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Filming the Eichmann Trial (Day 2)

An international conference exploring the impact of film and radio and TV broadcasts of the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem

Monday, February 23, 2009
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Royce Hall 314
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA United States

Historians, literary critics, legal scholars, and filmmakers agree on the importance of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking Nazi official charged with the logistics of mass deportation to the death camps. Kidnapped from Argentina by Israeli agents in 1960, Eichmann was indicted on charges of crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people in the Jerusalem District Court. His trial lasted from April 11 to August 14, 1961. One hundred and eleven witnesses testified in the case. Eichmann was found guilty and hanged on June 1, 1962.

The Eichmann trial is important for many reasons. It was the first transnational narrative to construct the genocide of the Jews as a distinct event of World War II, and it marked the foregrounding of victims as witnesses who produce historical accounts.

Conference participants include historians, filmmakers, media historians, film critics, and legal historians from France, Israel, England, and the US who will screen their films and analyze subsequent visual and legal histories.

Participants include:

Valerie Hartouni, University of California, San Diego
Tom Hurwitz, Cinematographer
Tamar Liebes-Plesner, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Sylvie Lindeperg, Université de Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle
Amit Pinchevski, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jeffrey Shandler, Rutgers University
Eyal Sivan, University of East London
Susan Slyomovics, University of California, Los Angeles
Annette Wievorka, Centre National de Recherches Scientifiques

Abstracts of the presentations to be made at the conference are available by clicking on the highlighted name of the presenter.

10:00 am        SESSION IV

                      Eichmann on the Air: Radio and the Making of a Historical Trial
                      Tamar Liebes-Plesner, Hebrew University of Jerusalem   
   
10:50 am       Severed Voices: The Radiophonic Effect of the Eichmann Trial
                      Amit Pinchevski, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

11:40 am        The Man in the Glass Box: Eichmann on American Television
                      Jeffrey Shandler, Rutgers University

12:30 pm        LUNCH BREAK.

2:00 pm          SESSION V
           
                      Leo Hurwitz, Director of the Eichmann Trial Film
                      Screening of Verdict for Tomorrow
                      Susan Slyomovics, UCLA

4:00 pm         CONCLUDING REMARKS

Image: Leo Hurwitz, director of the Eichmann Trial tapes (photo still from videotaped interview by Susan Slyomovics, 1986)

 

Cost: Free

For more information please contact

Peter Szanton, Center for Near Eastern Studies
Tel: 310-825-1455
cnes@international.ucla.edu
www.international.ucla.edu/cnes

Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, Center for Jewish Studies, UCLA Mellon Program on "The Holocaust in American and World Culture"