Rezső Kasztner

Rudolf Kastner

Rudolf (Rezső) Kastner (Kasztner), also known as Israel (Yisrael) Kastner, (1906 – March 12, 1957) was the de facto head of a small Jewish organization in Budapest known as the Va'adat Ezrah Vehatzalah (Vaada), or Aid and Rescue Committee, during the Nazi occupation of Hungary during World War II. As the head of the Vaada, he was one of the conduits between the Nazis and the Jewish community in Hungary. He is best known for having negotiated with the SS to allow 1,684 Jews to leave Hungary for Switzerland — in exchange for money, gold, and diamonds — on what became known as the Kastner train.

Kastner moved to Israel after the war, becoming a spokesman for the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 1952.^[1] His role in negotiating with the SS became controversial in 1953, when he was accused in a self-published pamphlet produced by Malchiel Greenwald, an amateur writer and stamp collector, of being a Nazi collaborator by inter alia having given a character reference to the Allies for SS officer Kurt Becher, which resulted in Becher avoiding prosecution at Nuremberg. Greenwald was sued for libel by the Israeli government on Kastner's behalf, resulting in a trial that lasted two years, and a ruling that Kastner had indeed, in the words of the judge, "sold his soul to the devil."

The Supreme Court of Israel overturned the judgment in 1958, but not before Kastner had been assassinated in connection with the allegations. He was shot on March 3, 1957, by Zeev Eckstein, 24, a Holocaust survivor,^[2] and died of his injuries nine days later.

Negotiations to save Jews

During the summer of 1944, Kastner met with Adolf Eichmann, who was in charge of the deportation of Hungary's 800,000-strong Jewish community to the German death camp at Auschwitz in Poland. At this meeting, an agreement was reached for 1,685 Jews to be saved for $1,000 per Jewish person saved. Most of the passengers could not raise the funds themselves, so Kastner auctioned off 150 seats to wealthy Jews in order to pay for the others. In addition, SS officer Kurt Becher, Heinrich Himmler's envoy insisted that 50 seats be reserved for the families of individuals who had personally paid him money for various favors, at an amount of approximately $25,000 per person. Becher was also able to get the price per head increased from $1,000 to $2,000. ^[3] The total value of the ransom was estimated by the Jewish community to be 8,600,000 Swiss francs, though Becher himself valued it at only 3,000,000 Swiss francs. ^[4] The passengers on the train were indeed saved and the train eventually reached Switzerland, a country that was neutral during World War II. Among its passengers was Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum.

Alleged collaboration

The consequences of this meeting between Kastner and Eichmann had long-lasting repercussions in the Israeli and Hungarian Jewish communities that are still felt today. Part of these repercussions revolve around the fact that Kastner helped to draw up the list of who was going to be among the Jews who were chosen to be saved and allowed to leave on a train. According to some sources [1], many of the Jews who were saved were Kastner's relatives, rich Hungarian Jews who subsidized those on the train who couldn't pay, real personal friends of Kastner as well as "community and Zionist leaders." However, even as these very negotiations were taking place, thousands of Hungarian Jews were being deported to Birkenau.

Many of those Hungarian Jews who were saved by Kastner considered him to be a hero who risked his life in negotiating with Eichmann. However, other Hungarian Jews questioned why Eichmann and Kastner were even negotiating at all and if Kastner was more of a collaborator than a hero. In 1960, sixteen years after the meeting with Kastner, Eichmann told Life Magazine that Kastner "agreed to help keep the Jews from resisting deportation — and even keep order in the collection camps — if I would close my eyes and let a few hundred or a few thousand young Jews emigrate to Palestine. It was a good bargain." [2]

By May 1944, Kastner and many other Jewish leaders knew that Jews were being sent to their deaths, having received the Vrba-Wetzler report at the end of April 1944. The report was released to the leaders of Jewish organizations in the hope that Hungarian Jews would be warned that they were being deported to a death camp and were not being resettled, as they had been led to believe. However, the report was not made public by Kastner and other Jewish leaders in Hungary. ^[5] By the end of the war around 450,000 Hungarian Jews had been murdered. Critics of Kastner allege that he agreed with Eichmann not to warn Hungarian Jews in order not to jeopardize negotiations to save the Jews who escaped on the Kastner train. Kastner's supporters argue that the agreement over the train was part of a much larger rescue effort involving negotiations to save all Hungarian Jews (see Joel Brand). They also argue he was so unknown and had so little power that no one would have paid attention to any warning from him anyway.

In defense of SS officer Kurt Becher

In early 1945, Kastner traveled to Germany with Becher, who had received the money and valuables paid to save the Jewish lives on the train. Himmler had ordered Becher to attempt to stop the destruction of the concentration camps as the Allies gained further ground in the closing days of World War II. Even though Kastner was a Hungarian Jew and Becher was an SS officer, Kastner and Becher worked well together.

At the conclusion of the war, Becher was put on trial at Nuremberg as a war criminal. Kastner testified in his defense, stating that "[Becher is] cut from a different wood than the professional mass murderers of the political SS". This defense of an SS officer further angered the Hungarian Jewish community, even more so than the original negotiations had with Eichmann. In all, Kastner testified on behalf of Becher and other SS officials involved in his ransom efforts five separate times between 1946 and 1948. ^[6]

Kastner trial

Kastner moved to Israel after the war, and became active in the Labor Party. He was an unsuccessful candidate on their first and second Knesset (Israeli parliament) lists, and became the spokesman for the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 1952. ^[1]

His role in negotiating with the SS in order to save Jewish lives made headlines in 1953, when he was accused in a self-published pamphlet produced by Malchiel Gruenwald, an amateur writer, stamp collector, and right-wing activist, of

collaborating with the Nazis
paving the way for the murder of Hungarian Jewry
partnership with Nazi officer Kurt Becher in theft of Jewish assets
saving Becher from punishment after the war. ^[1]

Gruenwald was sued for libel by the Israeli government on Kastner's behalf, resulting in a trial that lasted two years. His attorney, Shmuel Tamir, was a former Irgun member and supporter of the right-wing opposition Herut Party led by Menachem Begin. Tamir turned the libel case against his client into a political trial of Kastner and, by implication, the Labor Party. The mother of wartime heroine Hannah Senesh had also accused Kastner of betraying her daughter to her death and spoke out against him during the trial.

In his ruling, Judge Benjamin Halevi acquitted Gruenwald of libel on the first, second and fourth counts. He wrote:

The Nazis' patronage of Kastner, and their agreement to let him save six hundred prominent Jews, were part of the plan to exterminate the Jews. Kastner was given a chance to add a few more to that number. The bait attracted him. The opportunity of rescuing prominent people appealed to him greatly. He considered the rescue of the most important Jews as a great personal success and a success for Zionism. It was a success that would also justify his conduct - his political negotiation with Nazis and the Nazi patronage of his committee. When Kastner received this present from the Nazis, Kastner sold his soul to the German Satan.[3]

The Israeli government's decision to appeal on Kastner's behalf led to its collapse and new elections. Kastner became a hate figure. He was shot on March 3, 1957, by Zeev Eckstein, 24, described as "a Holocaust survivor," ^[7] and died of his injuries nine days later. Based on Israeli court records, Ben Hecht has written that Eckstein had been a paid undercover agent of the Israeli government's intelligence service a few months before the shooting. ^[8]

The Supreme Court of Israel overturned most of the judgment against Kastner in 1958. The majority decision said:

During that period Kastner was motivated by the sole motive of saving Hungary's Jews as a whole, that is, the largest possible number under the circumstances of time and place as he estimated could be saved.
This motive fitted the moral duty of rescue to which he was subordinated as a leader of the Relief and Rescue Committee in Budapest.
Influenced by this motive he adopted the method of financial or economic negotiation with the Nazis.
Kastner's behavior stands the test of plausibility and reasonableness.
His behavior during his visit to Cluj (on May 3rd) and afterwards, both its active aspect (the plan of the "prominents") and its passive aspect (withholding the "Auschwitz news" and lack of encouragement for acts of resistance and escape on a large scale) – is in line with his loyalty to the method which he considered, at all important times, to be the only chance of rescue.
Therefore one cannot find a moral fault in his behavior, one cannot discover a casual connection between it and the easing of the concentration and deportation, one cannot see it as becoming a collaboration with the Nazis. ^[9]

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c Bilsky, Leora. "Judging Evil in the Trial of Kastner", Law and History Review, Vol 19, No. 1, Spring 2001.
^ Zweig, Ronald W. The Gold Train: The Destruction of the Jews and the Looting of Hungary, Harper Collins, 2002, p. 232.
^ Kadar, Gabor, and Vagi, Zoltan. Self-financing Genocide: The Gold Train, the Becher Case, and the Wealth of Hungarian Jews. Central European University Press, 2004, pp. 213-214.
^ Zweig, Ronald W. The Gold Train: The Destruction of the Jews and the Looting of Hungary, Harper Collins, 2002, pp. 226-227.
^ Gilbert, Martin Auschwitz and the Allies, Michael Joseph, 1981, pp. 201-205.
^ Zweig, Ronald W. The Gold Train: The Destruction of the Jews and the Looting of Hungary, Harper Collins, 2002, p. 287, footnote 5.
^ Zweig, Ronald W. The Gold Train: The Destruction of the Jews and the Looting of Hungary, Harper Collins, 2002, p. 232.
^ Ben Hecht Perfidy, p 208 and p. 279, footnote 184.
^ Orr, Akiva. "The Kastner Case, Jerusalem, 1955" in Israel: Politics, Myths and Identity Crisis, Pluto Press, 1994, pp. 109-110.

References

Bilsky, Leora. "Judging Evil in the Trial of Kastner", Law and History Review, Vol 19, No. 1, Spring 2001.
Hecht, Ben Perfidy, first published 1961, Milah Press. ISBN 0-9646886-3-8
Kadar, Gabor, and Vagi, Zoltan. Self-financing Genocide: The Gold Train, the Becher Case, and the Wealth of Hungarian Jews. Central European University Press, 2004. ISBN 963-9241-53-9
Kasztner, Rezso Rudolf, Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem, 1972.
LeBor, A., "Eichmann's List: A Pact With the Devil" at The Independent (payment required for full access to article), published August 23, 2000.
Orr, Akiva. "The Kastner Case, Jerusalem, 1955" in Israel: Politics, Myths and Identity Crisis, Pluto Press, 1994, pp. 81-116. ISBN 0745307671
Zweig, Ronald W. The Gold Train: The Destruction of the Jews and the Looting of Hungary. Harper Collins, 2002. ISBN 0-06-620956-0