Life
Adolf Eichmann in his own words
In 1957, the notorious Nazi recorded a series of conversations about his role in the Final Solution. Now a filmmaker has turned those tapes into a documentary
November 6, 2023 13:38
In 1957, the notorious Nazi recorded a series of conversations about his role in the Final Solution. Now a filmmaker has turned those tapes into a documentary
November 6, 2023 13:38Much of the work of acclaimed Israeli filmmaker Yariv Mozer (Ben-Gurion, Epilogue; The Invisible Men, Golda’s War Diaries) is concerned with examining Israeli history and identity, but there is, he explains on a Zoom call from Tel Aviv, also something personal in every film he works on: how the story connects to him or to his family.
Mozer is in the third generation of Holocaust survivors, and this connection adds resonance to his engrossing, powerful documentary The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes, which has its UK premiere at the UK Jewish Film Festival next month.
“My grandparents didn’t talk much [about their past] and as a child, I didn’t ask or have any interest,” he says. “As the years went by, I had questions, but my mother didn’t know anything.
“So, when I heard the story about the Adolf Eichmann tapes, conversations in which he admitted what he did and told behind the scenes about the Final Solution, my first question was, do they really exist, or is it a myth?”
Originally made as a three-part series for Israeli television, The Devil’s Confession examines the content of these tapes and the important role excerpts from the transcripts played in Eichmann’s 1961 trial in Jerusalem.
Yariv Mozer (Photo: Haaretz)
During the trial, the former SS officer and architect of the Final Solution tried to portray himself as a petty bureaucrat who was merely following orders.
He denied his part in managing the deportation of Jews to their deaths. However, just four years earlier, a series of taped in-depth conversations with Dutch Nazi journalist Willem Sassen recorded in Buenos Aires revealed a different Eichmann.
In these interviews, he speaks with candour and pride of the idealism that propelled him to do his job, admitting that he regretted “nothing” and expresses deep disappointment that millions more Jews were not killed.
Although the tapes had been mysteriously handed over to Israel’s Attorney General and chief prosecutor, Gideon Hausner, their use was not permitted during the trial and afterwards their whereabouts remained unknown for decades.
Mozer, 45, first became aware of their existence from producer Kobi Sitt, who suggested Mozer looked into finding them for a story.
Eventually, full permission was granted and Mozer found himself in the archives listening to Eichmann’s words via a translator. Although hearing Eichmann’s voice was chilling, it was the external sounds, he says, which proved more unsettling.
A scene from The Devil's Confession (Photo: Kan)
