Anna Porter (2008) Kasztener’s Train.

I’d heard of Oskar Schindler— the clichéd read the book and seen the film—but I hadn’t heard of Resko Kasztner the Hungarian born Jew. Anna Porter tells us who he was and what he did. There are historical echoes of many of the lessons here that we’ve already forgotten.

Chapter 32, begins with a quote from [United States] :

‘Rowell McClelland, Report on the Activities of the War Refugee Board from March 1944 to July 1945.

‘Dr Israel Kasztner acted with courage and resourcefulness for over a year as an intermediary Becher of the SS and Mr Mayar [Jewish Council]…Aside from gaining a great deal of invaluable information from Dr Kasztner concerning the progress and plans of the Nazi-Hungarian operations against the Jews, the tangible results of these negotiations can be summed up as the following:  

1) The bringing to Switzerland of the two groups of Jews from Hungary, via the concentration camps of Bergen-Belsen on August 21, 1944, 318 persons, and on December 6, 1944, 1355 persons.

2) The avoidance of the deportation of upwards of 200 000 Jews remaining in Budapest on August 25, 1944, when Eichmann’s organization had 66 trains ready.

3) The exemption…of elderly and sick persons and children (Becher’s orders had been no one under 16 and no women over 40 or men over 60) from the forced evacuation on foot of Jews from Budapest in November 1944.

4) The diverting of transports of some 17 000 Hungarian Jews to Austria rather than Auschwitz in June 1944.

5) Tacit SS agreement that the International Committee of the Red Cross be permitted in Budapest and environs to shelter some 3000 Jewish children in homes under the Committee’s protection (August through to December 1944).

6) Facilitator for the procurement and distribution of foodstuff and clothing to some 7000 Jews in labor camps in the Vienna region (January 1945).

7) The release and arrival in Switzerland of 69 prominent Jews from Slovakia and Hungary on April 18, 1945.’

It seems clear from this that Resko Katszner is a hero.  The SS under Himmler were responsible for forced labour camps and the mass murder in death camps such as Auschwitz of between one and four million built for that purpose, yet were offering protection to the International Red Cross in Budapest. Why?

Well, it’s a game of high-stakes poker. Who blinks first? Ketszner with his promise of trucks and millions of dollars from International Jewry if the Nazis put ‘Jews on Ice’ and stop killing them in the meantime.  

Anyone that has read Holocaust literature knows what is going to happen next. Everyone dies. No country wanted refugees. Not America. Not Britain. Not Canada. Not Australia. Take your pick. Nobody wanted refugees. What direction those fleeing Budapest would travel? West or East?  But they didn’t have documentation.  Sound familiar?

‘The Righteous’ Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat, ‘who saved the lives of thousands,’ would have been reprimanded like his colleague Carl Lutz.  

Palestine under British Mandate especially didn’t want any Jews. The Arab Mufti had promised Hitler he was quite happy to slaughter them. Right-wing fascists in the Balkans and Poland were quite happy to round up Jews and massacre them. The Red Arrows in Budapest massacred babies in their cribs in the first floor of their orphanage. They moved onto the second floor and killed toddlers and infants. A German soldier prevented them massacring children in another orphanage. Those with guns tend to make their own laws. SS agreement wasn’t worth the paper it wasn’t written on.

Katzsner was accused of collaboration with the Nazis and not doing enough to save Jews. Imagine Solomon’s judgement of whose baby it was by cutting the infant in half was taken up by those who benefitted from it and thought it might have been the best idea. The baby should have fought back. Taken control of the situation. Shameless point scoring we see from political parties every day and not just Israel. The Dreyfus affair in France and Katszner’s trial in a country where he should have been a heroic figure.

That old dictum when we forget history it tends to repeat itself. The rise of the right. The shutting of borders. Human rights trashed, or in Britain’s cases, optional, but certainly not for refugees. Hansi Brand, Kesztner’s lover, and hero the Holocaust got it right. You weren’t there. You couldn’t know what it was like. And you don’t want us to remind you. Shunned. Told to shut up.  Read on.