Eichmann Trial -- Sessions 6, 7 and 8
Creator(s)
- Emil Knebel (Camera Operator)
- J. Jonilowicz (Camera Operator)
- Rolf M. Kneller (Camera Operator)
- Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive
- Milton Fruchtman (Producer)
- F. Csaznik (Camera Operator)
- J. Kalach (Camera Operator)
- Leo Hurwitz (Director)
- Capital Cities Broadcasting Corporation (Producer)
Biographical History
Emil Knebel was a cinematographer known for Andante (2010), Adam (1973), and Wild Is My Love (1963). He was one of the cameramen who recorded daily coverage of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem (produced by Capital Cities Broadcasting Corp and later held academic positions in Israel and New York teaching filmmaking at universities. Refer to CV in file.
Scope and Content
Sessions 6, 7 and 8. The Court is in recess. The camera focuses on the glass booth, and pans to Defense Attorney Dr. Robert Servatius as he walks to his desk. The Judges enter the courtroom and open the session. Attorney General Gideon Hausner continues his opening statement with Section IX - "The Camps." He asserts: "...as late as the beginning of 1945, on the threshold of the end of the war, Eichmann was still planning to wipe out all the Jews still alive at Theresienstadt in gas installations to be erected there..." Hausner describes the conditions in several concentration camps: Majdanek, Treblinka, Chelmno, and Sobibor. At Majdanek, "the death rate in the camp was frightful-some 180 people a day." There is a skip at 00:34:36 to Hausner discussing the conditions at Auschwitz including hard labor and mass gassing. The story skips again at 00:36:22. Hausner ends Section IX with a poem written by a woman who died in the camps. The prosecution begins Section X - "A World Has Vanished," which examines the repercussions of Nazi actions against the Jews: "From the point of view of Europe, a national community was exterminated which had resided there from the second century BCE..."The tape ends as Hausner further describes the losses resulting from the Holocaust.
Note(s)
See official transcripts, published in "The Trial of Adolf Eichmann", Vol. I-V, State of Israel, Ministry of Justice, Jerusalem, 1994. Also available online at the Nizkor Project http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/. The dialogue is in three languages: German, Hebrew, and English. Adolf Eichmann and Defense Counsel Robert Servatius speak in German, which is translated into Hebrew. The Judges and Attorney General Gideon Hausner speak Hebrew. An English translation of the proceedings is dubbed over all of the dialogue by translators. The presiding Judges are Moshe Landau, Benjamin Halevi, and Yitzchak Raveh. Also present are Assistant State Attorneys Gabriel Bach and Ya'akov Bar-Or. There are periodic breaks in the footage.
Subjects
- PROSECUTORS
- EICHMANN TRIAL
- COURTS/COURTROOMS
- HAUSNER, GIDEON
- EICHMANN, ADOLF
- TRIALS
Places
- Jerusalem, Israel
Genre
- Unedited.
- Film