Photograph: Brook Lapping/Kessler Prod/BBC 
 
 Israel has made public a decades-old handwritten plea for clemency from Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann for his role in the Holocaust, dated two days before he was executed.  High-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann requested a pardon from Israel's president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi two days before was hanged to death, rare documents released in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day showed on Wednesday. Although found not guilty of personally murdering anyone, Eichmann was convicted of playing a key role in the genocide of the Jewish people and sentenced to death on December 15, 1961. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up 
 
 In the petition, written after he was brought to Israel in 1960, then tried, convicted and sentenced to death the following year, Eichmann says that the Israeli court overstated his role in organizing the logistics of Hitler’s “Final Solution,” which involved the extermination of six million Jews. Hitler’s world may not be so far away | Timothy Snyder Read more 
 
 “There is a need to draw a line between the leaders responsible and the people like me forced to serve as mere instruments in the hands of the leaders,” the presidency quoted Eichmann’s letter as saying. “I am not able to recognize the court’s ruling as just, and I ask, Your Honour Mr President, to exercise your right to grant pardons, and order that the death penalty not be carried out.” 
 
 The letter was signed and dated: “Adolf Eichmann Jerusalem, May 29, 1962.” 
 
 He was hanged overnight May 31 and cremated hours later. “Even respected western opinion leaders have become afflicted with hatred for the Jewish people and the Jewish state,” Netanyahu said, without giving names. Eichmann, one of the main organisers of the Holocaust, escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp after the second world war and fled to Argentina in 1950, where he lived under a pseudonym until he was snatched by Mossad agents in Buenos Aires in May 1960 and smuggled into Israel. “The obsession with the Jews – the fixation on the Jewish state – defies any other rational explanation.” 
 
 Other documents presented at Wednesday’s commemoration, in the presence of Holocaust survivors, included requests for clemency from Eichmann’s wife Vera and his five brothers, along with Ben-Zvi’s letter to his justice minister rejecting the appeals. Also in the collection, recently digitized by the presidential archives, are a transcript of Eichmann’s defense counsel’s Supreme Court appeal, the handwritten opinion of justice minister Dov Yosef, and a note by prosecutor Gideon Hausner for his opening address. Adolf Eichmann during his trial 
 
 
 
 "The judges made a critical mistake when assessing my personality, because they cannot place themselves in the time and situation I was in during the war years," Eichmann wrote to Israel's second president. It is not true that I was personally of such a high rank as to be able to persecute, or that I myself was a persecutor in the pursuit of the Jews, in the face of such an abundant rule it is clear the judges in their ruling ignored the fact that I never served in such a high position as required to be involved independently in such decisive responsibilities. The war criminal, who was among those most involved in carrying out the Holocaust, further wrote: "I also never gave any orders in my name, but always operated according to orders. Had I been, as the judges assume, the fanatical driving force in the persecution of the Jews, this should have been reflected in a promotion and other rewards, but I was never granted any benefit. Notwithstanding there is a need to draw a line between the leaders responsible and the people like me forced to serve as mere instruments in the hands of the leaders. Holocaust Eichmann claimed he was 'a mere instrument' in Holocaust, appeal reveals ‘I was not a responsible leader and do not feel myself guilty,’ writes Nazi war criminal in personal petition now publicly released Adolf Eichmann’s appeal for a pardon from Israel’s then president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi was refused and he was hanged two days later. I am not able to recognise the court’s ruling as just, and I ask, Your Honour Mr. President, to exercise your right to grant pardons, and order that the death penalty not be carried out.
– In all of Israeli history, only one man has been sentenced to death by a civilian court and then executed: Adolf Eichmann. On Wednesday, the country released the Nazi's handwritten plea for clemency, penned two days before he was hanged. The AFP reports the release coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and quotes, along with the BBC and Ynetnews, from the May 29, 1962, letter, in which Eichmann tries to make the case that he was merely following orders when he implemented the "Final Solution": "[The judges] made a fundamental mistake in that they are not able to empathize with the time and situation in which I found myself during the war years. There is a need to draw a line between the leaders responsible and the people like me forced to serve as mere instruments in the hands of the leaders. Had I been, as the judges assume, the fanatical driving force in the persecution of the Jews, this should have been reflected in a promotion and other rewards, but I was never granted any benefit. I am not able to recognize the court’s ruling as just, and I ask, Your Honor Mr. President, to exercise your right to grant pardons, and order that the death penalty not be carried out." The Times of Israel reports that Eichmann—who fled a POW camp after the war, made his way to Argentina, and was kidnapped by Israeli intelligence agents in 1960—was cremated hours after his May 31 hanging; his ashes were spread in the Mediterranean Sea. Wednesday's release includes related documents, including President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi's rejection of the request; the letter Eichmann’s wife, Vera, wrote to Ben-Zvi; and chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner's moving handwritten opening statement that referenced the "six million accusers" with him who "are now only ashes." (The dark details of France's WWII Vichy regime were exposed last month.)