In a Compelling New Exhibit, the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum Spotlights a Clandestine Mission Tuesday October 8, 2024 Share AttractionsEntertainment By Rachel Huffman Since reopening in 2022 after a $21 million expansion and renovation, the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum has strived to teach visitors how to reject hatred, promote understanding and inspire change. Continuing its mission, the museum has created a compelling new exhibit that takes visitors on a surprising journey of art and espionage, showing the Holocaust through a different lens. The Artist Who Captured Eichmann, which runs until June 1, 2025, tells the exciting exploits of Peter Malkin, an artist and Mossad agent who played a pivotal role in apprehending Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1960. During his three-week mission, Malkin wrote, sketched and painted on the pages of a South American travel guide, creating a unique artistic chronicle of his experiences. “I took the little red book with me wherever I went,” Malkin wrote in what he later referred to as The Argentina Journal. In the exhibit, you can see 13 silkscreen prints of Malkin’s original artwork. His creative and emotional expression colors the pages of the visual diary, giving viewers a glimpse into an intensely personal – and historic – moment in time. “For special exhibitions, we look for stories and materials that bring new information and perspectives to lessons of the Holocaust,” Myron Freedman, executive director of the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, says. “The themes of our special exhibits will always connect with the Holocaust, but they can cover a broader range of topics than our main exhibition. By bringing in different art, culture and activities, we can make the museum appealing to everybody.” “I couldn’t stop until most of the pages were covered.”– Peter Malkin Malkin enjoyed drawing and painting as a child, and he found that his skill enhanced his talent with makeup and the art of disguise when he became a spy. While he had some formal training in Vienna, he was largely self-taught, taking inspiration from the art of everyday life. Like Pablo Picasso, George Rouault, Marc Chagall and other Post-Impressionist and Expressionist artists, Malkin used vivid colors and bold outlines in his imagery, which was often infused with a childlike directness and simplicity. “I couldn’t stop until most of the pages were covered,” Malkin wrote in The Argentina Journal. “During the day, I would sketch houses, and toward the evening, figures from the Carnaval celebrating Argentina’s 150th anniversary of independence. In the small hours of the night, however, I depicted Eichmann, Nazis, personal memoirs and memories of my own family … Today, after many years, the book still affects me, as if I had made the drawings only yesterday.” In one striking spread, Malkin depicts Mussolini and Hitler, reducing the subjects’ portraits to their most recognizable features: Mussolini’s large, bald head and Hitler’s angular haircut and mustache. Wearing similar white collars, they’re set against matching blue and red backgrounds. Referring to Hitler’s portrait, which he titled “Innocent Hitler,” Malkin wrote, “I don’t know what made me draw the Führer again. How did he become the leader and ultimate destroyer of the most cultured nation in Europe and the world at that time? How was he able to hypnotize his own people and instill fear of his military prowess in the nations around him? I sketched the Innocent Hitler because a leader reflects the people, and the world was too naïve.” Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Photo by Mark Hermes Steeped in Malkin’s imagery, The Artist Who Captured Eichmann pulls you into his world, but it also delves into the plan that was carried out to capture Adolf Eichmann. “This was a major episode in the history of bringing Nazis to justice,” Freedman explains, “and we show how it ties to the entire movement to bring perpetrators to justice.” Touching on his damning story, one display features an article in Life Magazine from November 28, 1960, in which Eichmann refers to himself as only “a little cog in the machinery that carried out the directives and orders of the German Reich.” “[Eichmann] personally transported thousands of Jews to death camps, particularly in the latter part of World War II,” Freedman says. “After he escaped and found his way to Buenos Aires, he became criminal No. 1 in searches for perpetrators.” After Malkin and his team captured Eichmann in Argentina, he was convicted of crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes against the Jewish people and membership in a criminal organization. On June 1, 1962, Eichmann was hanged at a prison in Ramla, Israel. His body was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea, so that no specific site could be memorialized. Share