Bach was Israel’s deputy state attorney when the world learned in 1960 that the Israeli secret service had arrested Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. Eichmann was the administrative mastermind behind Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate all European Jews (the Final Solution).
During the subsequent trial, which began in April 1961, Attorney General Gideon Hausner served as chief prosecutor. Bach was his deputy, but was also the one who led the months-long preliminary investigation. Before that, he moved from Jerusalem to northern Israel, where an entire prison had been cleared for Eichmann’s detention.
Capital punishment
In the prison, renamed Camp Iyar, Bach coordinated a team of about 40 employees who interrogated Eichmann and gathered evidence. Eichmann was eventually found guilty and sentenced to death. He was hanged in May 1962.
Bach had grown up in Berlin, but his family fled in 1938, shortly after the area where his Zionist school was located was renamed Adolf Hitler Square. The family eventually settled in the British Mandate of Palestine, later Israel.
Bach became a judge at Israel’s Supreme Court in 1982 and held that position for 15 years before retiring. Supreme Court president Esther Hayut praised Bach as “one of the great jurists in the history of the country.”