By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worhy News
JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Shalom Nagar, the executioner of notorious Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, passed away at the age of 86, Israeli sources confirmed Wednesday.
Adolf Eichmann was one of the key figures responsible for the Holocaust, in which some six million Jews were murdered.
He was a key figure in managing and enabling the logistics and transportation of deporting Jews to the Nazi extermination camps.
In 1960, he was captured by the Mossad, Israel’s famed intelligence service.
Eichmann, who had been living under the name Ricardo Clemen, was then taken to Israel in a secret operation.
“When I stand before you here, judges of Israel, to lead the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann, I am not standing alone. With me are six million accusers,” Attorney General Gideon Hausner said at the beginning of Eichmann’s trial.
“But they cannot rise to their feet and point an accusing finger towards him who sits in the dock and cry: ‘I accuse,’ Hausner added.
DEATH SENTENCE
Following his trial, which began in 1961 in Jerusalem, the court sentenced Eichmann to death, and Nagar performed Eichmann’s execution. It was the only time in modern-day Israel’s history that a court ordered a death sentence.
Eichmann was hanged in the Ramle prison on June 1, 1962. His ashes were subsequently dispersed at sea outside territorial waters as Israel “did not want to contaminate” Jewish land with his ashes.
Nagar kept a low profile amid concerns vengeful Nazis may want him killed.
Forty-two years later, in May 2004, Shalom Nagar finally broke his silence. He told German television about the “22 Eigmann Guards”, including himself, who had carefully been selected.
“After all, it was only 16 years after the Holocaust, and many prison employees had either gone through the camps or had lost family. They were disqualified,” recalled Nagar, a Yemenite Jew.
Not only did Nagar and the other guards have to be vigilant that Eichmann didn’t take his own life, but Nagar had the task of tasting the food before it was given to Eichmann, in case it was poisoned.
“If I didn’t drop dead after two minutes, the duty officer allowed the plate into Eichmann’s cell.”
TRANSPORTING BODY
After Nagar hanged Eichmann, he helped transport the body into the oven, where it was cremated. The Israeli Coast Guard threw his ashes outside Israel’s territorial waters “so they would not defile the Holy Land.”
At the end of the interview, the German journalist asked Nagar why he demanded that the conversation occur in a noisy Jewish study hall.
Nagar looked at the camera’s eye and said, “Ah! Because I knew that millions of Germans would watch an interview with the person who executed Eichmann.”
He added: “I don’t want you only to think that our people survived. I don’t want you only to know that our people thrived.”
And, “I want to show you those books, those texts, that language, that tradition, those values, that faith which [Adolf] Hitler and Eichmann, yimach shemam [may their names be erased], wanted to decimate. I want to show you we’re not only surviving as broken people.”
Looking at the Jewish books, he noticed:
“Rather, we’re here with those books that They [the German Nazis] burned by the hundreds of thousands; we’re here with those traditions! I want you to see the Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi, Midrash Rabba, Rambam, the Rif, the Taz … they’re alive. We are alive!”
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
The U.S. Navy has unveiled testing of the AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missile, known as “Malice,” a next-generation weapon designed to give American carrier aircraft greater reach against advanced aerial threats.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests rose sharply in July, reaching 49,571 — the highest monthly total reported so far in President Donald Trump’s second term, according to government data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley, and analyzed by The Associated Press.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unannounced trip to Moscow on Tuesday for meetings with Russian officials, according to U.S. media reports, marking one of the most sensitive known contacts between Washington and Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The State Department is preparing to send American diplomats back to several U.S. embassies across the Middle East, signaling that Washington believes the immediate threat from the recent Iran conflict has eased, according to reports citing an internal State Department document.
President Donald Trump sharply escalated his trade battle with Canada on Monday, threatening to raise tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, auto parts and steel to 50% beginning Jan. 1, 2027, after trade negotiations between Washington and Ottawa collapsed late last week.
China pushed back Tuesday against the Trump administration’s expanding sanctions campaign on Iran, signaling that Beijing will not submit to Washington’s effort to isolate Tehran through what U.S. officials have described as a sweeping economic offensive.
Concerns remained Monday over Christian leader Dedi Saputra after a court in Indonesia’s Aceh Province sentenced the convert from Islam to two years in prison for an online video deemed insulting to Islam’s prophet Muhammad.