Judgement in Jerusalem

Twenty-six years ago Adolph Eichmann , the Nazi officer, was tried in Jerusalem. Timewatch explores the trial through a controversial book, Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a philosopher, had written with great insight on the historical position of Jews in modern western society and on the rise of Nazism. It was therefore with a sense of deep hurt and outrage that many Jews read her reports from Jerusalem. She questioned the legality and political purpose of the trial, she portrayed Eichmann as 'banal rather than evil' and she made sweeping comments on questions of Jewish resistance and cooperation. Using archive film of the trial and interviews with friends, historians and survivors of the camps in New York and Jerusalem, this documentary pieces together the different reactions to Arendt's arguments, and to the painful process of turning the Holocaust into history.