Author: Ladislaus Löb
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446444880
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Two months after his eleventh birthday, on 9 July 1944, the gates of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp closed behind Ladislaus Löb. Five months later, with the Second World War still raging, he crossed the border into Switzerland, cold and hungry, but alive and safe. He was not alone, but part of a group of some 1,670 Jewish men, women and children from Hungary, who had been rescued from the Nazis as a result of a deal made by a man called Rezso Kasztner - himself a Hungarian Jew - with Adolf Eichmann, the chief architect of the Holocaust. Twelve years and a miscarriage of justice later Kasztner was murdered by an extremist Jewish gang in his adopted home of Israel. To this day he remains a highly controversial figure, regarded by some as a traitor and by many others as a hero. He was accused of betraying the bulk of the Hungarian Jewry by hand-picking only those who were politically and personally dear to him, or those from whom he could benefit financially, and the judge of his post-war trial concluded that he had 'sold his soul to Satan'. Rezso Kasztner tells his story - and also the story of a child who lived to grow up after the Holocaust thanks to him. A compelling combination of history and memoir, it is also an examination of one individual's unique achievement and a consideration of the profound moral issues raised by his dealings with some of the most evil men ever known.

Author: Paul Bogdanor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351510312
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
This book re-examines one of the most intense controversies of the Holocaust: the role of Rezs Kasztner in facilitating the murder of most of Nazi-occupied Hungary's Jews in 1944. Because he was acting head of the Jewish rescue operation in Hungary, some have hailed him as a saviour. Others have charged that he collaborated with the Nazis in the deportations to Auschwitz. What is indisputable is that Adolf Eichmann agreed to spare a special group of 1,684 Jews, who included some of Kasztner's relatives and friends, while nearly 500,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to their deaths. Why were so many lives lost?After World War II, many Holocaust survivors condemned Kasztner for complicity in the deportation of Hungarian Jews. It was alleged that, as a condition of saving a small number of Jewish leaders and select others, he deceived ordinary Jews into boarding the trains to Auschwitz. The ultimate question is whether Kastztner was a Nazi collaborator, as branded by Ben Hecht in his 1961 book Perfidy, or a hero, as Anna Porter argued in her 2009 book Kasztner's Train. Opinion remains divided.Paul Bogdanor makes an original, compelling case that Kasztner helped the Nazis keep order in Hungary's ghettos before the Jews were sent to Auschwitz, and sent Nazi disinformation to his Jewish contacts in the free world. Drawing on unpublished documents, and making extensive use of the transcripts of the Kasztner and Eichmann trials in Israel, Kasztner's Crime is a chilling account of one man's descent into evil during the genocide of his own people.

Author: Ṿaʻadat ha-ʻezrah ṿeha-hatsalah be-Budapeshṭ
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789653084438
Category : Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
The Report of the Budapest Jewish Rescue Committee, 1942-1945.

Author: Ruth Linn
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801441301
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
In 1944 a Slovakian Jew named Rudolf Vrba escaped from Auschwitz and wrote a document about the death camp activities. His words never reached the half million Hungarian Jews who were herded there. The story of that suppression is told here.

Author: Ben Hecht
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1787202135
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 761

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Book Description
An exploration of the Kastner affair: a conspiracy, a violation of conscience, criminal betrayal. Picture those early days when the new nation of Israel was being formed in the region of Palestine European Jews had just endured history’s ultimate holocaust. Allied governments such as Great Britain had refused to take action to block the trains from carrying thousands of them to certain death. In those final days before the end of the war, the epicenter of the Nazi extermination effort was Hungary. Jews had fled there from Germany and Poland, but they could not outrun the shadow of death. That is the obvious truth, but was there more? Was there collaboration with the enemy that resulted in these murderous acts? Can you really trust governments and leaders to do what is right and best for those they represent? As Edmund Burke declared, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." But what happens when those who are trusted as good join forces with evil? Underlying this story is a bizarre tapestry of deception at the highest levels of government with the lives of many innocents in the balance. The libel trial of Rudolf Kastner, a prominent journalist representing the new government and supported by its Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, establishes the outline of that hidden past, protected by the political interests of some of Israel’s early leaders. A true classic...History that reads like a mystery novel when villains parade themselves as heroes and the real heroes are targets of evil.-Print ed. Includes 204 photos, plans and maps illustrating The Holocaust

Author: Diane Armstrong
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 1867204673
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
An enthralling story of heroism, passion, and betrayal based on astonishing true events set in the darkest days of World War II in Budapest. For readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Alice Network and My Name is Eva. Budapest, 1944: The Germans have invaded. Jewish journalist Miklos Nagy risks his life and confronts the dreaded Adolf Eichmann in an attempt save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the death camps. But no one could have foreseen the consequences... Sydney, 2005: Annika Barnett sets out on a journey that takes her to Budapest and Tel Aviv to discover the truth about the mysterious man who rescued her grandmother in 1944. By the time her odyssey is over, history has been turned on its head, past and present collide, and the secret that has poisoned the lives of three generations is finally revealed in a shocking climax that holds the key to their redemption. From USA Today bestselling author Diane Armstrong come a story of an act of heroism, the taint of collaboration, a doomed love affair, and an Australian woman who travels across the world to discover the truth...

Author: George Konrad
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590514955
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Winner of the 2007 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Biography, Autobiography & Memoir A powerful memoir of war, politics, literature, and family life by one of Europe's leading intellectuals. When George Konrad was a child of eleven, he, his sister, and two cousins managed to flee to Budapest from the Hungarian countryside the day before deportations swept through his home town. Ultimately, they were the only Jewish children of the town to survive the Holocaust. A Guest in My Own Country recalls the life of one of Eastern Europe's most accomplished modern writers, beginning with his survival during the final months of the war. Konrad captures the dangers, the hopes, the betrayals and courageous acts of the period through a series of carefully chosen episodes that occasionally border on the surreal (as when a dead German soldier begins to speak, attempting to justify his actions). The end of the war launches the young man on a remarkable career in letters and politics. Offering lively descriptions of both his private and public life in Budapest, New York, and Berlin, Konrad reflects insightfully on his role in the Hungarian Uprising, the notion of "internal emigration" – the fate of many writers who, like Konrad, refused to leave the Eastern Bloc under socialism – and other complexities of European identity. To read A Guest in My Own Country is to experience the recent history of East-Central Europe from the inside.

Author: Arieh Ben-Tov
Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
ISBN: 9024737648
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
The ICRC delegate in Budapest was instructed to act within the strict confines of the Geneva conventions, and his report in early 1944 warning of the immediate danger to the 800,000 Jews should Germany occupy Hungary was still being debated in the ICRC headquarters when the Germans invaded in March. Only in July 1944 did Max Huber, the director of ICRC, write to the Hungarian Regent in reaction to public pressure. The ICRC's attitude reflected that of the Swiss government which was concerned with maintaining neutrality. Concludes that if the ICRC had acted forcefully it would have been much more difficult for the SS and the Hungarians to carry out the deportations. In contrast, the ICRC delegate in Budapest in the latter part of 1944, Friedrich Born, established childrens' homes, took under his protection camps and buildings where Jews were interned, and lodged official objections when violations of this protection occurred.

Author: Yehuda Bauer
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300068528
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
The world has recently learned of Oskar Schindler's efforts to save the lives of Jewish workers in his factory in Poland by bribing Nazi officials. Not as well known, however, are many other equally dramatic attempts to negotiate with the Nazis for the release of Jews in exchange for money, goods, or political benefits. In this riveting book, a leading Holocaust scholar examines these attempts, describing the cast of characters, the motives of the participants, the frustrations and few successes, and the moral issues raised by the negotiations. Drawing on a wealth of previously unexamined sources, Yehuda Bauer deals with the fact that before the war Hitler himself was willing to permit the total emigration of Jews from Germany in order to be rid of them. In the end, however, there were not enough funds for the Jews to buy their way out, there was no welcome for them abroad, and there was too little time before war began. Bauer then concentrates on the negotiations that took place between 1942 and 1945 as Himmler tried to keep open options for a separate peace with the Western powers. In fascinating detail Bauer portrays the dramatic intrigues that took place: a group of Jewish leaders bribed a Nazi official to stop the deportation of Slovakian Jews; a Czech Jew known as Dogwood tried to create an alliance between American leaders and conservative German anti-Nazis; Adolf Eichmann's famous "trucks for blood" proposal to exchange one million Jews for trucks to use against the Soviets failed because of Western reluctance; and much more. Tormenting questions arise throughout Bauer's discussion. If the Nazis were actually willing to surrender more Jews, should the Allies have acted on the offer? Did the efforts to exchange lives for money constitute collaboration with the enemy or heroism? In answering these questions, Bauer's book—engrossing, profound, and deeply moving—adds a new dimension to Holocaust studies.

Author: Szabolcs Szita
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9789637326301
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Set in the tumultuous moments of 1944-45 Budapest, this work discusses the operations of the Budapest Relief and Rescue Committee. Drawing out the contradictions and complexities of the mass deportations of Hungarian Jews during the final phase of World War II, Szita suggests that in the Hungarian context, a commerce in lives ensued, where prominent Zionists like Dr. Rezso Kasztner negotiated with the higher echelons of the SS, trying to garner the freedom of Hungarian Jews. Szita's portrait of the controversial Kasztner is a more sympathetic rendition of a powerful Zionist leader who was later assassinated in Israel for his dealings with Nazi leaders. Szita reveals a story of interweaving personalities and conflicts during arguably the most tragic moment in European history. The author's extensive research is a tremendous contribution to a field of study that has been much ignored by scholarship-the Hungarian holocaust and the trade in human lives.