Facing Justice. Adolf Eichmann on Trial

Date: 09/2010 – 11/2011

Location: Berlin

Client: Stiftung Topographie des Terrors

In April 1961, Jerusalem District Court opened the trial against former SS Obersturmbannführer [lieutenant colonel] Adolf Eichmann. The case became a major media event. It not only brought to light the details of one of the authors of the Holocaust, but it was also the first time that the testimonies of the survivors gained global attention. The exhibition is dedicated to both aspects of the case, focussing on the original film footage of the courtroom.

The exhibition is designed to emulate the abstract form of a courtroom. The visitors obtain their first contact with the case through a tinted glass window, distancing them from the events going on behind it. A path leads to the centre, taking visitors back through Adolf Eichmann’s biography, accompanied by the deportations during the war. From there, the visitors on the outside behind the blue glass become further observers of the case. The exhibition graphic adopts the theme of bureaucracy, which represents both the court case and the behaviour of Adolf Eichmann as a mastermind of war crimes, who decided solely through paperwork whether people would live or die. On an ordered grid, typography, a colour palette and graphic elements give these two images form.

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