Throughout the book, a number of motivations are raised for the hunt and capture of Adolf Eichmann. For Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, capturing Eichmann is a matter of restoring justiceand establishing memory. Many of the figures in the book note with the creation of the Israeli state and the passage of time, the memory of the Holocaust has begun to fade. Though a large portion of Israeli citizens are in fact survivors of the Holocaust, the book's protagonists observe a push to "move on," to leave the past where it is.

To do so, however, would be to abandon the obligation to restore justice. To capture Eichmann unearths these horrible memories, which is seen as vital. Otherwise, as these memories and accounts fade, so does the chance to fulfill the obligation to bring criminals to justice. It is difficult to argue that Eichmann is the same magnitude of threat as he was before. While he remains a hero to the Nazi community, he will never retain the power and influence he had during the war. However, the motivations to locate, capture, and prosecute Eichmann speak less to this ideathan its underpinnings—that the Holocaust was not a crime that warrants punishment, but merely an unfortunate consequence of the war, whose magnitude has been sensationalized.