By Professor Moshe Barides

I

“Kasztner had sold his soul to the devil.” With these unforgettable words, Judge Benjamn Halevi delivered his verdict in the Kastner–Gruenwald trial in Jerusalem in 1955.[1] The phrase became one of the most enduring judgments in Israeli history, shaping public memory of Rudolf (Rezső) Kasztner for decades. To understand the controversy surrounding Kasztner, it is first necessary to briefly trace the key events that unfolded in Hungary in 1944. 

Hungary, led by Regent Miklós Horthy, entered World War II as a German ally but retained a degree of independence. Despite anti-Jewish persecution and discriminatory measures, it did not implement the Nazi genocidal plan against its Jewish population. Consequently, its Jewish population, numbering more than 800,000, maintained a degree of normalcy until the German occupation on March 19, 1944. The situation then changed dramatically. Adolf Eichmann, with the cooperation of Hungarian authorities, rapidly organized the deportation of Hungarian Jewry. The Germans established a new Jewish Council (Judenrat) in Budapest and compelled it to implement their directives, including the ghettoization and deportation of Jews. Kasztner became centrally involved in negotiations with the Germans in an effort to save Jewish lives. He was able to secure the rescue train that ultimately brought 1,684 Jews to safety in Switzerland via Bergen-Belsen. Between May and July 1944, however, approximately 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz, where most were murdered shortly after arrival.[2]  On July 9, Horthy halted the deportations, leaving Budapest’s Jews facing a new phase of persecution, which took a turn for the worse when the Germans removed Horthy from power on October 16. At that point, they installed the Arrow Cross, a Hungarian fascist movement led by Ferenc Szálasi, which persecuted the Jews remaining in Budapest and murdered many. Soviet forces liberated Hungary in April 1945, by which time approximately 565,000 Hungarian Jews had been murdered.[3]

Selection of Hungarian Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Poland, May 1944.

Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem Photo Archives.

The stark contrast between those saved by Kasztner’s train and those who perished lay at the heart of Malchiel Gruenwald’s accusations that Kasztner had collaborated with Eichmann and other Nazi officials by rescuing a select group while failing to warn hundreds of thousands facing deportation. Kasztner filed a libel suit against Gruenwald, but Gruenwald’s attorney, Shmuel Tamir, shifted the trial’s focus to Kasztner’s broader conduct. The trial culminated in Halevi’s ruling, which appeared to validate the accusations, provoking a national uproar and stigmatizing Kasztner for decades. The controversy reached a tragic climax in March 1957, when Kasztner was assassinated outside his Tel Aviv home. On appeal, however, Israel’s Supreme Court overturned much of the ruling in January 1958, finding that his controversial decisions did not constitute treachery.[4]

Was Kasztner a collaborator, a rescuer, or a tragic leader forced to make impossible choices? What motivated his negotiations with Nazi officials, and to what extent did his efforts extend beyond the Kasztner Train? More broadly, how should Jewish leaders who negotiated with Nazi perpetrators be viewed? These questions become even more significant when contrasted with Moshe Krausz’s diplomatic rescue efforts. In my book, Unveiling the Dynamics Behind the Holocaust in Hungary (De Gruyter, 2025), I argue that Eichmann was the principal architect of the destruction of Hungarian Jewry, using Hungarian authorities and the Jewish Council to facilitate the rapid deportations.[5] Building on that analysis, this blog post reexamines one of the Holocaust’s most enduring debates.

II

More than seventy years after the Kasztner Trial, scholars continue to debate Kasztner’s intentions and the effectiveness of his negotiations with Nazi officials. Supporters portray him as a pragmatic rescuer acting under impossible circumstances, while critics argue that his negotiations with Eichmann helped maintain public calm and discourage resistance. A central issue remains Kasztner and the Jewish Council’s withholding of the Vrba–Wetzler Report, which documented Auschwitz-Birkenau and the mass murder of deported Jews.[6] Rudolf Vrba argued that Jewish leaders suppressed its dissemination to preserve negotiations with Eichmann.[7] Randolph Braham likewise maintains that Jewish leaders failed to warn Hungary’s Jews despite substantial knowledge of Nazi extermination plans. Raul Hilberg further criticizes them, while Hannah Arendt, in particular, emphasizes the moral implications of their actions that sacrificed lives and facilitated the Nazi deportations.[8]

By contrast, Yehuda Bauer challenges the view that Hungarian Jews were largely unaware of the fate awaiting deportees. He argues that reports of the Nazi mass murder had already reached Hungary through returning Jewish labor servicemen, refugees from occupied Poland, and refugees from Slovakia.[9] Bauer also disputes Vrba’s claim that Jewish leaders suppressed the Vrba–Wetzler Report (also known as the Auschwitz Protocols), contending that they passed the information to influential Hungarian officials, enabling it to reach Regent Miklós Horthy and contributing to his decision to halt the deportations in July 1944.[10] Bauer identifies Horthy as a key factor in stopping the deportations, noting that only a small number of German personnel were involved, leaving Horthy with considerable authority to intervene.[11] Horthy could have intervened earlier but did not, ultimately acting as pressure mounted. Bauer suggests that the protocols contributed to Horthy’s decision to halt the deportations, alongside growing pressure following the July 2 American bombing of Budapest, which led Horthy to tell the Germans that he had to stop the deportations.[12]

In this context, David Kranzler highlights Moshe Krausz’s role in transmitting the Auschwitz Protocols through diplomatic channels to Switzerland, where their publication generated international pressure on the Hungarian government.[13] I argue that, despite Braham’s justified criticism of Kasztner and the Jewish Council for failing in their responsibility to inform Hungary’s Jews, both their domestic dissemination of the Protocols and Moshe Krausz’s international efforts contributed to Regent Horthy’s decision to halt the deportations in July 1944.[14]

Against this background, it is important to consider the Jewish organizations and individuals who sought to respond to the unfolding catastrophe. Established in early 1943 at the initiative of the Jewish leadership in Palestine, the Budapest Relief and Rescue Committee (Va’adat ha-Ezrah Ve-ha-Hatzalah) brought together representatives of several Zionist currents. Initially, the Committee assisted Jews fleeing neighboring Nazi-occupied countries; following the German occupation, it shifted its efforts toward rescuing Hungarian Jews.[15] Ottó Komoly, a leading figure in Hungarian Zionism and chairman of the Hungarian Zionist Federation from 1940 to 1944, served as the Committee’s chairman.[16] Representatives of other Zionist movements included Kasztner and Joel Brand of the Ichud, and Miklós (Moshe) Krausz of Mizrachi, who later worked closely with the Committee. Despite their different ideological affiliations, they shared the goal of rescuing and assisting persecuted Jews.[17] Yet they pursued different approaches to rescue. I argue that these approaches reflected not only ideological differences but also their particular positions, circumstances, and connections. Komoly, who had contacts within Hungarian society, sought to engage Hungarian political figures and secure the support of Christian churches and their organizations.[18] Krausz pursued diplomatic and international channels, including his connections with Swiss officials such as Carl Lutz, while working to obtain protective documentation and other forms of assistance. Kasztner, drawing on his experience as a journalist and his close partnership with Joel Brand, whom the Germans had previously approached, increasingly focused on direct negotiations with senior SS officials.[19]

Krausz played an important role in developing a system of protective passes. Drawing on a list of approximately 7,800 Jews whose immigration certificates to Palestine had gone unused since the beginning of the war, he proposed issuing these documents as a means of protecting them from persecution. Through his connections with Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz, the scheme was expanded to include their immediate family members, ultimately placing tens of thousands of Budapest Jews under Swiss protection. As the Swiss mission lacked the capacity to accommodate the growing number of people seeking protection, they received a former glass factory that became known as the Glass House. Lutz placed the building under Swiss diplomatic protection, and by October 1944 it had become a protected shelter for Jews threatened with deportation and persecution.[20]

III

Recent scholarship has further intensified debates over Kasztner’s role. A major contribution is Ayala Nedivi’s 2024 Hebrew study, Rakevet Kastner (Kasztner’s Train), based on extensive archival research and previously unpublished sources. Revisiting a central question from the trial—whether Kasztner realized before or after the deportations began that negotiations could no longer save Hungarian Jewry as a whole but only a limited number of Jews—Nedivi offers a more critical interpretation, arguing that he had already abandoned hopes of broader rescue well before the German occupation in March 1944, focusing instead on negotiating the emigration of selected groups of Jews.[21] Thus, Nedivi portrays Kasztner as a collaborator with the Nazi system, influenced in part by personal ambition, adding that the Rescue Committee missed opportunities to save Jews in the months before the German occupation. Eli Reichenthal further points to Kasztner’s alleged misconduct and raises questions about possible earlier contacts with the Nazi SD.[22]

However, a markedly different interpretation has been advanced by Kasztner’s granddaughter, then-Israeli Knesset member Merav Michaeli, through a panel discussion presenting Kasztner as a rescuer and hero rather than a collaborator. Participants argued that his efforts extended beyond the famous rescue train and contributed to saving thousands of additional Hungarian Jews. Arieh Barnea, an Israeli Holocaust researcher and lawyer who participated in the panel, argued that Kasztner attempted to warn the Jewish community of Cluj (Kolozsvár) before the German occupation by sending several emissaries. He also highlighted two other aspects of Kasztner’s activities: his later rescue efforts with Kurt Becher and his attempt to secure the release of Hannah Szenes. The latter effort was reportedly prevented by the Arrow Cross takeover on the day she was scheduled to be freed in October 1944.[23]

Although I could not verify Barnea’s claims or obtain additional documentation, they suggest that aspects of Kasztner’s wartime conduct warrant further investigation. Related evidence comes from Yehuda Bauer, who argues that Zionist rescue activists attempted to warn communities against deportation trains even before receiving the Vrba–Wetzler Report, though these warnings were often dismissed or disbelieved.[24]

While acknowledging Kasztner’s responsibility for decisions that, even if unintended, contributed to Eichmann’s deportation program, I challenge Nedivi’s claim that he abandoned broader rescue efforts in favor of saving only limited groups of Jews.[25] Determining intent remains difficult, and some evidence suggests that Kasztner continued to believe that negotiations could achieve broader rescue.[26] At the time, this was not irrational. The apparent success of Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl’s negotiations with Dieter Wisliceny in Slovakia, where deportations temporarily ceased in 1942, suggested that SS officials could sometimes be influenced, although later evidence showed that other factors contributed to the halt. Other cases also suggest that negotiations could sometimes succeed. For example, Yoel Palgi, who was a member of the Jewish rescue mission from Palestine, recounts that in January 1945, Aharon Biss of the Rescue Committee negotiated with a Gestapo officer during the Budapest ghetto crisis, offering money and postwar guarantees that helped save thousands of Jews.[27] Some other sources, including Eli Reichental’s account of Kasztner’s July 15, 1944 statement that he regretted not warning Hungarian Jews because he believed negotiations offered the best chance to save lives, as well as his later acknowledgment to Kurt Becher that relying on negotiations had been a mistake, suggest that his aim was not to save one group while abandoning the rest, but to save Jews broadly.[28]

Nevertheless, as my book demonstrates, this does not absolve Kasztner or Jewish leadership of responsibility. Their role involved not only withholding critical information but, at times, participating in measures that facilitated deportations, including publishing directives in Jewish newspapers, urging Jews to comply with German orders.[29]  These actions must also be understood within the context of fear and coercion, reflecting the complexity of judging responsibility under extreme circumstances.

Kasztner’s supporters have long credited his negotiations with Kurt Becher and other senior SS officials with preventing the deportation of up to 200,000 remaining Budapest Jews and securing the transfer of approximately 15,000 Jews to the Strasshof labor camp.[30] Reexamining contemporary evidence, Eli Reichenthal argues that these outcomes resulted from broader military, political, and economic factors beyond Kasztner’s negotiations.[31] I find his analysis persuasive but argue that Kasztner was not deliberately misleading others by claiming credit for saving these lives, as Eichmann and other SS officials made him believe that negotiations had achieved these results to maintain his cooperation. Kasztner’s later rescue efforts with Becher nevertheless helped save additional Jews.

Jews from the “Kasztner train” arrive in Switzerland. This group of Jews was released from Bergen-Belsen as a result of negotiations between the Germans and Hungarian Jewish leaders Joel Brand and Rezso Kasztner. Switzerland, August 1944.

Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem Photo Archives

IV

To conclude, this final section revisits several of the central issues raised in the debate and offers additional reflections based on my research. First, this analysis suggests that Kasztner entered negotiations seeking to save Hungarian Jewry broadly, believing that direct engagement with senior Nazi officials offered the best chance of rescue, even if personal ambitions also influenced his conduct.[32] Second, the effectiveness of negotiations depended not only on Kasztner’s intentions but also on the Nazi officials involved. Earlier contacts with Dieter Wisliceny and later negotiations with Kurt Becher encouraged the belief that bargaining with the SS could save lives. However, once Adolf Eichmann assumed control, such negotiations became largely futile, serving primarily as instruments of deception while he relentlessly pursued the destruction of Hungarian Jewry. Third, Kasztner and the Jewish Council bear moral responsibility for actions that facilitated deportations, but these decisions must be evaluated within the context of extreme coercion rather than reduced to simplistic labels of hero or traitor. Kasztner’s postwar testimony on behalf of senior Nazi officials requires further discussion. Fourth, the different rescue approaches of Kasztner and Krausz reflected not only ideological differences but also distinct circumstances and constraints. Fifth, Krausz’s diplomatic rescue efforts, credited with saving thousands of Jews, deserve greater recognition. Sixth, Kasztner has been criticized for not sharing the Vrba–Wetzler Report publicly. Yet, his and Krausz’s efforts through different channels later helped influence Horthy’s decision to halt the deportations. Finally, regarding whether Kasztner saved Jews beyond those on the train, there is some evidence suggesting that those sent to Strasshof or who remained in Budapest were spared for other Nazi considerations. Nevertheless, Kasztner should not necessarily be accused of deliberate deception in claiming credit for their rescue, as Nazi officials fostered the belief that his negotiations were producing broader rescue results.

Taken together, these conclusions suggest that the history of Jewish leadership in Holocaust Hungary cannot be reduced to binary categories of heroism or collaboration. A balanced assessment requires acknowledging both moral responsibility and genuine rescue efforts while recognizing the profound impact of Nazi coercion, deception, and circumstance on the choices available to Jewish leaders.

Author

Moshe Barides, Ph.D., is a professor specializing in Jewish Studies and History. He has been teaching at Touro University for over a decade and has participated in multiple long-term research projects across various areas, including extensive work on the Holocaust. He is the author of Unveiling the Dynamics Behind the Holocaust in Hungary: A New Perspective on Unfolding Events and Enduring Debates (De Gruyter, 2025), an open-access publication. An ordained rabbi, he has served Brooklyn’s Sephardic community and authored several books on Jewish law.

Notes

[1] Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, condensed ed., (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2000), 213.

[2] Yehuda Bauer, A History of the Holocaust, (New York: Franklin Watts, 2001), 344-345, 352-353.

[3] See Peter Hayes, Why?: Explaining the Holocaust (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017), 232.

[4] However, it upheld the accusation that he had provided testimony to save Nazi figures.

[5] Moshe Barides, Unveiling the Dynamics Behind the Holocaust in Hungary: A New Perspective on Unfolding Events and Enduring Debates (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025), 159-160.

[6] The report was prepared by Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler after their escape from Auschwitz in April 1944.

[7] See Rudolf Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz (New York: Barricade Books, 2002), 54, 419-420, Yoel Palgi, Into the Inferno (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 267–279. 

[8] Randolph Braham, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2000), 84-85, 706; Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (London: Penguin Publishing Book, 2006), 115-117; Barides, Unveiling the Dynamics Behind the Holocaust in Hungary, 110-111.

[9] Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 236; Kasztner’s Bericht report, however, offers a more nuanced picture of what deportees understood at the time. He writes (Bericht, p. 35) that many who boarded the trains believed they were being transported within Hungary. See also Reichental, p. 108, and n. 28 herein, for the relevant archival sources and further details.

[10] Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust, 236-239, and Yehuda Bauer, Jews for Sale? The Tragedy of the Jews, 1939–1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 156-157. See also Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide, 161. One testimony cited by Bauer comes from Ernő Pető, a member of the Jewish Council, who claimed to have delivered the Hungarian translation of the protocols to Regent Horthy’s son.

[11] Peter Hayes, Why? Explaining the Holocaust (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017), 232, estimates the number of German personnel in Hungary at approximately 150–200.

[12] See Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust, 238–239, for this argument and several supporting documents. Bauer further argues that delivering the report to Horthy was more reasonable than directly warning Hungary’s Jews.

[13] David Kranzler, Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust (New York: Mesorah, 1987), 208-209.

[14] Regarding Braham’s criticism, see Braham, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, 84–85; Barides, Unveiling the Dynamics Behind the Holocaust in Hungary, 15.

[15] Hanna Yablonka, The state of Israel vs. Adolf Eichmann (New York: Schocken, 2004), 27-28.

[16] “ועדת העזרה וההצלה בבודפשט” [The Relief and Rescue Committee in Budapest], HaMiklol, accessed September 8, 2026, https://www.hamichlol.org.il/ועדת_העזרה_וההצלה_בבודפשט.

[17] Szabolcs Szita, Trading in Lives? Operations of the Jewish Relief and Rescue Committee in Budapest, 1944–1945 (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2005), 1–3.

[18] Ibid., 58.

[19] See Szita, Trading in Lives?, 4-6, for a discussion of Joel Brand’s early life, his growing prominence within Budapest’s social circles by 1943, the connections that brought him to the attention of German agents, and Kasztner’s life and background.

[20] Braham, The Politics of Genocide, condensed ed., 230–231; “משה קראוס” [Moshe Krausz], HaMiklol, accessed September 8, 2026, https://www.hamichlol.org.il/משה_קראוס .

[21] Ayala Nedivi, Rakevet Kasztner: Al ha-Sheker ve-ha-Begidah [The Kasztner Train: On the Lie and the Betrayal] (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2024), 291.

[22] Eli Reichental, Ha-Omnam Nirtsah Pa’amayim? Parashat Kasztner Be-Re’iyah Meḥudeshet [Was He Really Murdered Twice? The Kasztner Affair Reconsidered] (Beersheba: Ben-Gurion University, 2010), 131.

[23] Part 1 of the discussion is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXWZKcyV_28.

[24] Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust, 236-237. See also Szita, Trading in Lives?, 76-79.

[25] Nedivi further argues that Kasztner and other leaders missed opportunities to save Jews during the nine months before the German occupation, an analysis I find convincing.

[26] Two documents presented by Eli Reichental (pp. 108–109) support this argument. The first is a notebook written by Kasztner’s secretary, Lili Unger, at his request and discovered in the late 1980s. In it, Kasztner blames himself for failing to share the information with Hungary’s Jews, while justifying his decision in the context of his negotiations.  If it reflects his genuine thoughts, the notebook suggests that he hoped for successful negotiations and later regretted their failure and the loss of life, not that he intended to save a small group at the expense of the majority. The second document is discussed at the end of this paragraph.

[27] Palgi, Into the Inferno, 236-238. 

[28] See Reichental, 108, for the relevant documents and archival sources, and p. 117, where he quotes Kasztner’s Bericht (p. 47) on his June 6, 1944, negotiations with Eichmann concerning the proposed rescue of 100,000 Jews as part of Eichmann’s deal with Joel Brand. Kasztner’s account suggests that he believed the negotiations could save Jews beyond those on the train, an expectation Eichmann deliberately encouraged to secure his cooperation. The postwar Bericht, prepared in 1946, was Kasztner’s account of the activities of the Budapest Jewish Rescue Committee. As a retrospective account, it should be read critically. The report is available through the Center for Jewish History’s digital archive, “Hungary – Report of the Jewish Rescue Committee of Budapest, circa 1946,” https://digipres.cjh.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE18526898 (accessed September 9, 2026).

[29] See Barides, Unveiling the Dynamics Behind the Holocaust in Hungary, 84–86, 123–125; and Anna Porter, Kasztner’s Train (New York: Walker & Company, 2007), 97–99, for discussions of coercion and related examples.

[30] Porter, Kasztner’s Train, 340-341. One of the documents presented is Roswell McClelland’s report on the activities of the War Refugee Board.

[31] Reichental, 116–135. One document is from Becher’s Nuremberg interrogation of July 7, 1947, in which Kasztner participated; when asked by Kasztner, Becher did not recall helping to save the Budapest ghetto.

[32] See Szita, Trading in Lives, Epilogue, where he likewise describes Kasztner’s position and role, rather than the interpretation presented by Ayala Nedivi.

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