Prosecutor of Nazi Holocaust mastermind dies in Israel
Gabriel Bach, one of the key prosecutors who helped convict Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, has died at the age of 94. Eichmann had been a key figure in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime, becoming the architect of the Fuhrer’s ‘Final Solution’ to exterminate the Jewish population in Europe.
Bach was Israel’s deputy state attorney in 1961 when the trial began, having previously led the months-long pretrial investigation involving around 40 police officers.
Before the Nazi was captured by Mossad operatives in Argentina, Bach recalled how he received a call from then-Israeli Justice Minister Pinchas Rosen, who asked him to be “in charge of the whole investigation against Eichmann.”
At the prison, Camp Iyar, where Eichmann was held, Bach was instrumental in coordinating the team that was interrogating and preparing the evidence for trial against the Nazi officer.
During the trial, Bach worked as the deputy to Attorney General Gideon Hausner, ultimately securing Eichmann’s conviction on 15 counts of crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership of a criminal organization.
For his crimes, Eichmann, who personally oversaw the extermination of Jews at Auschwitz, was sentenced to death by hanging at Ramleh Prison, with his execution taking place on May 31, 1962.
In the years after the trial, Bach expressed how he was haunted by the case and the actions of Eichmann that had been examined. “Not a day passes without me remembering some particular item, or some particular piece of evidence, or some particular moment from the Eichmann trial,” Bach said in 2020.
Having grown up in Berlin and fleeing Germany in 1938, settling in British-mandate Palestine, Bach would go on to serve as a judge on Israel’s Supreme Court for 15 years before his retirement.
