The National World War Two Museum is opening a new $25 million building called the Hall of Democracy. The space will house education programs and exhibits. It’s also opening exhibition is about the capture and trial of holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann.
The temporary exhibit is called Operation Finale and was prepared in Israel. It focuses on Eichmann, who played a major role in the Nazi’s systematic mass murder of millions of Jews. After the war, Eichmann managed to escape from American custody, ultimately making it to Argentina. Israeli intelligence agents from Mossad and the security agency arrested him there in 1960 and took him back for a war crimes trial. He was ultimately hanged.
Former Massad agent Avner Avrahman curated the exhibit. It includes a replica of Eichmann’s bullet-proof courtroom partition and some disturbing footage of concentration camp victims.
Avrahman says it’s a pivotal story in early Israeli history.
“If you ask people that grew up with this they can tell you that they remember all of the family listening to it live, or they saw it on TV," he said. "The Eichmann trial is related to the capture of Eichmann, and the capture of Eichmann related to the Mossad and all of the stories connected to the Holocaust. So it’s four big stories that came together to one exhibit.”
And he says it’s a compelling spy story. The exhibit runs through January.
The Hall of Democracy, which is the Museum’s sixth building, will also feature distance-learning programs with out-of-state universities, as well as an auditorium and a library. A hotel and conference center are also in the works for World War II facility, which has become one of the top museum destinations in the entire country.
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