The Maccabi Tel Aviv Academy hosted today (Tuesday) on the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, doctor Danny Elian who told the Club’s Under 16’s and Under 15’s about his father’s involvement in the operation to capture the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and bring him to Israel for trial.
Yonah Elian was an Israeli anesthesiologist in the 50’s and 60’s and a Holocaust survivor. Despite being a civilian anesthesiologist, Elian took part in various undercover Mossad operations. Born in Romania in 1929, Elian who survived the Holocaust made Aliya and began working as an Anesthesiologist at Tel Hashomer hospital. Elian was recruited to the Mossad and in addition to his regular work, participated in various undercover operations until the late 60’s. He is best known for sedating Adolf Eichmann during the Mossad legendary operation to capture and repatriate the Nazi criminal in Buenos Aires in 1960 before he was smuggled onto a plane back to Israel to stand trial.
“Many times, I asked him, ‘Dad, why won’t you talk about this? What’s so secret?” Danny Elian, told the players as his father’s tale, and the secret he kept, only came to light in recent years.
Dubbed an “architect” of the Holocaust, Eichmann oversaw the deportation of Jews to their deaths. He escaped to Argentina after the war before he was tracked down by Mossad agents in 1960, captured Eichmann, held him in a safe house, then dressed him in an Israeli flight crew uniform and sneaked him past Argentinian airport authorities onto a plane headed back to Israel.
Elian senior, injected just the right dose of sedative to pass Eichmann off to Buenos Aires airport authorities as a sick crew member. Eichmann was brought to Jerusalem for a trial that was broadcast around the world, with more than 100 Holocaust survivors taking the witness stand. He was sentenced to death by hanging in December 1961. At age 56, Eichmann was hanged in June 1962.
