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Eichmann's Executioner
A gripping and beautifully imagined work of literary fiction that explores history, memory, and the traumatic legacy of the Holocaust, in the English-language debut of a highly acclaimed German writing duo
In May 1962, twenty-two men gathered in Jerusalem to decide by lot who would be Eichmann’s executioner. These men had guarded the former Nazi SS lieutenant colonel during his imprisonment and trial, and in the absence of trained executioners in Israel it would fall to one of them to end Eichmann’s life. Shalom Nagar, the only one among them who had asked not to participate, drew the short straw.
In a novel that picks up decades later, Nagar is living on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, haunted by his memory of Eichmann. He remembers watching him day and night, the way he eats, the way he lies in bed, the sound of the cord tensing around Eichmann’s neck. But as he tells and re-tells his story to anyone who will listen, he begins to doubt himself, and when one of his friends, Moshe, reveals his own link to Eichmann, Nagar is forced to reconsider everything he has ever believed about his past.
In the postwar tradition of trauma literature including Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum and Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, the highly acclaimed writing team Astrid Dehe and Achim Engstler raise provocative and universal questions of how we represent the past, whether we should, and how these representations impinge upon the present.
In May 1962, twenty-two men gathered in Jerusalem to decide by lot who would be Eichmann’s executioner. These men had guarded the former Nazi SS lieutenant colonel during his imprisonment and trial, and in the absence of trained executioners in Israel it would fall to one of them to end Eichmann’s life. Shalom Nagar, the only one among them who had asked not to participate, drew the short straw.
In a novel that picks up decades later, Nagar is living on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, haunted by his memory of Eichmann. He remembers watching him day and night, the way he eats, the way he lies in bed, the sound of the cord tensing around Eichmann’s neck. But as he tells and re-tells his story to anyone who will listen, he begins to doubt himself, and when one of his friends, Moshe, reveals his own link to Eichmann, Nagar is forced to reconsider everything he has ever believed about his past.
In the postwar tradition of trauma literature including Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum and Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, the highly acclaimed writing team Astrid Dehe and Achim Engstler raise provocative and universal questions of how we represent the past, whether we should, and how these representations impinge upon the present.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published July 18, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 13, 2017
Interesting novel, about Adolph Eichmann one of the most despised men of the last century. A short book seen through the eyes of Eichmann, his trial, and the men who guarded him in prison. Two things in the book made me think as I read it. One Eichmann is portrayed a person who felt his leading role in the Holocaust was justified because he was only following orders given by those above him. The second theme is power of evil in the world asking the question that even though this evil man was judged guilty and killed, why is the evil he stood for is a recurring event in world. We must spiritually, morally, and philosophically ask ourselves the question---Why is evil a part of our knowledge, our reality, and our existence? The book offers in a way a answer, but I'm going to leave to you to find out in your own mind the answer to the question
November 22, 2017
A gripping read. I found it difficult to find secure footing, which I'm quite sure was the point of the craft. Adolf Eichmann stands as a linchpin in human history, a ghostly embodiment of the human weaknesses of moral equivalency and justification. By imagining the private lives of Shalom Nagar, the subject of a documentary called The Hangman--which I recommend highly, by the way--and the two silent, omnipresent friends with him while he tells his tale, the authors confront the unambiguous nature of Jewish law, as learned through scripture, with the stifling reality of everyday humanity.
Eichmann was a man, who slept, woke, ate, eliminated, smelled, breathed, walked, wrote, and possessed a hundred little quirks that made him a clothed-in-skin, beating heart human being. The man who guarded him many days also threw the lever that opened a panel beneath his feet so he could be hung by the neck until he died. But he was also the man who made it possible for the Nazi death machine to kill so many Jews in such a small span of time--because he engineered and administrated, measured and eliminated, optimized and re-optimized train cars, trains, train schedules, boats, ships, shipping routes, and finally, roads, troops, and marches so that the maximum number of Jews could be exterminated in the fastest amount of time. What does it mean to be such a man? What does it mean to be the one who is forced to carry out the sentence, the condemnation, the utter rejection, of an entire people upon such a man?
Would it haunt you? Would it follow your steps for the rest of your life? Would it drive you mad? Would you be blessed because you had carried out the will of God? These are the questions this novel asks. The entirety of this book is a very few pages; the resonance of it is infinite. And not until the very last sentence do you understand.
Eichmann was a man, who slept, woke, ate, eliminated, smelled, breathed, walked, wrote, and possessed a hundred little quirks that made him a clothed-in-skin, beating heart human being. The man who guarded him many days also threw the lever that opened a panel beneath his feet so he could be hung by the neck until he died. But he was also the man who made it possible for the Nazi death machine to kill so many Jews in such a small span of time--because he engineered and administrated, measured and eliminated, optimized and re-optimized train cars, trains, train schedules, boats, ships, shipping routes, and finally, roads, troops, and marches so that the maximum number of Jews could be exterminated in the fastest amount of time. What does it mean to be such a man? What does it mean to be the one who is forced to carry out the sentence, the condemnation, the utter rejection, of an entire people upon such a man?
Would it haunt you? Would it follow your steps for the rest of your life? Would it drive you mad? Would you be blessed because you had carried out the will of God? These are the questions this novel asks. The entirety of this book is a very few pages; the resonance of it is infinite. And not until the very last sentence do you understand.
June 20, 2021
While I enjoyed the spiritual and philosophical explorations of this book, I don't really feel like it was very successful as a novel. The characters work better as archetypes than actual people (which is more or less acknowledged in the text in the case of the character who always asks questions), and none really grows or changes throughout the text. In fact the structure of the book doesn't really work, but the mood of the book is affecting and some of the questions it poses are still worth pondering.
January 30, 2018
This is a bit of a head-scratcher: are the authors trying for something metaphysical, or something poetic in their tale of the execution of Adolf Eichmann? I'm not sure this quick little novel does justice to the story's ambitions, but I will say that it certainly is compelling when it describes Eichmann's final days and final thoughts. As for the thoughts of those around them, that's a bit more of a puzzling toss-up...
June 3, 2022
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was intense, suspenseful, thought provoking. Internal thoughts blended with external statements in a chaotic but accurate representation of the human effort to understand and be understood.
August 11, 2023
Whoa….talk about an insane book. You honestly don’t know what’s happening or what story about Eichmann is the true story from the characters descriptions. I know it’s fiction but their telling of the execution is truly insane.
November 11, 2017
Eichmann's Executioner: A Novel is not a book that will entertain the reader. Although it is fiction, it is so realistic, that it feels true. The end made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
March 6, 2020
As a history teacher who likes to focus on WWII and related topics I wanted to like this book but I just couldn't ... it was a chore to read it.
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July 28, 2017LJ
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews