Friday film // week 19
Never forget.
The aftermath of war is longdrawn, and after World War 2 many of the nazis were tried and convicted. This week's Friday film is a portrait of a woman who followed and wrote about the trial of the notorious war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 1960s.
Friday film: Hannah Arendt
The Liberation and the aftermath
The liberation of Norway from the Germans 8 May 1945 marked the end of tough times in Norway, and brought a promise of better days to come. But pending the great war there were scores to be settled with those who had committed brutal and horrible acts. It became important as a means of dealing with the past, and to make sure it never happens again.
Adolf Eichmann is considered as one of the architects of Holocaust, responsible for the identification and mass-deportations of jews to ghettos and concentration camps in Eastern Europe. After the war the Jewish Simon Wiesenstahl identified Eichmann in Argentina, and Mossad finally arrested him and brought him to trial in Jerusalem in 1961.
Hannah Arendt and "the banality of evil"
Hannah Arendt was a political theoretic covering the trial for The New Yorker. In her controversial article she described Eichmann as neither particularly anti-semittic or psychopathic, but concerned mainly with his career more than anything. She found no traces of hatred or guilt, and referred to him later as the embodiment of "the banality of evil". Despite controversies surrounding her analysis, Hannah Arendt is till considered as one of the great minds of her time.
Published: 08/05/2025 Last updated: 08/05/2025
