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Adolf Eichmann during his trial in Jerusalem, in 1961. (AP)
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Last update - 00:00 16/03/2008
Report: Eichmann intervened to save 800 Jews in Berlin in WW2
By Haaretz Service
Tags: Berlin, World War II 

Adolf Eichmann was among a group of top Nazi officials who intervened in order to save the lives of 800 Jews in the heyday of World War II, The Sunday Times has reported.

The report relates the staggering story of 800 Jewish men and women who were found hiding in the cellar of a converted Jewish hospital in the center of Berlin by Russian soldiers.

Not only had these people managed to survive the darkest days in Jewish history, but, most mysteriously - they did this in the full knowledge of the Nazi high command.
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Little is known about the survivors because their files were burnt by the Gestapo just days before the Russians arrived. However, the report suggests that these were the "privileged" few - mainly spouses of non-Jewish Germans.

It is only thanks to Hilde Kahan, who had access to the secret files of the survivors, that anything is known of them. In passages of her diary quoted in the British newspaper, Kahan sheds light on who these people were. "In most cases these were friends of very important personalities of the Third Reich," she writes.

Others, such as Aubrey Pomerance, head of archives at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, think this group managed to stay alive by bribing top Nazi officials. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Pomerance says "Bribery of Jews with contacts with the Nazis was definitely part of the story of the Jewish Hospital. It is a very, very strange story and nobody knows all of it."

The survival of the Jewish Hospital and its 800 Jewish prisoners remains, therefore, a mystery. But there is no doubt that their murder had been deliberately delayed by Nazi order.

Eichmann, the man who could have revealed the truth about the hospital, was never pressed for answers on a matter considered peripheral to the prime charge against him at his Jerusalem trial: Enforcement of the Final Solution.

As for the survivors, few knew anything of how the hospital became Eichmann's tool. And many were determined that the next generation should never learn how they themselves survived.

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  1.   An up-market British National Enquirer 14:52  |  Clickfool 16/03/08
  2.   interesting article 16:22  |  K 16/03/08
  3.   Why the past is never simple 16:49  |  Mark Lincoln 16/03/08
  4.   `Tis true, Clickie 17:24  |  Morris Valentine 16/03/08
  5.   Are we to believe that Eichmann wa realy a `righteous Gentile? 17:49  |  Avi Yerushalmi 16/03/08
  6.   Mark Lincoln 18:19  |  DAVID KAPLAN 16/03/08
  7.   Don`t forget the "Hitler diaries" story 19:26  |  Danny 16/03/08
  8.   Eichmann`s List 19:29  |  Yosemite 16/03/08
  9.   Eichmann saved Jews? 20:16  |  Shoshanaci 16/03/08
  10.   David Kaplan 20:36  |  Mark Lincoln 16/03/08
  11.   adventurous assumption 21:09  |  shalom 16/03/08
  12.   20 to 1 Death Ratio, It`s Not All That Bad 21:10  |  Dave Levy 16/03/08
  13.   For Morris Valentine # 4 22:04  |  Clickfool 16/03/08
  14.   #1 the clickfool 22:21  |  Hilda 16/03/08
  15.   Gosh Darn, this just changes everything! 22:41  |  Yechiel 16/03/08
  16.   Mark Lincoln 22:53  |  Connie 16/03/08
  17.   what about the 6,000,000 he killed in the most hidious way? 22:54  |  ANI 16/03/08
  18.   The fog of history 23:04  |  jjvanka 16/03/08
  19.   Why one reply was censore is obscure - Avi 23:28  |  Mark Lincoln 16/03/08
  20.   It reminds me of what an old neighbour........ 23:44  |  Deborah 16/03/08
  21.   Eichmann and the Zionists. 23:59  |  Maureen Ann 16/03/08
  22.   I wouldn`t say he "saved" anybody .... 00:51  |  whoopsie 17/03/08
  23.   Deborah 01:20  |  sweis Melbourne 17/03/08
  24.   But I thought the Holocaust didn`t happen 04:13  |  al-kafir al-yahudi 17/03/08
  25.   Perhaps, now the other reply can go uncensored 04:26  |  Mark Lincoln 17/03/08
  26.   Maureen Ann - I understand the convoluted history of the 1930s 04:31  |  Mark Lincoln 17/03/08
  27.   Lost in the past 05:46  |  Mark Lincoln 17/03/08
  28.   Shoshanaci - It is probably correct 05:54  |  Mark Lincoln 17/03/08
  29.   Wasn`t that in the Koran? 05:59  |  Mark Lincoln 17/03/08
  30.   Hilde Kahan - Eichmann 18:54  |  Prof. Burton Caine 17/03/08
  31.   U-boot Jewish survivors is a known fact in Berlin. 03:05  |  Fortuna Benmayor 18/03/08
  32.   Nazis and money 10:47  |  Motic 19/03/08
  33.   Berlin `s jewish Hospital 00:33  |  bernice baise 22/03/08
  34.   Berlin`s jewish hospital 23:05  |  André Landesman 30/06/09
  35.   Message by Mark Lincoln 17:24  |  Andre Landesman 01/07/09
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