<\/p>\n

“Our memory reaches back through recorded history. The book of memory still lies open. And you here now are the hand that holds the pen. <\/em><\/p>\n

“If you succeed, for the first time in our history we will judge our executioner.”<\/em><\/p>\n

With these words, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion sends the special Mossad unit off on its mission to Buenos Aires, to capture the Architect of the Final Solution and retrieve him to Israel to face justice, or at least as much justice as this world has to offer.\u00a0 It is an arresting, energizing moment in\u00a0Operation Finale,<\/span> Oscar Isaac’s film treatment of one of the Mossad’s early high-profile successes, and a defining moment itself in Jewish history.<\/p>\n

The quote is especially apt, as much of the criticism of the movie revolves, wittingly or not, around the distinction between history and memory, and blurring that distinction in the name of art and commerce.\u00a0 Some of these compromises are valid.\u00a0 Others are unfortunate because unnecessary; the real operation had plenty of tension in real life.<\/p>\n

There are more recent accounts, but Isser Harel’s\u00a0The House on Garibaldi Street<\/span> still captures most of the key operational details, as well as its flavor and atmosphere.\u00a0 In it, the then-head of the Mossad recounts the tip that led to the investigation, as well as the operational difficulties of working in a country far from home with a language barrier.\u00a0 Harel, for instance, ran the operation from diners, on a rotation known to the operatives, where they would meet and pass messages.\u00a0 The movie shows this briefly, but misses an amusing and potentially fatal error – the cafes that Harel had a “back room,” but by Argentinian custom, that room was almost exclusively used by women, making him stand out like a sore thumb and forcing a change in technique.<\/p>\n

Also amusing was the difficulty that the team had in obtaining reliable transportation.\u00a0 Car after car broke down or had tire problems, or some other mechanical issue.\u00a0 They couldn’t rent or buy an expensive car for fear of attracting attention, so they were stuck with a series of lemons that might fail them at any moment, up to and including the decisive drive to the airport.\u00a0 Instead, we just see a lot of greenbacks changing hands for a couple of local cars.<\/p>\n

There were multiple safe houses, with compromises made in choosing each one.\u00a0 There were questions about the safety of the route to the airport, and the possibility of using a shipping container was discussed, but\u00a0during<\/em> the operation as a backup, not in the initial planning as shown.\u00a0 And there was considerable concern about the diplomatic fallout with Argentina, all of which was justified by later events.<\/p>\n

Isaac chooses to forego all of this real-life drama for what amount to three major historical compromises.\u00a0 First, El Al, which loaned the plane to Mossad, didn’t require a signed statement by Eichmann that he was going of his own free will.\u00a0 Second, there was no last-minute frenzied escape at the airport, hotly pursued by Nazi-infested Argentine police.\u00a0 Third, and related Graciela Sirota was not tortured in an effort to discover their location.\u00a0 To varying degrees, these historical compromises serve memory.\u00a0 They also, to varying degrees, do a disservice to the movie.<\/p>\n

The conceit that El Al required Eichmann to sign a statement in order to permit the Mossad to transport him sets up an interrogation thread after Eichmann’s capture and removal to the safe house.\u00a0 Strictly historically, the Israelis who were charged with babysitting Eichmann\u00a0did<\/em> suffer psychologically from having to deal with him, and did end up slowly bending the strict minimum-contact rules that were initially imposed.\u00a0 Those were the result of 10 days in close contact, not a need to extract a statement.\u00a0 But the narrative thread serves another purpose, essentially moving Eichmann’s eventual defense from the trial into the safe house.\u00a0 To that extent, it’s perfectly good filmmaking.\u00a0 The memory of what Eichmann claimed remains the same, the story line is just compressed.<\/p>\n

The other two compromises – offshoots of one invention, actually – are less defensible.\u00a0 The Israelis expected that Eichmann’s family would be loath to go to the police with a missing persons complaint, precisely because his presence in Argentina was under an assumed name.\u00a0 Giving a plausible reason for his kidnapping would mean blowing his cover. But it also means that while there was a surreptitious low-level search, there were none of the resources available that a full police investigation would have had.\u00a0 No close calls with people staring in windows, no mad dash to the airport after a hair-breadth escape, no police chasing down the airplane as it took off.\u00a0 This is pure cinematic dramatic invention, when drama would have been better-served by honing in on the operational issues.<\/p>\n

The last incident – the torture of Graciela Sirota – happened, but the movie places it in the context of the chase.\u00a0 In fact, Miss Sirota was tortured and left with a swastika tattoo in June 1962, after Eichmann’s execution.\u00a0 It was part of a larger antisemitic backlash against the local Jewish community, and both its occurrence and the police indifference to it prompted a broad reaction in Argentinian society, isolating the antisemitic elements, and forcing the government to take action against the groups responsible.\u00a0 This is all chronicled in “The Eichmann Kidnapping: Its Effects on Argentine-Israeli Relations and the Local Jewish Community,”\u00a0Jewish Social Studies,\u00a0<\/em>Vol. 7, No., 3, Spring-Summer 2001.\u00a0 So in this case, even the memory is somewhat garbled.<\/p>\n

If the reader has made it this far, he probably thinks I didn’t much like the film, but I did.\u00a0 The character development is first-rate.\u00a0 The head-butting between Eichmann and Oscar Issac’s Malkin fulfills Israel’s promise to let Eichmann have his say.\u00a0 For those who don’t know better, one form of suspense about the outcome is as good as another.\u00a0 So the movie is good, as a movie.\u00a0 In its important parts, it’s even pretty good as memory.\u00a0 But it could have been better at both those things, and still better as history.
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