Family Weekly
August 21, I960
The Man Who Captured Eichmann Tells :
"How We Hunted Down The
1 J
i By LEO HEIMAN
Tuvia Fried mann
Millions of persons who still recall with horror
the crimes which Nazi Germany committed against
humanity during World War 11 were electrified
recently when the Gestapo ojfficer charged uith
directing the extermination of six million Jetos
urns captured in Argentina. His name is Adolf
Eichmann, and his arrest climaxed a 15-year
search for personal vengeance by Tuuia Fried
7nann, a Polish Jew whose family was killed by
the Nazis, and who now is director of the Nazi
War Crimes Documentation Center in Israel. In
this exclusive Family Weekly interview with an
Israeli netosmnn, Friedmann tells for the first
time the full story of Eichmann's capture.
Haifa, Israel
Mr. Friedmann, how did you discover that
Eichmann was in Argentina?
- A couple of former Nazis released from prison
in Germany drank too much in a Munich beer hall
and complained that Eichmann was enjoying free
dom while they had to serve time for carrying out
his orders. Their complaints reached Israeli opera
tives, and for money Eichmann's former comrades
turned informers.
All they could say was that their former chief
was "somewhere in South America." But at least
our search was narrowed down to a certain
geographical location.
Then there was the matter of Eichmann's wife
Veronica. She tried to renew her Austrian pass
port, but Israeli agents were tipped off. They
learned she was in Buenos Aires illegally. Agents
converged on Buenos Aires but decided to make
Eichmann feel safe by spreading the story that he
was in Kuwait in the Middle East.
Then I received a letter from another German
resident of Buenos Aires informing us: "I heard
that you are looking for Adolf Eichmann in Kuwait.
Well, let me tell you he is not in Kuwait; he is
here, and for $10,000 I'll tell you where."
A week later, an Israeli operative carrying my
reply knocked at the door of the letter writer, and
two weeks later a volunteer commando group was
on its way to Buenos Aires.
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Family Weekly. August 21, 1960
In this exclusive interview from Israel, a veteran undercover
agent reveals the dramatic 15-year man hunt
for Hitler's Gestapo chief who murdered six million Jews
Why didn't Israel go through Argentine legal
channels to get Eichmann?
Our operators decide that Argentina would not
turn him over to us. Eichmann had many influen
tial friends in the Argentine administration who
would have tipped him off that an extradition re
quest had been filed. He would have escaped and
gone underground again. It was decided that moral
right and historical justice overrode legal and po
litical considerations.
What is Eichmann's present situation?
He is under guard in a maximum-security prison
in northern Israel. He is eager to talk and impli
cate his former Nazi friends. But whenever he
goes off on a tangent to whitewash himself, eye
witnesses are brought in to refresh his memory.
In return for his cooperation, Eichmann gets the
best kosher food from the officers' kitchen; he has
air conditioning in his cell, fresh linens, a soft
mattress, and even perfumed shaving cream.
What were the experiences you had during
World War II which mudc you swear vengeance
nguinst Eichmann and other Nazi war criminals?
In September, 1939, Nazi troops overran my
home town of Radom, Poland. My parents and
brothers were killed in Nazi concentration camps
under Adolf Eichmann. I was 16 and strong, so
they let me live, doing slave labor work until I be
came exhausted with the starvation diet.
What did your caplors do then?
One day a guard took me behind the camp ad
ministration office and showed me packaging
materials. They ordered me to wrap parcels to be
sent by the camp officers to their families in
Germany.
Like most Nazis, our guards were not only
torturers but thieves as well. They stole every
thing not nailed down and mailed it to Germany.
They were not even ashamed to send victims'
clothes, jewelry, gold teeth, or watches.
Without realizing what I was doing, I memorized
the officers' mailing addresses. When all the parcels
were ready, I suddenly got an idea: why should I
resign myself to death? Why not try to escape and
avenge the murder of my people? If a final ac
counting ever came, it would be helpful to re
member where the murderers lived.
I did such good work on the parcels that it be
came my duty to wrap the Nazis' loot. In a few
months, I knew where most of my torturers lived
in Germany.
But how did you escape?
I joined some prisoners who "planned a mass
breakout. We dug a tunnel under the electrified
barbed wire and below the' machine guns on the
watchtowers. But, unfortunately, only a few of us
managed to escape.
Once outside, I joined a group of Polish guer
rillas and fought with them until Germany's sur
render. I was then transferred to the special
security service of Polish Intelligence with the
- task of ferreting out fugitive Nazi war criminals
along the Baltic coast. In less than two months, I
arrested more than 1,000, mostly Gestapo and SS
members.
I was thanked personally by General Korczynski,
the chief of the Polish Secret Security Service,
and became his good friend. About a year later,
, he warned me to get out of Communist Poland
. while I still could and provided me with the
necessary documents.
Where did you go?
Like many other Jewish refugees, I went to
Vienna. I had amassed considerable experience in
Nazi-hunting and, with the addresses I had memo
rized in camp, I was valuable. With other agents,
I caught more than 200 SS and Gestapo officers,
including a few senior generals and gauleiters
(Nazi governors). ...
We handed them over either to the Russians and
Poles, who summarily hanged them, or to the
Americans and British, who jailed them. But one
prize eluded me Adolf Eichmann.
I began hunting Eichmann in Vienna in 1946.
We never believed stories about his death. By we
I mean undercover operatives of the Israeli Secret
Service in Europe under the leadership of Asher
Arthur Ben-Nathan, now director-general of the
Israeli Defense Ministry.
MO.
Whul were the events leading up to Eich
mann's capture?
Eichmann succeeded in hiding under our noses
in Austria and Germany for about five years.
First, he hid in an American POW camp, posing as
a soldier named Eckmann. He escaped the camp
and hid with the family of the SS trooper whose
identity he had assumed. He also spent about three
years in a woodcutter's cabin in Germany.
When he felt safe, he contacted the secret Nazi
underground headed by Gestapo General Muel
ler,. Deputy Fuehrer Bormann, and SS Colonel
Otto Skorzeny. They helped him get out.
What were you doing meanwhile?
I had arrived in Israel with trunkloads of files,
dossiers, and documents on war criminals still at
large and set up the Nazi War Crimes Documenta
tion Center.
But it took me 10 years to catch up with Eich
mann and then only when our undercover oper
ative Henry Diamant (code name "Manus"), a
former guerrilla fighter, got friendly with one of
Eichmann's former girl friends, a Mrs. Misen
bacher. She ran a small hotel in the Austrian town
of Duppel. "Manus" went to stay at the hotel and
started courting the widow.
For love and money, Mrs. Misenbacher pro
duced Eichmann's photograph and love letters.
This was a real prize because when Eichmann
saw the end of Germany in sight, he began plan
ning his eventual escape.
First, he wanted to get rid of all surviving wit
. nesses, so he toured Nazi-occupied Europe and
ordered the mass execution of any Jews left. Next,
he filled several suitcases with jewelry and money,
which he. had extorted or confiscated from his
victims.
Third, he collected genuine foreign passports, in
various names and identities, travel documents to
neutral countries, and the like.
Fourth, he destroyed all his photographs, letters,
signed orders, fingerprint samples, medical record
files, and service dossiers.
Therefore, no matter how hard we looked, we
couldn't have gotten far without discovering how
Eichmann and his handwriting looked.
- What was your next step?
Well, we were tipped off that the Russians had
captured some secret Gestapo archives in Berlin.
I went to Berlin and got Eichmann's service file
and medical record. The Nazis did everything in
duplicate or even triplicate. Eichmann probably
forgot that a copy of his records was available in
the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz Albrecht
Strasse in Berlin.
What did these documents show.?
They gave us an accurate picture of Eichmann's
dental work, a record of his birthmarks, scars, and
(Continued)
Family Weekly. Augusta. I960 5
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