Operation Finale: Cleveland The Capture and Trial of Adolf Eichmann Pops – New Exhibition Uses Recently Declassified Material to Reveal the Secret History Behind Orchestra High-Profile Nazi War Criminal’s Capture and Trial picks Donald and espionage expert Avner The Nazi responsible for the zealously applying his logistical Avraham, who curated the matransport of millions of innocent execution Messinger to people to death camps might terials for the Mossad in Israel. skills to the efficientgenocide. He of state-sponsored days in expressed “I head Board of well have lived out hisKlement,” if With 60 original artifacts and 70 neverresponsibleremorse.andwas photographs, the 4,000-squareArgentina as “Ricardo not a leader, as foot exhibition details exactly fate, a Holocaust survivor and Issuch do not feel myself guilty,” Directors how agents located a perpetrarael’s foreign intelligence service, he wrote, asking for clemency. Cleveland attorney and Thompson Hine LLP partner Donald H. Messinger has been named chairman of the Board of the Cleveland Pops Orchestra. He succeeds Dell R. Duncan, senior vice president / market leader of Peoples Bank. Messinger has served as a Cleveland Pops Orchestra board member since 2006. Messinger, selected as an “Ohio Best Lawyer of the Year” in 2015, is a partner in the Thompson Hine LLP Transactions & Securities practice group. He has been a member of the firm’s executive committee and previously served as partner-in-charge of the firm’s Cleveland office. “The Cleveland Pops Orchestra is a fabulous orchestra and truly one of Cleveland’s gems,” said Messinger, adding “I am honored to work with dedicated fellow-board members and staff in bringing symphonic pops music to a broad audience of Northeast Ohioans.” Shirley Morgenstern, president and CEO, commented on Messinger’s appointment: “We are pleased and excited to have Don’s wisdom and vision to guide our organization.” hadn’t intervened. A multimedia exhibition produced by the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in collaboration with The Mossad – Israeli Secret Intelligence Service and Beit Hatfutsot – The Museum of the Jewish People, Tel Aviv, featuring recently declassified artifacts never before seen outside of Israel, reveals the secret history behind the capture, extradition and trial of one of the world's most notorious escaped war criminals. Operation Finale: The Capture and Trial of Adolf Eichmann will be on exhibit at the Maltz Museum (2929 Richmond Road, Beachwood) through June 12. “This is the first time the Mossad has allowed archival materials related to one of its clandestine operations to leave Israel,” asserts Maltz Museum executive director Ellen Rudolph. “We’ve been working with our international partners for more than two years to assemble this new exhibition and we’re thrilled to debut it here before traveling it to museums across the country.” ‘Operation Finale’ references the code name given to the Mossad’s effort to capture and abduct Eichmann. “The exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to see impressive pre-digital-era espionage with all its accompanying maps, printed case files, hand-forged documents and even a pair of goggles used to obscure Eichmann’s vision during the abduction,” says former agent tor of “The Final Solution” hiding in South America and smuggled him to Israel to stand trial for crimes against the Jewish people. “The entire dramatic story is told, including never-before-revealed details of a ‘Plan B’ backup escape strategy devised in case the initial scheme failed,” explains Avraham. Short films within Operation Finale allow exhibition-goers to hear directly from the abduction team that caught the SS lieutenant colonel and the legal team that prosecuted him. An immersive video installation, housing the iconic bulletproof glass booth from which a dispassionate Eichmann testified, drops visitors right into the historic 1961 trial. “Although it was more than 15 years after the end of World War II, this was the first time many survivors publicly shared their stories,” says Beit Hatfutsot Chief Curator Dr. Orit Shaham Gover. “These moving accounts of pain, suffering, courage and survival were broadcast across the globe, providing a deeper, more complete understanding of the Holocaust that became not only a living part of Jewish identity, but of the world’s conscience.” Operation Finale illustrates the enormity of the crimes committed during the Nazi regime and explores issues of justice and accountability. A high school dropout who lost his job as a salesman during the Depression in 1933, Eichmann rose to prominence in the Nazi party by “Eleven million people, including six million Jews, were systematically murdered when their neighbors and countrymen— perhaps motivated by fear or a desire to get ahead—accepted a worldview that required them to suppress their humanity,” says Rudolph. “The exhibition drives home the need to remain firm in our moral convictions and ever vigilant against indifference and intolerance in the world.” As survivor and longtime Maltz Museum volunteer, Erika Gold states in an Operation Finale film, “We must talk about the Holocaust so it will never happen again.” For more information, call 216.593.0575 or visit www.maltzmuseum.org. “We’ve been working with our international partners for more than two years to assemble this new exhibition and we’re thrilled to debut it here before traveling it to museums across the country.” – Maltz Museum executive director Ellen Rudolph. 44 Beachwood Buzz n March 2016