The
Kastner train was a trainload of almost 1,700
Jews who, in the second half of 1944, escaped
from Nazi-controlled Hungary
to safety in
Switzerland, while some 450,000 members of the Hungarian Jewish
community were deported to the gas chambers at Auschwitz
.
The train was named after
Rudolf
Kastner, one of the leaders of the Hungarian
Aid and Rescue Committee, who
negotiated with senior SS officer
Adolf
Eichmann to allow a number of Jews to escape in exchange for
money, gold, and diamonds. The train included passengers from all
social classes and from all over Hungary. There were 40 rabbis,
including
Joel Teitelbaum, the
Satmar rebbe; well-known
Zionists; scholars; two opera singers; journalists; peasants;
officers in the Hungarian army; and Slovak and Polish refugees.
There were 972 female and 712 male passengers, including 252
children. The oldest passenger was 82; the youngest was born in one
of the wagons on the fourth day of the journey.
Kastner became a spokesman for the Ministry of Trade and Industry
in Israel after the war. He was assassinated there in March 1957,
after an Israeli court ruled, during a libel case brought by the
Israeli government on behalf of Kastner, that he had "sold his soul
to the devil" by selecting some Jews to be saved, while failing to
alert the rest of the community to its fate. The verdict was
overturned by the Israeli supreme court in January 1958 in a vote
of 4 to 1.
Rescue
On June
30, a train with an uncertain number of Jews left Budapest
. On
July 9, it reached Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where 1,684
arrivals were registered: in the early stages of the journey some
passengers had left the train, while others joined it. Three
suitcases of cash, jewels, gold, and shares of stock, amounting to
about $1000 per person, were paid to SS officer
Kurt Becher in ransom.
Despite Eichmann's promise that the train would go directly to a
neutral country, the Jews were held in
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in a special section
for some months.
318 were taken to Switzerland
in August and the remainder in December.
There were a number of births and deaths, and about 17 were
detained in Bergen-Belsen by the Germans on various pretexts. The
total saved was about 1,670. Among those who escaped by this route
was Rabbi
Joel Teitelbaum, the
rebbe of
Satmar, and his whole court,
leaders of
Orthodox and
Neolog communities, members of Zionist youth
movements, Polish and Slovak refugees, and many others.
Controversially, Kastner included a contingent of 388 people,
including several family members and friends, from his home town of
Cluj.
Kastner trial
The
transport played a major role in the Kastner trial in Israel
in 1954, in
which the government of Israel sued Malchiel Gruenwald, a hotelier, a
political pamphleteer and stamp collector, for libel after he
self-published a pamphlet charging Kastner, by then an Israeli
government spokesman, with collaboration. A major detail of
Gruenwald's allegations was that Kastner had agreed to the rescue
in return for agreeing to keep silent on the fate of the mass of
Hungarian Jews who were being transported to Auschwitz
. This accusation was accepted by the court,
leading Judge Halevi to declare that Kastner had "sold his soul to
the devil."
In 1958, most of the ruling was overturned by
the Supreme Court of
Israel
, but not before Kastner had been
assassinated. The issue remains the subject of heated
debate.
See also
Notes
- Braham, Randolph (2004): Rescue Operations in Hungary: Myths
and Realities, East European Quarterly 38(2):
173-203.
- Bauer, Yehuda (1994): Jews for Sale?, Yale University
Press.
- Bilsky, Leora (2004): Transformative Justice : Israeli Identity
on Trial (Law, Meaning, and Violence), University of Michigan
Press.
- Porter, Anna. Kastner's Train. Douglas &
MacIntyre, 2007, p. 233.
- Löb Ladislaus.Dealing with Satan. Jonathan Cape, 2008,
pp. 115-18.
- Hilberg,
Raul. The Destruction of the
European Jews, Yale University Press, 2003, p. 903
- Porter, Anna. Kastner's Train. Douglas &
MacIntyre, 2007, pp. 235-37.
- Löb, Ladislaus. Dealing with Satan. Jonathan Cape,
2008, p. 117.
- Bilsky, Leora. "Judging Evil in the Trial of Kastner", Law
and History Review, Vol 19, No. 1, Spring 2001.
- "On Trial", Time magazine, July 11, 1955.
- "Exoneration of Dr. Kastner, Time,
January 27, 1958.
- Löb, Ladislaus. Dealing with Satan. Jonathan Cape,
2008, p. 114.,
- Bauer, p198-199.
- Löb, Ladislaus. Dealing with Satan. Jonathan Cape,
2008, pp.198-200
- Braham, Randolph (2004): "Rescue Operations in Hungary: Myths
and Realities," East European Quarterly 38(2): 48
- Bauer, Yehuda (1994): Jews for Sale?. Yale University
Press, p. 197.
- Bilsky, p 47.
- Weitz, Yechiam (1996): The Holocaust on trial: The impact of
the Kasztner and Eichmann trials on Israeli society, Israel
Studies 1(2), 1-26; also Braham, Bauer, and Bilsky.
References
- Bauer, Yehuda (1994): Jews for Sale?, Yale University
Press, ISBN 0-300-05913-2.
- Bilsky, Leora (2004): Transformative Justice : Israeli
Identity on Trial (Law, Meaning, and Violence), University of
Michigan Press, ISBN 0-472-03037-X
- Braham, Randolph (2004): "Rescue Operations in Hungary: Myths
and Realities," East European Quarterly 38(2):
173-203.
- Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the
European Jews, first published in 1961, this edition Yale
University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-300-09557-0
- Weitz, Yechiam (1996): "The Holocaust on trial: The impact of
the Kasztner and Eichmann trials on Israeli society," Israel
Studies 1(2), 1-26
External links
Wikis
Map
Search
