Obituary | The hangman’s tale

Shalom Nagar was picked by lottery to kill Adolf Eichmann

The Israeli prison officer turned ritual slaughterer died on November 26th, aged 88

Shalom Nagar
Photograph: Geert van Kesteren

At midnight on May 31st 1962, Shalom Nagar looked his prisoner in the eye. They stood perhaps a metre apart, in a room on the second floor of Ramla prison in central Israel. Adolf Eichmann was tied at the wrists, knees and ankles and stood on a trapdoor, as instructed. He still wore his brown plaid slippers. A thick rope was knotted round his neck. He had refused a blindfold. Just before, he had smoked a cigarette and drunk half a cup of white wine. The smell of both was on his breath.

This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline “Shalom Nagar”

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