In 1961 Jerusalem, an unassuming prison officer is assigned an extraordinary and morally harrowing task—protect Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust, as he awaits trial and execution. Charged with ensuring Eichmann neither takes his own life nor falls victim to vengeful guards, the officer spends months in oppressive proximity to him, tending to his basic needs and observing him with unsettling intimacy. As time passes, the officer grows increasingly disturbed by the banality of such unfathomable evil, forcing him to grapple with troubling questions about the nature of humanity and guilt. But when the final verdict demands Eichmann’s execution, the officer draws the lot to be his hangman—left to reckon with the burden of taking the life of the man he was sworn to keep alive.