The Eichmann trial marks a real turning point in the emergence of the memory of the genocide of the Jews, in Israel, Germany and the United States. It is the first major transnational narrative that constructs the genocide of the Jews as a distinct event in the Second World War. It was intended as such by those who organised it in Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion referred to it as a “Nuremberg of the Jewish people”. It also marks the advent of the witness. History is now told by those who were its victims. The perception of the “trial moment” as a turning point is now part of the common knowledge on the construction of the memory of the genocide.