The House On Garibaldi Street

“THE FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF THE CAPTURE OF ADOLF EICHMANN, TOLD BY THE FORMER HEAD OF ISRAEL’S SECRET SERVICE.”

“I have to announce in the Knesset that a short time ago one of the greatest Nazi criminals was found by the Israeli Security Services: Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible, together with the Nazi leaders, for what they called the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Problem’—that is, the extermination of six million Jews of Europe. “Adolf Eichmann is already under arrest in Israel, and he will shortly be brought to trial in Israel under the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators [Punishment] Law of 1950.”

On May 23, 1960, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion electrified the world with this simple pronouncement. Yet even in the ensuing drama of Eichmann’s trial with its attendant worldwide publicity, some vitally important questions remained unanswered: How had the Israelis “found” this former Nazi leader, who had vanished so completely that many people presumed him dead? Who was involved in the successful capture of a man who had vowed to commit suicide if he was ever apprehended? How had they accomplished their mission? For fifteen years the true story behind the spectacular headlines remained shrouded in secrecy. Now the official silence is broken: Isser Harel, the man who directed every step of Operation Eichmann, reveals a complete account of that historic manhunt and arrest. Each development in the quest for justice is meticulously reconstructed, from the first tentative identification of Eichmann (made by a blind man) to the final nerve-searing flight from Buenos Aires to Israel.

Surely no work of fiction could be more abundant in suspenseful detail or baffling plot twists…. The “heroes” of Operation Eichmann, however, bear little resemblance to their fictional counter-parts. They are touchingly human, so vulnerable to fear, despair, and, ultimately, exultation, that the story of their idealistic struggle is more absorbing and moving than that of any imaginary superspy. In 1945 Adolf Eichmann boasted, “I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have 5,000,000 human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction.” Fifteen years later he stood in a courtroom in Jerusalem, brought to justice by some of the very people who had so narrowly avoided adding to his satisfaction. The House on Garibaldi Street is a complete record of that extraordinary mission and an inspiring portrait of the men and women who accomplished it. Isser Harel served as Chief Executive of the Secret Services of Israel from 1952 to 1963, supervising internal security as well as intelligence activities abroad. He remembers with bitter clarity that fateful evening when he received the first slim clue to Eichmann’s whereabouts: “That night I resolved that if Eichmann were alive, come hell or high water he’d be caught.”