On the death of Gabriel Bach, Adolf Eichmann’s deputy prosecutor in 1961
At the age of 94 former Israeli Supreme Court Judge Gabriel Bach died Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. Bach was born in Halberstadt on March 13, 1927, and grew up in Berlin. Shortly before the Night of Broken Glass in 1938, his family fled Nazi persecution to Amsterdam. Shortly before the German invasion of the Netherlands, the family managed to get to Palestine. He later studied law at University College in London and then returned to Israel, where he embarked on a distinguished judicial career. For 13 years Bach was Attorney General in Israel and most recently a Supreme Court Justice in Jerusalem for 15 years. After Eichmann’s abduction from Argentina Gabriel Bach’s job as deputy to Chief Prosecutor Gideon Hauser was to prepare and argue the case against Eichmann in court. “With Gabriel Bach the world loses an impressive jurist and human being,” Professor Safferling laments the death of Gabriel Bach, who was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1997. “I had the great fortune to have met Gabriel Bach personally. I was particularly impressed by his warm-heartedness, his openness to the world and his conciliatory heart. Given his fate, this attitude toward Germany in particular is not exactly to be expected,” Professor Safferling recalled. “He often came to Germany. Talking to young people was especially important to him. He regularly spoke to school classes.” And, he adds, “Gabriel Bach was one of my heroes!”.
Gabriel Bach most recently came to Nuremberg at the invitation of Professor Safferling and spoke at a Rosenburg symposium in Courtroom 600 of the Justizpalast. This speech is available on YouTube and ist greatly recommended.
The text is also transcribed (german). A presentation by Gabriel Bach in english can be found here.