The Eichmann case and the responsibilities of evil is the theme of the meeting-debate promoted and organised by the Democratic Forum of Canavese Tullio Lembo, on the occasion of Remembrance Day 2025, to be held in Ivrea's Sala Santa Marta, or with live Zoom and YouTube streaming, and which will feature guest speaker Professor Pier Paolo Portinaro, Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Turin.
The Holocaust Remembrance Day, established by law in Italy in 2000 and subsequently by UN resolution in 2005 as a world anniversary, is a moment of commemoration of the victims of the Shoah as well as an opportunity to reflect on the causes and aftermath of one of the most terrible pages of our history.
Professor Portinaro, taking his cue from the Eichmann case, will develop the theme of evil and the responsibility for evil. The meeting will begin with the projection of a short video on Eichmann.
Adolf Eichmann, the fearsome SS chief who devised and organised the logistics of the deportations with a view to the ‘final solution’, was arrested in Argentina in 1961 and subjected to a long trial in Jerusalem during which, in addition to denying his own responsibility, he appeared as a simple, mediocre character, stubbornly repetitive in his line of defence. The result was an image of a size that cannot be compared with the immensity of the disasters to which he had heavily contributed. This generated the concept of the ‘banality of evil’ developed by the journalist and philosopher Hannah Arendt.