If That Was a Man

In between rounding up nonagenarian camp guards and temporary radio operators, the Righteous State has marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day by publishing a handwritten plea from Adolf Eichmann against his death sentence. Eichmann claimed that the prosecution had overstated his role in organising the Holocaust, which involved the extermination of six million proto-Israelis and five million insignificant others; and he requested that a distinction be drawn between leaders and those "forced to serve as mere instruments". To his credit, Eichmann appears to have felt it beneath his dignity to plead that his activities during the Holocaust were part of a peace process; which may be why the death sentence was proudly and no doubt righteously carried out a couple of days after the note was written.