ABSTRACT
Adolf Eichmann had been spoken of – from the Nuremberg trials onwards – as a main player in the implementation of the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question'. During the 1940s and 1950s, throughout Israeli society, there was an effective silence about the Holocaust. This meant in practice that hunting down Nazi war criminals was low on the priorities of Ben-Gurion's government. It was in this context of a lack of Israeli interest in Eichmann that Simon Wiesenthal played an important role. This lack of interest in Eichmann which Wiesenthal perceived in the early 1950s reflected a more general lack of interest in the Holocaust in both American Jewish and Israeli circles. The year before Eichmann's capture, legislation had been introduced to fix the public observance of 'Holocaust Day'. This official day of memory had been decided upon as early as 1951, but it had been largely ignored by the majority of the population.
