Oved Kabiri, 89, was born in Tel Aviv in 1933, and was one of the first to see Adolf Eichmann before arriving in Israel.
"After I enlisted in the army, I studied at the technical school in the Air Force, and from there I came to El Al in 1954, where I served as a pilot engineer for 47 years," he tells Israel Today at his place of residence these days in the Mediterranean Towers in Ganei Tikva.
“Later, I learned to fly and flew planes to all sorts of places and served as a private pilot.
"Since I had a background from the GDNA, it seems that someone in the high windows ordered me to a unit that served as the long arm of the State of Israel.
"I was part of a team that used to fly a plane to all sorts of places in the world not for the purpose of flying passengers," he says.
About one fateful day in his life that put him on the pages of history, he says that "one day, when I was 26 and still living with my parents, I got a call from the office, and they told me they were opening a travel agency in Argentina, and we were going to fly there. "Zvi Tohar, the flight captain, told us that we would be divided into two groups. One group went to prepare the plane for the flight, and a second group accompanied someone important who needed to be brought to Israel."
"We were two flight engineers, and I went with the group to fetch the important person as we were asked. We arrived at a house in Argentina in Buenos Aires, and suddenly I see two people coming out, and another one towing with them, and all in El Al uniforms. I saw a man handcuffed, but I did not see He was drugged. Beyond that he was wearing glasses and I did not know who it was. We drove towards the field, but we did not enter through the gate, but someone made sure the side fence was open. We arrived and put him on the plane. And I pushed him up the stairs, "he recalled the way he first met Adolf Eichmann.
"We started flying, and when we left the borders of Argentina, Zvi Tohar asked me if I knew who this man was, and I told him no. He told me Eichmann, and I asked who Eichmann was? I did not know who he was," he said.
How is it that the name was unfamiliar to you?
"Our parents hid the subject of the Holocaust. Ben-Gurion's theory was to raise youth who did not know everything there was, fresh and new youth. A newspaper that was the only newspaper that entered the house did not publish anything on the subject, and in fact I could not know anything."
"After hearing that I did not know, he told me everything, and we arrived on the ground. There were two flight attendants who let him drink and eat, with their job being to bring them down on the ground" in one pice. " "When we got to Dakar, we asked for a landing permit, and they asked us how we had so much fuel to fly straight from Argentina? Zvi Tohar answered the same one and said in English - we threw our water into the engines."
"When we arrived in Israel, they started asking me if I had brought Eichmann, and I had to say I did not know. Close to landing, Issar Harel called us and said we should not talk about this flight for 30 years. I got married a year later, my wife asked me and I did not say. "Someone from Argentina came to me and was angry at me for bringing Eichmann because we spoiled the relations of the Jews there with the authorities. Only then did my parents understand what was on the fateful flight," he recalled.
After learning about what Eichmann did, Kabri decided to go see him in the dungeon.
"I asked to see him, and when I arrived there was a man who interrogated him, Gideon Hausner's deputy, Michael Goldman. I sat there and watched, and Goldman came up and said to Eichmann -" Do you remember you were in Auschwitz and caught a little boy who had a slice of bread stolen and ordered to beat him 80 times?
You will know that this child is me. "
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