Deborah Lipstadt: The Adolf Eichmann Trial

In 1961, Deborah Lipstadt (Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, Emory University)—then only 13 years old—sat transfixed in front of the television with her family as Adolf Eichmann was accused of being the chief operational officer of the Final Solution. More than 30 years later, Lipstadt found herself at the center of another highly publicized Holocaust trial, this time as a Holocaust historian accused of libel. In the Eichmann trial, survivors’ courtroom testimony—which was itself not without controversy—played a central role in convicting Eichmann. Lipstadt discusses the raw anti-Semitism that provided fertile ground for Eichmann’s commission of the crimes, crimes that Irving later denied.