke was a German SS-captain, a key aide to Adolf Eichmann in the deportation of Jews during World War II.
The Man Who Captured Eichmann is a 1996 American historical drama television film directed by William Graham and written by Lionel Chetwynd, based on the 1990 book Eichmann in My Hands by Peter Malkin and Harry Stein. The film stars Robert Duvall as Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who lived under the name Ricardo Klement in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Arliss Howard as Israeli Mossad agent Peter Malkin, who captured Eichmann in 1960.
Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German-Austrian official of the Nazi Party, an officer of the Schutzstaffel (SS), and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. He participated in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the implementation of the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned. Following this, he was tasked by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics involved in the mass deportation of millions of Jews to Nazi ghettos and Nazi extermination camps across German-occupied Europe. He was captured and detained by the Allies in 1945, but escaped and eventually settled in Argentina. In May 1960, he was abducted by Mossad, the national intelligence agency of Israel. Eichmann subsequently stood trial with the Supreme Court of Israel. The highly publicised Eichmann trial resulted in his conviction in Jerusalem, following which he was executed by hanging in 1962.
Avner Werner Less was a German-born Israeli police officer, best known for interrogating former German SS officer Adolf Eichmann after he was captured by Mossad agents in Argentina and brought to Israel to stand trial.
In 1960, the major Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann was captured in Argentina by Israeli agents and brought to Israel to stand trial. His trial, which opened on 11 April 1961, was televised and broadcast internationally, intended to educate about the crimes committed against Jews, which had been secondary to the Nuremberg trials. Prosecutor and Attorney General Gideon Hausner also tried to challenge the portrayal of Jewish functionaries that had emerged in the earlier trials, showing them at worst as victims forced to carry out Nazi decrees while minimizing the "gray zone" of morally questionable behavior. Hausner later wrote that available archival documents "would have sufficed to get Eichmann sentenced ten times over"; nevertheless, he summoned more than 100 witnesses, most of them who had never met the defendant, for didactic purposes. Defense attorney Robert Servatius refused the offers of twelve survivors who agreed to testify for the defense, exposing what they considered immoral behavior by other Jews. Political philosopher Hannah Arendt reported on the trial in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.
Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi is a book by Neal Bascomb. It chronicles the efforts to capture Adolf Eichmann, a top official in the SS during World War II and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, in the years following the war. A network of concentration camp survivors and Nazi hunters in Europe, including Simon Wiesenthal, pursued leads on Eichmann's whereabouts and passed information to the government of Israel and its foreign intelligence agency, Mossad. A team of agents from both Mossad and Shin Bet traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Eichmann was hiding, and captured him in May 1960. He was taken to Israel, tried and convicted of war crimes in 1961, and executed by hanging in June 1962.
The House on Garibaldi Street is a 1979 American television film based on the non-fiction book of the same name, written by Isser Harel. It was directed by Peter Collinson and starred Topol and Martin Balsam. The story is about the Mossad operation that captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960 and returned him to Israel for trial.
Operation Finale is a 2018 American historical drama film directed by Chris Weitz from a screenplay by Matthew Orton about a 1960 clandestine operation by Israeli commandos to capture former SS officer Adolf Eichmann, and transport him to Jerusalem for a 1961 trial on charges of crimes against humanity. The film stars Oscar Isaac as the key Mossad officer Peter Malkin, and Ben Kingsley as Eichmann. It Also stars Lior Raz, Mélanie Laurent, Nick Kroll, and Haley Lu Richardson. Several source materials, including Eichmann in My Hands, Peter Malkin, provided the basis for the story.
Yonah Elian was an Israeli anesthesiologist and a Holocaust survivor, best known for sedating Adolf Eichmann during the Mossad operation to capture Eichmann.
