Bureau 06 : The architects of the Eichmann Trial

"Bureau 06 by Yoav Halevy examines the Eichmann Trial from an interesting and less familiar perspective" – Time Out Israel

A finalist for best Israeli Documentary Award at the Ophir Awards (Israel’s Oscars) in 2013 and the recipient of an honourable mention at the Jerusalem Film Festival the same year, Bureau 06 tells the dramatic story of the team of Israeli police investigators that researched and prepared the charges brought by the Jewish people against Adolf Eichmann. The charges, when collated and then heard in court 50 years ago, told the story of the Jewish Holocaust to the entire world in a way that it had not been told before. This changed the collective Israeli consciousness forever. Bureau 06 tells the personal stories of this team of investigators; their hardships, their confessions and the emotional turmoil they experienced, together and alone. Among these is the story of Avner Less, Adolf Eichmann’s interrogator who left Israel after the trial and took back his German identity card.

All investigators were inextricably bound to the subject matter as Jews, as Jews of German origin (fluency in German was a requirement, for interviews, interrogations and archival research), and as the representatives by proxy of a country that had not yet learnt how to process the horrors of the Holocaust. In this way they were part of a collective healing process. But at what personal cost?