The Trial of Adolf Eichmann – Participants, Then & Now

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Zimmerman, Zvi
Witness to rescue operations for Jews in Poland


Photo 1961: Zimmerman, Zvi1961 Quote: 6/1/61: ATTORNEY GENERAL GIDEON HAUSNER: Did you have any contact with those who were in charge of the Krakow Ghetto on behalf of the Gestapo?

ZIMMERMAN: We were interested in knowing everything that was happening and everything they were preparing to do, and our comrades were working in all kinds of places, as officials and as stenotypists, and we tried to gather information and to listen.

HAUSNER: Were you also amongst them?

ZIMMERMAN: I was also one of them, from time to time.

HAUSNER: From which Gestapo members in Krakow did you obtain information?

ZIMMERMAN: Especially those in charge of the ghetto used to come to the Krakow Ghetto, particularly Kunde and Heinrich, and others. More than all the others, these were the two who made visits. They used to oversee the liquidation operations, but from time to time they felt the need to prove that they were also human beings and that they, too, had feelings. I do not know who are worse-those who wanted to prove such feelings from time to time, or those who were brutal all the time. At any rate, possibly this was merely a facade, almost certainly this was just a pretense, a kind of policy of deceiving us. They would pretend that they regretted what was taking place-it was not their fault-they were implementing a plan in charge of which there were special persons, there was a special department and special people in charge. And again, in their conversation they would mention this expert, of whom they boasted that he knew Hebrew and Yiddish, who had lived in Palestine, and that sometimes he also mixed with Jews who were afraid to do anything because they were afraid of him.


Photo 1996: Zimmerman, Zvi1996 Quote: Testifying was a very hard moment for me. Because now I had to come to the court and to tell what happened in my life. I was afraid that it would not be possible to be cool enough to testify without emotion. I asked myself, was I prepared to see for the first time in my life the murderer of my family and of my nation and of my friends and relatives and children. Was I prepared to see him eye to eye.


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