More than half a century after he was sentenced to death in the Jewish state, Israel has made public the clemency request by Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.
The documents were displayed at President Reuven Rivlin's residence, in an exhibition related to the Eichmann trial, as the world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
"Eichmann's evil was palpable - he murdered whole families and desecrated a nation," Rivlin said.
The documents include a handwritten request by Eichmann for a pardon from then-president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, as well as the personal notes of Israel's second president.
In his request to the president, Eichmann wrote: "... The judges in their ruling ignored the fact that I never served in such a high position ... Nor did I give any order in my own name, but only ever acted 'by order of'." Eichmann's plea continued: "I am not able to recognise the court's ruling as just, and I ask, Your Honor Mr President, to exercise your right to grant pardons, and order that the death penalty not be carried out." The letter was signed and dated, "Adolf Eichmann Jerusalem, 29.5.62" The documents also include Ben-Zvi's letter rejecting the pardon request and a telegram sent by Eichmann's wife, Vera.
She wrote: "... as a wife and mother of four children, I ask Your Honor for my husband's life." A handwritten note by Ben-Zvi attached to the telegram cited Samuel 1 15:3: "But Samuel said, 'As your sword has made women childless, so will your mother be childless among women'." Jason Pearlman, the current president's spokesman, said the letters were found in the archives of the president's residence in early January and made public for the first time.
Kidnapped in Argentina by the Mossad intelligence agency, Eichmann was brought to Israel, tried in April 1961, and sentenced to death in May 1962.
He was hanged in June 1962, aged 56.
