Rezső Kasztner
Rezső Kasztner, also known as Rudolf Israel Kastner, was a Hungarian-Israeli journalist and lawyer who became known for having helped a group of Jews escape from occupied Europe during the Holocaust on the Kastner train. After World War II, he was accused of having failed to inform the majority of Hungarian Jews about the reality of what awaited them in Auschwitz. He was assassinated in 1957 after an Israeli court accused him of having "sold his soul to the devil," a charge that was overturned by the Supreme Court of Israel in 1958.
Kasztner was one of the leaders of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee, which smuggled Jewish refugees into Hungary during World War II. When the Nazis invaded Hungary in March 1944, he helped refugees escape. Between May and July 1944, Hungarian Jews were deported to the gas chambers at Auschwitz at the rate of 12,000 people a day. Kasztner negotiated with Adolf Eichmann, a senior SS officer and a mastermind of the Holocaust, to allow 1,684 Jews to leave instead for Switzerland on what became known as the Kastner train, in exchange for money, gold, and diamonds.
Kasztner moved to Israel after the war, becoming a spokesman for the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 1952. In 1953 he was accused of having been a Nazi collaborator in a pamphlet self-published by freelance writer Malchiel Gruenwald. The allegation stemmed from Kasztner's relationship with Eichmann and another SS officer, Kurt Becher, and from his having given positive character references after the war for Becher and two other SS officers, thus allowing Becher to escape prosecution for war crimes. The Israeli government sued Gruenwald for libel on Kasztner's behalf, resulting in a trial that lasted 18 months, and a ruling in 1955 that Kasztner had, in the words of Judge Benjamin Halevy, "sold his soul to the devil".
By saving the Jews on the "Kasztner train", while failing to warn others that their "resettlement" was in fact deportation to the gas chambers, Kasztner had sacrificed the mass of Jewry for a chosen few, the judge said. The verdict triggered the fall of the Israeli Cabinet.
Kasztner resigned his government position and became a virtual recluse, telling reporters he was living with a loneliness "blacker than night, darker than hell". His wife fell into a depression that left her bedridden, while his daughter's schoolmates threw stones at her in the street.
Kasztner was shot on March 3, 1957, by Zeev Eckstein, part of a three-man squad from a group of veterans from the pre-state militia Lehi led by Yosef Menkes and Yaakov Heruti, and died of his injuries 12 days later. The Supreme Court of Israel overturned two of the charges against Kasztner in January 1958 in a 4–1 decision, finding that he had tried to negotiate the release of as many people as he could and had acted on the assumption that it would cause more harm than good to tell the Jews bound for Auschwitz of the mass murders taking place there. However, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the charge stemming from Kasztner’s post-war assistance of SS officer Kurt Becher.
Early life
Childhood
Kasztner was born in 1906 in Kolozsvár in Austria-Hungary, into a local community of 15,000 Jews. The governance of the city was unstable, moving back and forth between Hungary and Romania. It became Cluj, Romania in 1920, was returned to Hungary in 1940, then was restored to Romania by the Treaty of Paris in 1947, after the Soviet and Romanian armies defeated German and Hungarian forces in the winter of 1944–45.Kasztner was raised with his two brothers in a two-story brick house in the southern part of the city by his father, Yitzhak, a merchant and a devout man who spent most of his day in the synagogue, and his mother, Helen, who ran the family store.
Education
Helen decided that her sons should attend a regular high school, rather than a Jewish one, as the curriculum was broader and included languages. By the time Kasztner graduated, he spoke eight languages: Hungarian, Romanian, French, German, and Latin, along with Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic.Anna Porter writes that he became known for his good looks, sharp mind, quick wit, and his intense focus, as a result of which his mother decided that he should study law, though his heart was in politics.
While Kolozsvár was still controlled by Hungary, Jewish entry to universities had been limited by the 1920 Numerus Clausus Act, which was the first antisemitic legislation in 20th-century Europe. The law limited Jewish university enrollment to 6%, reflecting Jews' portion of the population, and although Kolozsvár became part of Romania shortly after, and the legislation itself was allowed to lapse eight years later in Hungary, it affected Kasztner's teenage political orientation, and he decided at the age of 15 to become a Zionist.
He joined a Zionist youth group, Barissa, which trained its members to become citizens of the Land of Israel, becoming its leader within a year. His older brother, Gyula, had already emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1924 to work on a kibbutz, but Kasztner was still in high school and so unable to go with him. He played his part in the Zionist movement by writing articles on British policies in Palestine for the local Jewish newspaper Új Kelet.
Early career
When Kasztner was 22, his father died reading the Torah in the synagogue on the seventh day of Passover. He had to put off any ideas about emigrating, as his mother now needed him at home. He attended law school, as she wished, then worked full-time for Új Kelet after graduating, at first working as a sports reporter, though he continued to write about politics. He also became an assistant to Dr. József Fischer, a lawyer, member of Parliament, president of the Jewish Community of Kolozsvár, and leading member of the National Jewish Party. Fischer admired Kasztner's writing, and encouraged him to continue working for Új Kelet too.Porter writes that Fischer may have been the only person whose intelligence Kasztner respected. He was known for not suffering fools gladly, dismissing people as stupid or intellectual cowards. "He had no sense of other people's sensitivities, or he didn't care whether he alienated his friends," Dezsö Hermann, one of Kasztner's friends at law school, told Porter. "Back then, in Kolozsvár, Jews kept their heads down. Not Rezső."
Ladislaus Löb quotes Kasztner's associate Joel Brand as saying that Kasztner was the "prototype of the snobbish intellectual" but showed "marvellous courage at critical moments"; the Orthodox leader Fülöp Freudiger called him "dictatorial" but "selfless and always willing to take personal risks". Kasztner's daughter, Zsuzsi, described him as "very arrogant, and rightly so, because he was extremely smart and intelligent and handsome and charismatic".
He became known as a political fixer, knowing whom to bribe, how much to pay, whom to flatter. He interviewed leading politicians for Új Kelet, and even antisemitic members of the Iron Guard. He worked hard as a lawyer for his clients, reportedly knowing when to pay off the police so that charges would be dropped. He married József Fischer's daughter, Elizabeth, in 1934, which further cemented his position locally.
Refugee work
Rise of Nazism
As the German army moved across Europe, Kasztner set up an information center in Cluj to help refugees arriving from Austria, Poland, and Slovakia. He arranged temporary accommodation for them and collected clothes and food from local charities. His main concern was to provide Jewish refugees with safe passage, using his ability to bribe and charm to obtain exit visas from the Romanian government. He asked for help from the Jewish Agency's leadership in Tel Aviv, though there was a limit to what they could do because the British had imposed strict quotas on the number of Jewish refugees allowed into Palestine, causing Kasztner to attack "Perfidious Albion" in Új Kelet.On August 30, 1940, the Second Vienna Award returned Cluj to Hungarian control, becoming once again Kolozsvár. The city's Jews were glad at first, reasoning that Hungary's Jews had not been subjected to the same random killings experienced by Jews in Romania. Hungarian Jews were patriots, viewing themselves as Hungarians first, Jews second, and Hungary as their homeland, not Eretz Israel. Their jubilation was short-lived. As Germany's influence over Hungarian policies increased, Jews found themselves subjected to antisemitic legislation and violence. In 1941, the Hungarian government closed all Jewish newspapers, including Új Kelet. Kasztner, then 36 years old, decided to move to Budapest to look for a job, leaving his wife behind in Kolozsvár.
Move to Budapest
Kasztner rented a small, two-room apartment in a pension in Váci Street. He wanted to continue his work helping Jewish refugees in Kolozsvár, and with that in mind, had obtained a letter of introduction from József Fischer to Ottó Komoly, an engineer and president of the Budapest Zionist Association. Komoly directed Kasztner to Miklós Krausz, the Jewish Agency's representative in Budapest, who controlled the Palestine entry visas.Porter writes that Kasztner had to wait in line for two hours at the Agency's office on Erzsébet Boulevard, among scores of Jewish refugees desperate to find a way to escape to Palestine. He eventually barged past Krausz's secretaries and into his office. Krausz explained that he was determined not to alienate the British, which meant that every entry visa had to be legitimate and properly processed, which was consuming all his time. Kasztner offered to help, but Krausz was not interested. Porter writes that Krausz took an instant dislike to the "forceful, loud, and insistent Kasztner."
Kasztner's wife joined him in Budapest in July 1941. He tried to persuade Dr. Fischer, who had lost his law practice, to join them but Fischer refused, feeling responsible for the Jewish community in Kolozsvár. Komoly continued to introduce Kasztner to key figures in the Budapest Zionist movement, one of whom was Sam Springmann, who was bribing officials – in part with money from the Jewish Agency – to carry messages and food parcels into Łódź and other ghettos in Poland. It was Springmann who introduced Kasztner to Joel Brand, a meeting that was to change both their lives.