Customer Reviews

Kasztner's Train: The True Story of an Unknown Hero of the Holocaust

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This book should be read by anyone who is interested in the Holocaust and its' unimaginable horrors. Rudolf Kastner, a Hugarian Jewish leader, goes into negotiations with Adof Eichmann and Kurt Becher (2 leading Nazis) in order to save as many Jews as he can. In the end, Kastner manages to save 1685 Jews via a special train. Clearly, Kastner was in an impossible situation, where he negotiates with Nazi beasts who could send him to death with a crook of their finger. After moving to Israel in 1952, he is accused of collaboration. In a subsequent trial (which is detailed in the book "Perfidy" by Ben Hecht), very disturbing facts emerge. The trial was actually a libel trial against a man named Grunwald who made these allegations. The result of the trial was that Grunwald was found innocent of the main charges. As a result of the facts that emerged, public opinion became extremely negative toward Kastner, and he became a recluse. Shortly thereafter, he was shot to death by Ze'ev Eckstein. In an appeal after Kastner's death, the verdict was reversed.

There is no real way for any of us to judge Kastner, and the author does an excellent job going into great detail about the terrifying predicament the Hungarian Jews were in. Ultimately, the author feels that Kastner is much more good than bad, and should be lauded as a hero. I respectively disagree. I find 2 points quite disturbing:

1. Why did Eichmann and Becher feel the need to negotiate with Kastner at all? What did they need him for? According to Eichmann, he used Kastner as a tool to fool the other Hungarian Jews into inaction. Kastner knew about the transports to Auschwitz, and never informed anyone.

2. After the war was over, why did Kastner see the need to testify at the Nuremberg trials in favor of Kurt Becher? Thanks to his testimoney, Becher was freed, and went on to become of Germany's richest men, thanks to the money he stole from the Jews. Kastner testified in favor of other Nazi war criminals as well. The author explains Kastner's motives as a sense of honor.

Frankly, I found these explanations forced. However, I would advise readers to read this in conjunction with Perfidy and decided for themselves.

Kasztner remains controversial, but this book dispels many aspects of the criticism of his intent and character. Kasztner left the safety of Switzerland in 1944, during the depths of the depravity, to reenter Hungary and to continue his own rescue efforts, at the risk of his own life. He did save thousands, with many more thousands of descendants, including myself, owing him their lives.

Hecht's Perfidy was a lawyer's rendition (Shmuel Tamir's) of an ambitious politician in the 1950s. In those times, Holocaust survivors rarely spoke of their experiences and were even embarassed due to having survived. Within Israel, prejudice against survivors precluded an honest and full accounting of what happened. Otherwise, Hecht's book could not have been written. This book provides some balance and perspective 50 years after Hecht's book, and those who are intoxicated by Hecht owe to themselves to read this one to learn the other side. Interestingly, one area on which Hecht and Porter agree is that the Jewish Agency did far too little to help save Hungarian Jewry.

The debates about what Kasztner did can now be moved to the academic arena as highly specific inflammatory charges can be summarily dismissed. Kasztner was brave and sincere. Kasztner did save thousands. Kasztner did not profit from rescue. Kasztner did partner with a Nazi SS, specifically Kurth Becher, a rival of Eichmann, who used Kasztner to establish an alibi at Nuremburg Trials, perhaps but who did come through in certain instances.

The record should also include the accomplishments of those on the train, and their descendants. They include professors, doctors, a UN ambassador, businessmen, diplomats and many others. Each of them owes the life to Kasztner.

It's easy to castigate Mr.Kasztner that he dealt with the SS, etc. And who exactly was there to deal with, other than the ones who had power about certain events? I personally can thank him for being alive, since my grandmother was transferred to Theresienstadt -Terezin- where my father was born. If not for his deal, they would have been sent to Auschwitz immediately. Self-serving, not self-serving, he did save 1500 Jews, and with their descendants, it's a whole town full of Jews. It's a shame that he was murdered by fellow Jews. If he did not do what he did, the rest would have been killed as well. It's not fair that not everybody was saved, of course, but one has to see historical events in their context.

I read this as a work of historical fiction, which is the writer's strength; not as history. This is not to impugn Anna Porter's ability; just a recognition that judgment of this man's actions is beyond the pale of our understanding, even though such judgment is ineluctable, given the moment of his actions. Even though I tried to remain dispassionate in my identification with the hero of his story, I could not. Porter grabbed my sympathies and wrung them implacably in a powerful narrative that proceeded with demoniacal and unrelenting inevitability. Kastner is the powerless underdog submerged in a sickening morass of a polluted tsunami frantically gulping for air. Porter sustains his life with continuing action, and wisely refrains from attempting any psychological portrait of the man; but the sustained action speaks loudly and sympathetically for the man and the sanctity of his moral judgment. Porter's story is compelling and convincing and yet ultimately depressing; because it forces the conviction that life is much to complicated for us to understand and deal with. Like Kastner, we can make our best judgments but more than likely they will turn out to be drastically inappropriate as events unfold and the vast intelligence of the world reveals the outcomes we could never imagine. This well written book lets us share this humanity with Kastner's humiliation.

Porter's "book" is pure revisionist history at its worst. One should read Ben Hecht's "Perfidy" and Jim Allen's play "Perdition". Both used transcripts from Kasztner's trial as their basis. Kasztner saved only 1,100 mostly hand-picked elite Zionists who paid $1,500 apiece to get on his train. In the last months of WWII Eichmann had less than two companies of soldiers an needed Kasztner's help. The end result was that half a million Hungarian Jews were sent to Aushwitz. Kasztner's interests were self-serving. When his trail nearly brought down the Ben-Gurion government he was assassinated by the LEHI, the same group responsible for the massacre at Der Yassin.
Porter loads her highly flawed narrative with quotes by dead people and so-called "facts" that can not be substaniated. This book is nothing more than a blatant attempt to rewrite history and exonerate a man who directly collaborated with one of the highest ranking Nazis. It is the equivalent of calling John Wilks Booth a hero.

First, I feel guilty that I did not write this review earlier: it deserves more discussion that it received. Porter's book cause me, more than any other book on this subject I have read so far, to ask myself what I would have done faced with the same opportunities and dilemma Kasztner faced. I bought the book upon its release and swallowed it whole. Anna Porter's writing is compelling. I do not think that she had to resort to reconstructions of scenes and dialogs as she sometimes did-- the story and her writing seem compelling enough. I tried to imagine the book without the "reconstructions," and I think I would still give it 5 stars. All that being said, this book gave me a great deal to think about.

Kasztner and his fellow Jews faced an unimaginable threat: a monstrous machine led by heartless men determined to kill every last mother, father, son, daughter grandmother and grandfather for no other reason than their hearts pumped Jewish blood. There are no lessons that can train anyone how to confront such a situation. Kasztner made a decision to save as many as he thought he could but in a way that to many others who lost loved ones seemed crass and heartess. After reading the book though, I concluded that as a result of what he did, more survived than would have had he done nothing. To me, the proof that his actions were selfless was that he traveled out of Hungary more than once on missions to save the Jews, yet returned to complete his mission to save those he thought he could. How many others would have left a safe refuge in Switzerland to face death at the hands of the rabid Eichmann to save other members of their people?

With a new movie on the subject making the independent film rounds, I hope this book will receive more attention. It, and the story it tells so well, deserves it.

The book is very well researched and very informative, regardless of one's opinion of Kasztner's. The author provides a very good documentation of the facts, with very little, if any, of her own speculations. She also provides the opinions and memories of those who are very critical of Kasztner and certainly makes a very strong attempt at being balanced and open-minded in her presentation. It has been suggested to me that this book be read in conjunction with other books, presenting opposing points of view (e.g., Perfidy), and that's what I would strongly recommend.

Before believing that Kastner was much of a "hero" of the Holocaust, please read "Perfidy" by Ben Hecht and learn about Kastner sacrificing 500,000 Jews in order to save one thousand by keeping most Jews in the dark about the true nature of Auschwitz, Kastner testifying on behalf of Nazi Kurt Becher (among others) after the war, and Kastner lying under oath about having testified on behalf of the Nazi officers. In addition, "I Escaped from Auschwitz" by Rudolf Vrba (an Auschwitz escapee) accuses Kastner of covering up Vrba's own report on Auschwitz.

An expertly researched, captivatingly written and long overdue book about the courage, ingenuity, successes and ultimate sad persecution of a great but much maligned hero. Brava Anna Porter!

Anna Porter belongs to the pathetic group of self hating, extrme left wing Jews from Academia and elsewhere who are trying to change history. This book is full of lies, and the subtitle "Story of an unknown hero of the Holocaust" is obviously a dirty attempt to sell this book to young people, not familiar with the Kasztner affair. Kasztner was a psychopath, a Nazi admirer, and a traitor. The author, through her lies, want us to believe that he saved over 1000 Jews. She 'forgot' to tell us that in his deal with Eichman, he indeed saved his relatives, friends and party members and in return he promised not to tell the vast majority of the Hungaria Jews about their faith - the gas chambers. Why was Kasztner photographed wearing SS uniforms in Berlin? Why did he intervened on behaf of Nazi criminals after the war? Why was he assasinated by agents of the Mossad? (the killers were convicted but released from prison after a few months). The Kasztner affair was the first blow to the dictatorship of Ben Gurion, whoes messenger Kasztner, was a Nazi collaborator. Shame on you, Anna Porter, the ghosts of half a million Hungarian Jews are on your dirty conscious.