Night and Fog
2011
Video
Commissioned for the 54. Venice Biennale
Camera: Itay Marom
Production: Jonathan Dowek
On 11 April 1961, the trial of Adolf Eichmann began. He was tried in an Israeli court and charged for committing crimes against humanity and war crimes. He was convicted and executed by hanging on 31 May 1962. On a night, between 31 May and 1 June 1962, shortly after the execution and the cremation of the body, a group of police officers sailed on a boat six miles off the shores of Jaffa port. Their mission was to scatter Eichmann’s ashes into the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The purpose of the highly secret mission was to ensure that there could be no future memorial and that no nation would serve as his final resting place. Based on an interview Dani Gal made with Michael Goldman, a Holocaust survivor who was one of the policemen on the boat, the film re-enacts the scene of the group of policemen sailing on a dark foggy night with Eichmann’s ashes in a jug of milk.
Dani Gal
Dani Gal, born in Jerusalem in 1975, lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Bezalel Academy for Art and Design in Jerusalem, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule in Frankfurt and at Cooper Union in New York. His films and works have been shown widely, including the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, the Istanbul Biennale in 2011, New Museum New York in 2012, Kunsthalle St. Gallen, CH in 2013, the Jewish Museum New York in 2014, Berlinale Forum Expanded in 2014, Kunsthaus Zürich in 2015, Kunsthalle Wien in 2015, documenta 14 in 2017, and Centre Pompidou in 2018.