Nagar was born in Yemen in the late 1930s and moved to Israel as an orphan in 1948. His exact age is not clear.
After serving in the army, he entered prison service in Israel and was chosen as Eichmann’s personal guard at Ramle Prison. His duties included tasting the prisoner’s food in case it was poisoned.
He said he was chosen at random for execution, and Eichmann was hanged on May 30, 1962.
Nagar’s identity remained a mystery for another 30 years due to fear of reprisals, but was revealed by Israeli journalists in 1992.
In the years that followed, he gave a series of interviews, sometimes giving vivid details of the hanging and its aftermath.
He explained that after the deed, he was told to load the corpse into the cremation oven, but his hands were shaking and he could not walk without assistance.
For some time afterward, he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares. He later became religious and moved to the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, according to media reports.
In 2010, a documentary film “The Hanger” was made about him.
Eichmann played a key role in the 1942 Wannsee Conference, which planned the Nazi extermination of European Jewry, and is seen as the logistical mastermind behind the Final Solution.
After the end of World War II, he lived incognito in Germany and fled to Argentina in 1950.
Israeli intelligence discovered him in 1960, kidnapped him, and brought him to Israel to stand trial on charges including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the Jewish people.
He did not deny the charges or the Holocaust, but said he was following orders.
After a trial that was filmed and televised, he was found guilty on most counts and sentenced to death.
