Gabriel Bach
Gabriel Bach (Hebrew: גבריאל בך; born March 13, 1927 in Halberstadt, Germany) is an Israeli jurist, was a judge of the Supreme Court of Israel and was the deputy prosecutor in the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann.
Biography
Bach is the son of Victor Bach, who was the general manager of the Hirsch copper and brass factory, and his wife Erna (b. Benscher) Bach. He grew up in Berlin-Charlottenburg and attended Theodore Herzl School.
In October 1938 the Bach family emigrated from Nazi Germany to Amsterdam, where he continued to attend school. He is the only survivor of his Jewish classmates from this school. In 1940, a month before the invasion of the Netherlands by the German army, the family booked a passage to British Mandate Palestine and settled in Jerusalem.
After the Second World War Bach studied law at University College London and in 1949 graduated with honours. He commenced his career as a prosecutor in 1953. In 1961 he was appointed as Deputy Attorney General and as the second of the three prosecutors in the Eichmann trial - an event which changed his life.
In 1969, he was appointed as the State Attorney. In 1982 he was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of Israel and retired in 1997. In 1984 he served as the precedent-breaking Chairman of the Central Elections Committee. He was subsequently appointed as the chairman of several senior government committees and fact finding commissions.
He subsequently represented Israel at international conferences.
He lives with his wife Ruth in Jerusalem.
Awards
- 1949 : Buchman prize
- German Federal Order of Merit (10 October 1997)
- Friend of Jerusalem
- Honorary Member of the University of London
- Lemkin Award, Los Angeles (2011)
- Jülich Society Prize for Tolerance (2014)
Headings
- Genocide trials in Israel, in: Jacob D. Fuchs Berger (ed.): The Nuremberg Trials. International criminal law since 1945. International Conference on the 60th Anniversary - The Nuremberg Trials : International Criminal Law Since 1945. 60th Anniversary International Conference. KG Saur, Munich 2005 ISBN 3-598-11756-6 Bilingual. Post: pp. 216–223, in English, German summary
Movie
- Gabriel Bach, The Prosecutor and the Eichmann trial by Wolfgang Schoen and Frank Gutermuth, TV Schoen film D 2010 TV Schoen Movie
Literature
- Peter Kasza : Purified he gave himself only from the gallows Süddeutsche Zeitung of 27 January 2007
External links
- Works by or about Gabriel Bach in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Biographical sketch by Gabriel Bach with photos
- Bach Committee (Advisory Committee on Senior Civil Service Appointments)
- interview with Eichmann prosecutor Gabriel Bach (wdr.de September 28, 2010)
- "With a kick an SS man was transported from Germany", interview with Gabriel Bach in the weekly Jungle World, Jungle Supplement, part 1: No 14 of 7 April 2011 Part 2: No. 15
- "50 Years of the Eichmann trial - A person with murderous instincts", interview with Gabriel Bach, Spiegel Online, 11 April 2011.
- Interview (2011): My father had the sixth sense
- Deputy Prosecutor in the trial of Adolf Eichmann : An interview with Gabriel Bach (haGalil.com 2007)
|