8 p.m.
Nazi Hunters: The Jewish Avengers
After the war, a Jewish group called the Avengers were horrified by the number of known Nazis with blood on their hands who were simply allowed to resume their normal lives. They decided to hunt these Nazis down. In the spring of 1945, as World War II was drawing to its end, a Passover gathering was addressed by Abba Kovner, a survivor of the Jewish uprising in the Vilna ghetto. He spoke passionately, invoking Psalm 94, in which God promises that he shall deal with the enemies of the people of Israel: "He will repay them for their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness." Among those who heard him were Joseph Harmatz and Leipe Distel. Together they would become the Avengers. Drunk on their power, and believing they were above the law, the Avengers went for one monstrous act of revenge. It was planned by Abba Kovner. He decided that the Germans must suffer as the Jews had suffered. An eye for an eye. Six million for six million. He wanted to poison the water supplies of Munich, Berlin, Nuremburg, Hamburg and Weimar. But someone high in the Zionist hierarchy betrayed him and he was arrested by British Military Police.
Nazi Hunters: The Jewish Avengers, Tuesday at 8 p.m. on PBS-HD 6.
9 p.m.
Nazi Hunters: Hunting Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann was the SS officer charged with the Final Solution, the man charged with transporting the Jews to the Nazi extermination camps. In 1945, Eichmann was arrested by the Allies, but the next year - unrecognized as the arch villain he was - he escaped and disappeared. Isser Harel, chief of Mossad, Israel's legendary intelligence agency was determined to hunt down Eichmann. His task was to get to Eichmann and put him on trial before rogue members of the Avengers, the group of Jews dedicated to killing all Nazis, got to him first. In Autumn 1957, the Israeli Foreign Ministry got a phone call from the public prosecutor of Hesse, Germany, saying that Eichmann was alive and living in Argentina. The information was passed on to Isser Harel. Harel flew to Argentina to personally supervise the mission with a 30-strong team and on May 11, a Mossad agent grabbed Eichmann and dragged him into a car. A week later, he was drugged and smuggled out of Argentina in an El-Al plane. In 1961, Eichmann was put on trial in Israel, televised before the world, found guilty of crimes against humanity and hanged.
Nazi Hunters: Hunting Adolf Eichmann, Tuesday at 9 p.m. on PBS-HD 6.
By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.