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About this quote

What does it mean?
Eichmann describes his detached attitude toward the victims, treating them as irrelevant to his own concerns.
In plain terms
He felt the people on the trains meant nothing to him.
What can you take from it?
Indifference to others’ suffering is a moral failing.

Where it applies

  • bureaucratic decision‑making
  • witnessing injustice

Putting it to work

  • cultivate empathy
  • recognize shared humanity

Questions to consider

  • How does distance affect moral judgment?
  • What can prevent dehumanization?

Another view

In extreme regimes, personal survival may pressure people into emotional numbness.

More from Adolf Eichmann

  1. Adolf Hitler may have been wrong all down the line, but one thing is beyond dispute: the man was able to work his way up from lance corporal in the German Army…

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  2. I was never an anti-Semite. ... My sensitive nature revolted at the sight of corpses and blood... I personally had nothing to do with this. My job was to obser…

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  3. To sum it all up, I must say that I regret nothing.

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