Eichmann is sentenced to death

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin had campaigned to name and prohibit...

West Germany, Israel, and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany concluded agreements on compensation for survivors of Nazi persecution and support for Israel’s integration of...

The Knesset passed the Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Law, establishing Yad Vashem as Israel’s Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Authority. The law directed the institution to commemorate Jewish...

Israeli agents captured Adolf Eichmann, a central organizer of deportations, in Buenos Aires and brought him to Israel for trial. The operation raised questions about Argentina’s sovereignty and the...

The trial of Adolf Eichmann opened in Jerusalem. Prosecutors presented documents and extensive survivor testimony, bringing witnesses’ accounts into international public view. The proceedings helped...

Eichmann was hanged after his conviction and appeals. His trial and execution did not end the broader impunity of many perpetrators or answer all claims for restitution. The public record from the...

President Jimmy Carter established a commission chaired by survivor and writer Elie Wiesel to recommend how the United States should remember and teach the Holocaust. The commission proposed a...

President Carter signed Public Law 96-388, establishing the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. The council was charged with creating a national museum, organizing Days of Remembrance, and...

US President Ronald Reagan and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl visited the Bitburg military cemetery after a ceremony at Bergen-Belsen. The visit sparked protest when it became known that Waffen-SS...

The trial of John Demjanjuk opened in Israel, where he was accused of having served as a guard at Treblinka under the name Ivan the Terrible. Survivors identified him in court, and the proceedings...