Our most recent exhibition, Operation Finale: The Capture & Trial of Adolf Eichmann, features seven films, 70 photographs and 60 recently declassified espionage artifacts never-before-seen outside of Israel. The 1960 forensic crime lab file you see here contains the conclusions of police experts regarding the real identity of a man known as “Ricardo Klement.”
Mossad agent Zvi Aharoni was sent to Argentina to pursue a lead that a key perpetrator of the Holocaust might be free and living undercover in Buenos Aires. Aharoni was asked to verify Eichmann’s identity. To accomplish this he recruited locals not privy to his mission to approach Klement and ask innocuous questions about the property surrounding his dilapidated home. While engaging Klement in conversation they surreptitiously photographed him with a Leica camera hidden inside a leather briefcase.
The resulting photographs were compared with images from Eichmann’s SS file that were taken at least 15 years earlier. Sketches of Eichmann’s face were marked for similarities, including the left ear. The experts concluded that Ricardo Klement was their man–an escaped high-ranking Nazi officer. As a result, the Mossad sent a team was sent to South America to abduct Eichmann and bring him back to Israel to stand trial.
—Lindsay Miller, Registrar & Exhibitions Coordinator
