Full Description
Shalom Nagar is a Yemeni Jew living in Israel and working as a ritual butcher who blesses both the animal and the customer. Turns out as a young man, he was also the prison guard of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi chief who organized the transportation of Jews to the camps. For six months Nagar stayed in the same cell, even tasting Eichmann's food to make sure he would not be poisoned. At Eichmann’s execution, he was the only guard who didn’t want to pull the lever. Ordered to do so, he afterwards had nightmares for a year. The Hangman is a fascinating and complex portrait of an endearing and wise man who experienced up close what Hannah Arendt referred to as the “banality of evil.” Nagar’s simple, refreshing voice from the margins of Israeli society bears a profoundly humanistic message. “We're in this world as tenants," he says. "The only thing we take with us is our good deeds.”
