Buenos Aires, 10 May 2010

A seminar sponsored by Verbe et Lumiere-Vigilance and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre-Latin America entitled “1960 – 2010: The Eichmann Case 50 Years Later – Remembrance, Lessons and Challenges for the Future”, was held at the AMIA Jewish Center,an institution,inter alia,dedicated to teacher-training for Holocaust education in Argentina.

León Grzmot,of "Sherit Hapleita Organization of Holocaust Survivors", described Eichmann’s profile and warned of the dangers of indifference to contemporary hate.

Diana Wang,of "Shoah Generations Children of Survivors" highlighted the hospitality granted by Argentina to Nazi war criminals, while her family had to hide their Jewish identity and could only enter the country in the guise of Catholic immigrants.

Dr.Shimon Samuels,Wiesenthal Center Director for International Relations and representing Verbe et Lumiere-Vigilance, presented the “Eichmann phenomenon in 2010”, as a line from the 1942 Wannsee conference,where Eichmann,"the draughtsman of the Holocaust",furnished a country by country list of 11 million Jews destined for extermination

The journey continued with his 1960 capture in Buenos Aires and 1961 trial in Jerusalem, It moved on in 1992 with Argentina's opening of Nazi files ,closing the circle with the 1994 bombing of the AMIA - the largest post-Holocaust pogrom  - now identified as Iranian terrorism.

Samuels drew a parallel between Eichmann's genocidal programme and Ahmadinejad's genocidal nuclear intent. He stressed that the lesson of the Eichmann phenomenon is that “appeasement, indifference or neutrality are no longer valid options”.

Historian of the Nazis in Argentina,Uki Goñi,noted that the Eichmann case was necessary for justice - "the only durable compensation for victims of genocide". He called for full disclosure of German files on Eichmann.