The Man in the Glass Booth

All summer everyone talked about how Israeli agents had captured Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aries. SS Lieutenant-Colonel Adolf Eichmann was Chief of the Jewish Office of the Gestapo and responsible for implementing the Final Solution, which aimed for the total extermination of European Jewry. A jury of Israelis was trying him for war crimes. He was kept in a bulletproof glass booth. All summer I listened to the grownups talk about him.

“They keep him in a cage,” Fred said, “because an animal should be kept in a cage.”

Fred had survived Auschwitz, but his grandparents, parents, and five younger siblings didn’t. He had one older brother, Mordecai, who lived in Israel.

The men gathered around the radio and smoked cigarettes. At night, they drank whiskey and smoked more cigarettes. I liked the way it smelled, especially the combination of the whiskey and cigarettes—it smelled dangerous. “Sheyne meydel,” the men all called me. Pretty girl. For the longest time I thought Sheyne Meydel was my name. The men were all gentle people. Even when they teased me, it was never mean, never unkind. At night, the women set up tables and brought out pots of coffee, plates of homemade cakes and cookies, and bowls of cherries, grapes and peaches. I wondered how often these people saw such a bountiful spread and remembered all the weeks and months of hunger. At home, Uncle Carl would look in the refrigerator and declare it “a vanderland.” He never ceased to be amazed at the wonderland in his fridge. They shooed us away from the tables until everything was ready, but we snuck...