The Holocaust on Trial: The Impact of the Kasztner and Eichmann Trials on Israeli Society

During the early years of the State of Israel, the question of the Holocaust of European Jewry arose largely within the context of two trials. The first of these was the trial of Malkiel Gruenwald, which was popularly known as the "Kasztner Trial," and the second was the Eichmann Trial.

The Kasztner Trial in its various phases continued for four years. It began at the District Court in Jerusalem in January 1954, the testimony and summations of the two sides continued until October of that year, while the verdict of Judge Benjamin Halevi was issued in June 1955. The hearing of the appeal submitted by the State against that ruling began in January 1957, while the verdict of the five judges of the Supreme Court was given in January 1958.

The Eichmann Trial was far shorter, continuing for only two years. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announced the capture of Adolf Eichmann to the Knesset in May 1960; the trial, before a special bench of the Jerusalem District Court, began in April 1961; the verdict, together with the death sentence, was given in December of that year; and the hearing by the Supreme Court of the appeal submitted by Eichmann's attorney was held in May 1962. Following the rejection of Eichmann's appeal and the subsequent rejection by the President of the State, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, of Eichmann's appeal for clemency, the sentence was carried out on the night of 31 May 1962.

On the face of it, there appear to be several points of similarity between the two trials—in what might be described as the "procedural-technical" realm, as well as in more substantive areas. First, both of the trials opened as the result of an indictment drawn up by the public prosecutor—in the case of the Kasztner trial, an indictment against an eccentric elderly Jerusalemite named Malkiel Gruenwald, who had published a mimeographed newsletter in which he accused Israel (Rudolf) Kasztner of the weightiest of crimes, claiming that Kasztner had cooperated with the Nazis during the German occupation of Hungary; that he had assisted SS Officer Kurt Becher to avoid punishment; and even that he had shared property with Becher that had been stolen from Hungarian Jews. At the time (Summer 1952), Kasztner was serving as a civil servant as Spokesman for Dov Yosef, the Minister of Trade and Industry. It was therefore the State that submitted the indictment against Gruenwald. It was the same public prosecutor's office that had issued the indictment against Adolf, son of Karl Adolf Eichmann, in Criminal File No. 40/61—an indictment that included fifteen sections, the first of which was called "Crimes against the Jewish People, a crime under section (1)(a)(1) of the Nazi and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law-1950." ¹

Second, both trials were held before the same forum: the District Court in Jerusalem. The Kasztner Trial was heard before a single judge: Judge Benjamin Halevi, President of the District Court in the capital. The Eichmann Trial was held before a special bench of the District Court headed by Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau, together with Yitzhak Raveh, Judge of the District Court in Tel-Aviv, and Benjamin Halevi, who had succeeded in forcing himself upon the bench notwithstanding the explicit opposition of both the Minister of Justice and the Head of the Supreme Court. The coincidence of personalities involved did not end there: of the five judges who later heard Eichmann's appeal, three had also sat on the bench that heard the appeal in the Kasztner case: Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Yitzhak Olshan, who served as head of the court in both appeals, and Judges Shimon Agranat and Moshe Silberg.

Another point of similarity lies in the fact that, in both cases, the Attorney General served as prosecutor. Attorney General Haim Cohn, who served in that...