Kasztner's Train: The True Story of Rezso Kaztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust

by Anna Porter

The true, heart-wrenching tale of Hungary's own Oskar Schindler, a lawyer and journalist named Rezso Kasztner who rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews during the last chaotic days of World War II -- and the ultimate price he paid.
In summer 1944, Rezso Kasztner met with Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust, in Budapest. With the Final Solution at its terrible apex and tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews being sent to Auschwitz every month, the two men agreed to allow 1,684 Jews to leave for Switzerland by train. In other manoeuvrings, Kastzner may have saved another 40,000 Jews already in the camps. Kasztner was later judged for having "sold his soul to the devil." Prior to being exonerated, he was murdered in Israel in 1957.
Part political thriller, part love story and part legal drama, Porter's account explores the nature of Kasztner -- the hero, the cool politician, the proud Zionist, the romantic lover, the man who believed that promises, even to diehard Nazis, had to be kept. The deals he made raise questions about moral choices that continue to haunt the world today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Holocaust, Biography, World War II, Jewish, War

512 pages, Hardcover

First published October 30, 2007

About the author

Anna (Szigethy) Porter began her Canadian publishing career in 1969 at McClelland & Stewart (M&S) as editorial coordinator, under Jack McClelland’s directorship. Porter eventually rose to become VP and editor-in-chief at M&S. She worked with, among others, Margaret Laurence, Matt Cohen, Al Purdy, Irving Layton, Peter C Newman and Margaret Atwood.
Porter started her publishing company, Key Porter Books, in partnership with Key Publishers' Michael de Pencier in 1982. They published, among others, Allan Fotheringham, Jean Chretien, Joe Clark, Margaret Atwood, Peter Lougheed, Fred Bruemmer and Conrad Black.
Anna Porter is an Officer of the Order of Canada and the recipient of the Order of Ontario.
Anna Porter retired from publishing in April 2005. She is the author of, so far, 12 books.

Reviews

[Chrissie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh my, there are too many details. Rather than clarifying, they confuse. I actually want to quit this.... How much more can I take? I have read 111 of 466. It is a very bad sign when you start looking at page numbers.

Nope, I am giving this up. I picked up Armenian Golgotha just to check out a bit about the author who survived the Armenian Genocide in Turkey, 1915. This is also a book of non-fiction. Now this I cannot put down. Non-fiction does not have to be dry and confusing as I found "Kasztner's Train" to be!

I do not intend on finishing "Kasztner's Train". I will give it two stars because it is clearly well researched. It has an index, photos, a map and notes for every chapter. I didn't like it much, irregardless of all the effort put into it. Please do not judge the author by this book. See below.


Before reading:
I simply must add this book, b/c the author blew me away with her book entitled The Storyteller: Memory, Secrets, Magic and Lies.

This biography is about Kasztner, a Hungarian who, like the more well-known Schindler and Wallenberg, saved many Hungarian Jews in WW2. He was assassinated in Israel in 1957 b/c right wings thought he had collaborated with the Nazis! He saved Jewish lives through monetary payments to Nazis and by putting others in Austrian labor camps where their chance of survival was better. He was accused of not warning other less wealthy Hungarian Jews. Some say he paid Nazis with "blood money". A very controversial figure. In this author's hands the story must be riveting.

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Never having read Perfidy (I know, shame on me), I first learned about Kasztner when I read The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust. My curiosity was aroused. What was up with this guy? Was he a hero? A villain? So when I noticed this book in a secondhand bookstore, I couldn't resist. Given its length, I was hoping it would shed some light on this complicated story.

Unfortunately, the amount of detail detracted and muddied the picture for me rather than clarifying things. The book gives a great deal of background before commencing with the stories of Joel Brand, who attempted unsuccessfully to barter with the Nazis for Jewish lives, and Reszo Kasztner, who managed to convince a Nazi officer to rescue selected Jews only to be vilified and subsequently murdered a decade later in Israel for his collaboration with this Nazi. Brand and Kasztner's stories are told through numerous anecdotes describing their various interactions at every stage, and it was hard to see the forest through the trees. A timeline might have been helpful; as it was, I couldn't follow all the interchanges or keep track of the various characters who played minor or major roles.

The author also appeared less than objective, painting Kasztner as a martyr and a victim of courtoom theatrics, rhetoric, and political agendas rather than shedding light on some of the factors complicating his story. At the same time, Perfidy has also been described as a highly biased account so there may simply not be a whole lot of objective material out there. The story is confusing on a variety of levels, both in terms of contradictory information and in terms of the conflicting feelings it arouses. Unfortunately this book reflects the story's confusing nature rather than elucidating it.

[Garryvivianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anything related to the Holocaust is terribly sad. This poor man, a Hungarian Jew, who always knew that once the Germans invaded other parts of the country, they would do the same to them. However,most Jews there refused to believe it. Once all the atrocities started, he & a handful of people started trying to intervene with the Germans to save as many people as they could. Amazing all the ways, all the trickery (on both parts-Jews & Germans) to "haggle" for lives. He got 2 trains to go to Switzerland, after many months of meetings with some of the most horrific SS leaders. He was always very frightened of meeting with them, he knew they always had the upperhand. Poor man, once it all was over, HE was put on trial in Tel Aviv for "not saving enough people", "deciding WHO to put on the trains" & they felt he had confiscated money, jewels, valuables that the Jews paid to get put on the trains. The quote was "WHY would Schlindler bother to save a Jew, and why did Kasztner not save more". Sad sad all the way around. He was a hero to many people, yet because of the Holocaust being what it was, most people never wanted to mention anything again about the trains, the safety he provided, so they did not testify on his behalf at his trial. He was murdered in Tel Aviv after his humiliation & browbeating at trial. Very informative.

[Derrel · Rating 2 out of 5]

The man and his story are quite remarkable, and it's good to see the vindication this book attempts to give him. The fault of this book is entirely the author's. She can't seem to get a grasp on what kind of book she is trying to write. A good portion of the book is a very dry, fact, fact, fact reiteration of what happened. Then, every so often, an awkward page or paragraph appears which reads like a novelization of events. The rest of the pages are filled with off-topic stories of atrocity which distract from the story of Kasztner. (Don't misunderstand me as saying that the stories of pain and suffering are unnecessary, because I think they definitely do need to be heard, but these stories are not Kasztner's, and interfere with the story the author is trying to tell.)

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have an interest in learning about the Holocaust and those that did try to do something about it, this book will keep your interest from beginning to end. Even though the subject material is terribly sad, I loved this book.

[Sarah Finch · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had not heard of Reszo Kasztner prior to buying this book. Porter touts him on the cover as a hero and on the jacket as another Oskar Schindler, and tells his story straightforwardly in a manner devoid of nuance. And this story requires nuance as well as reflection. Kasztner was a Hungarian Jew who worked to save over a thousand Jews in Budapest and other areas of Nazi-occupied Hungary, and in the process worked closely with SS officers like Kurt Becher to the point where he went to nightclubs with him and even testified in his defense at Nuremberg. These complexities led to Kasztner being branded a Nazi collaborator in 1950s Israel and even being convicted of that ghastly crime. He was assassinated months before an appeal exonerated him, and was subsequently mainly lost to history. So the problem with this book is not that the story it tells is boring. The problem is that Porter seems so dedicated to labeling him a hero that she neglects the very real questions that arise in even her sympathetic account -- mainly, at what point does cooperation become collaboration? Can somebody ever get too close to evil while trying to do good? Was Kasztner preferential in whom he chose to save, and is that even something to be condemned? Porter herself raises a question towards the end: why was a gentile like Oskar Schindler always considered to have done good deeds and never asked why he didn't save more people, when a Jew like Kasztner was constantly badgered about why he didn't save more in the years after the war? Unfortunately she doesn't pause to consider the factors that could answer her query. That lack of introspection is what makes this book so maddening.

[Rosalyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sadly, I must confess that, although I have read many books on World War II and on the Holocaust, until now I have not read anything on how Hungary as a nation allied to Germany and the Jewish people in particular were affected by these events.

"Kasztner's Train" by Anna Porter is a book that I would recommend to anyone wanting to learn more on this subject. Personally, I do not recall ever before being challenged by book as much as I was by this one. The writer does not apologise for the honest portrayal of the main players, the Germans, the Hungarians, the Jews of Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and Israel, as well as Allied leaders, etc.

What is one life worth? To me this is the question that the book asks. When a race of people are being exterminated, and entire enemy cities being razed by bombings, what is a single life worth, be it Jewish or Gentile? Or a hundred? Or a thousand? I will let you, the reader, answer the question when you have read "Kasztner's Train" by Anna Porter.

[Bobbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at Hungary after the Germans invaded in 1944. A lot of it will be familiar if you've read The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. Unfortunately, Porter tried to include too many details, especially during the first part, into the book. It got very tedious and detracted from the main story. Hungary's Jews were spared for several years until the Nazis got word that Horthy was investigating an ending of hostilities with the Allies. Germany also knew the end was close for them and decided to invade before it was too late. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were shipped off to concentration camps. The survivors were primarily those who lived in or near Budapest.

Kasztner is a controversial figure in Hungarian history. Did he save his fellow Jews by conspiring with the Nazis or did he use every means possible to get a few more to safety. It's too bad that he craved the spotlight so much which really brought him criticism that he didn't fully deserve.

[Sharon Fritz · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than I ever knew about Hungarian Jews during World War II. This is the story of one man's efforts to save the Jews of Hungary. Very disturbing, enlightening, sad & informative at the same time. I had a hard time putting it down.

[Anne Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Towards the end of this book, there's a thought that sums up the perversity of human nature: Oskar Schindler was lionised because he saved so many Jews, and people wonder why he saved even one; but Rezso Kasztner was demonised because, although he saved thousands, he didn't save more.

Kasztner spent years negotiating with Eichmann for the lives of Jews. He was buying time, but also buying lives. At one point, he managed to negotiate for the trainload of Jews to be sent to Switzerland, among them members of his own family. His heroic actions were vilified in the newly established state of Israel because he did not do more, did not convince others that "resettlement" meant extermination, did not choose other Jews rather than the ones that were selected. Emotionally and psychologically destroyed by the ensuing trial, he was murdered by extremists as a Nazi collaborator. The results of the appeal - too late to save Kasztner's life - were that a person's motives and actions cannot be judged by the outcome of events beyond their control.

The Jews of Europe were divided in their expectations in the late 1930s: some believed that, having a family history that went back centuries in their own country and having honourably defended their own country during the First World War, their neighbours would never stoop to the barbaric level of the exaggerated rumours they were hearing - while others sensed the truth of the coming devastation. Over five hundred Jews committed suicide in the weeks following the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria in 1938. (p21) Two weeks before the Evian conference, sixteen thousands Jews were sent to concentration camps. At Buchenwald, every night over the loudspeaker came the recorded instruction: "Any Jew who wishes to hang himself is asked first to put a piece of paper in his mouth with his number on it, so that we may know who he is." (p22)

On 16 February 1941, the New York Times ran an ad over Ben Hecht's byline: "FOR SALE to Humanity, 70,000 Jews, guaranteed human beings at $50 a piece." Hecht was alluding to a purported Romanian offer to let Jews go to Palestine. "Romania is tired of killing Jews. It has killed one hundred thousand in two years..." (p47)

Members of the SS who sought reassignment from a concentration camp were not relieved. Former soldiers who were assigned to these camps sometimes committed suicide rather than face another killing. (p86)

Hansi Brand, the wife of Joel Brand, a Jewish community leader was the first person to suggest buying Jewish lives in Hungary. Her husband was once given intercepted Jewish money from Adolf Eichmann for children's relief work. (p155)

Kasztner met with Oskar Schindler who told him of an entire apparatus of extermination for the Jews of Poland, but none of the community in Hungary believed this would apply to them. When an account came out of Auschwitz, Kasztner "recognized in himself the same intentional blindness he had abhorred in his colleagues, the fervent denial of unbearable reality." (p163)

When Kasztner heard of the bombing of Dresden, he said that if there was a God which he doubted, he had perhaps been thinking about the burning of all Dresden's Jews in 1349 on massive pyres in the Old City Square. That too had happened on February 13. (p352)

Many of the Holocaust survivors who eventually made it to Israel were not welcomed. The Yishuv wished to maintain its hard-won image of itself as a distinct, proud, uncompromising people who belong to the land through history and love. To them, the exiles from Europe were frightened and beaten, wanting to muscle in on a common future, but without the ideals of previous immigrants. They insulted them as "sabon", soap, from the alleged Nazi practice of making soap from the boiled bodies of their victims. (p386)

"Is not the flight from responsibility merely another kind of betrayal? And if I take this upon myself, what is the line that I should never cross? ... Common sense is almost incapable of drawing the line between self-sacrifice and betrayal." Reszo Kasztner (p398)

Szilagyi, a friend of Kasztner and the man who prepared the lists of Jews for the train - the list Kasztner was ultimately held responsible for - saw Kasztner as a stadlan, a fixer, an archetype in Jewish understanding of the person who tries to negotiate terms for survival of the Jews with successive overlands. (p463)

Shmuel Tamir was the prosecuting attorney in the Kasztner trial. Even after Kasztner's death, his vilification never let up. Yet in May 1985, he faced a "Kasztnerian dilemma" when he agreed during the Israeli-Lebanon war to exchange 1100 terrorists for 3 Israeli soldiers. (p446)

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very disapointing. I wanted to learn more about Kaztner and his rescue efforts, but this book certainly didn't help. Of course I can't say 'this statement is wrong, this fact is wrong" with 100% certainty. The author acknowledges that she's using testimony given after the fact, sometimes decades after the events took place. She also used a variety of sources that may have provided conflicting information. I had doubts frequently as I read, but those doubts solidified when Eichmann entered the picture.

Eichman has been blamed for everything under the sun. He's been portrayed as the most evil of Nazis. He may have been. I"m certainly not going to argue in favor of the man. There's no defense for what he did. That said, he really was a desk murderer. Some of the violent actions, such as the death of a child, attributed to Eichmann in Porter's book just don't sound credible. Many stories circulating about Eichmann have been debunked. There's a good chance that Eichmann never committed a murder, or even much physical violence, throughout his entire career. That doesn't mean anyone lied. It's very easy to see how victims and witnesses could believe that Eichmann was present at massacres and participated in the violence.

Even other Nazis that mentioned Eichmann in their memoirs and testimonies at war crimes trials have noticed how squeamish the man was. I believe that because I've read it in so many sources. An additional reason to believe such claims found in memoirs and testimony is that other Nazis were trying to lessen their own guilt and fob off responsibility by portraying Eichmann as the mastermind. Even though his former colleagues were trying to blame him for everything possible, they almost universally agreed that he wasn't violent and didn't even want to see death, much less murder people himself. That does not excuse Eichmann's actions. He was responsible for the death of every person that got on or off his trains according to the schedule he created.

Almost every description and interaction involving Eichmann in this book sounds questionable. Again, I can't say that with certainty. Maybe everything happened exactly as described, but I really doubt it. I also noticed other conversations and events that didn't match what I've read elsewhere. Porter doesn't claim to have written a factual account here, so I can't really complain too much. I just wish I could have more confidence in her book.

[Mark Lisac · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is indeed the story of Rezso Kasztner's largely frustrated efforts to save Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps but it is also much more. Some reviewers have complained about the wealth of detail. Some sections could have been shortened. There could have been descriptive reminders attached to names that are mentioned and then suddenly reappear 40 or 100 pages later.
But the granular depth of the story describes the overall environment of the catastrophe. What looked like a massive and highly efficient killing machine was not that at all levels. Both the murdering and victims' sides had subsurface labyrinths of deception, ambiguity, personal rivalry (even hatred) and, on the Nazi side, vast levels of corruption and greed that opened many doors to bribery. People always to some extent bend institutions to their own needs and proclivities.
Kasztner's attempt to exploit Nazi weaknesses by offering money and other deals brought him into close contact with some of the highest-level German officers. His relationships made him an extremely controversial figure after the Second World War ended. Looking for the title of this book by entering "Kasztner's" in the Goodreads search shows at least two more books followed Porter's, one apparently on the pro- and one on the con-Kasztner side (the con looks like it rehashes material that Porter covered). Porter herself clearly saw Kasztner as a heroic figure; some reviewers complain about that but my own reaction is: why not?
As terrible as the campaign of genocide was, it was followed by tragic splits in a Jewish community trying to come to terms with what happened both during the war and amid an atmosphere of continuing trauma later. Kasztner was eventually murdered by fellow Israelis (not a spoiler — Porter reveals his fate at the start of the book). The aftermath of the war becomes a story of how a massive crime affected everyone involved for decades; bizarrely, some of the Germans seem to have coped better than many of their victims.
The book ultimately goes beyond the remarkable and complex story of Kasztner himself. It implicitly raises the question of how anyone would cope with moral dilemmas in a situation that feels like the absence of civilization.

[Alistair Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rezso Kasztner. the subject of this book, is one of the lesser known figures of the Second World War and a controversial one. What emerges from this book is the story of a man who undoubtedly saved many lives during the holocaust but possibly sold his soul in doing so. In negotiating with the Nazis and Eichmann in particular he became the scapegoat for all the resentment, guilt and sense of loss felt by the survivors, rather than being lionized by the state of Israel Kasztner was accused of collaboration, of only saving those who could pay and of associating with the SS. Ultimately he was murdered , his reputation destroyed.
The story of the war time years is of a man who through swagger, bluster and self confidence not only survived but secured the release of thousands of fellow Jews, a Schindler type figure but one who was condemned by the central complaint of why he hadn`t saved more and of an indifference to those already in what became Israel towards what Holocaust survivors had experienced and in turn survivors anger that those who had been safe during the war should presume to judge how they should have acted.
The book also offers an interesting insight into the role of Hungary during the war and its uneasy alliance with Hitler , stuck between the Allies and Hitler Kasztner commented about the regent, Admiral Horthy "if this ever ends...Horthy should be given the Legion d`Honneur for extraordinary bravery in the face of the enemy and, immediately afterward taken out and shot for cowardice". A duality that could apply to Kasztner himself.
All in all this is a remarkable book and recommended

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biased in favour of Kasztner but I still came away thinking he was generally a bad person. Not necessarily saving the few at the cost of many more as it’s hard to know what we’d do in that situation. But the fact that he voluntarily testified in defence of a couple of the highest ranking SS officers responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands says it all. No one in their right mind would do that. But I guess it’s a great story as everyone has a differing opinion. Also worth reading Rudolph Vrba’s opinion of Kasztner.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the premise of the book and I want to know more about the man, but I got bored, it was so bogged down in minutia. I quit after about 200 pages. I've started it twice but I can only handle about 100 pages before I lose interest.

[Pat Coletta · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most incredible books on the subject of the Holocaust. It was often hard to read because it's based on history but it was full of profound information not talked about in movies or other books.

[Alexis Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent well researched book. It made me sick to my stomach many times when the prices were being negotiated. But that is what had to be done to get people to safety. Hard read, but a good one.

[John Hayward · Rating 5 out of 5]

History as it ought to be told - and taught.

[Yehudis Dick Meyers · Rating 2 out of 5]

A story worth reading about but the messy and boring writing of this book did not do justice to it. I skipped around the beginning and then read the part about the trial. The author knows a lot about Kasztner himself, but her knowledge about things like the Holocaust or Zionism sounds a lot like she did a couple months research rather having an inside understanding of it. Little things annoyed me like saying a rabbi dedicated his life to learning the Kabbalah, a book of mysticism (Kabbalah is a subject for which there are many books), or that someone's father told her that the most important thing is to be Mensch (Mensch is noun), or that the Satmar Rebbe was the leader of American Hasidic Jewry (the leader of a group, not {the} leader)

[Barbara Kacer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I had never heard of Rezso Kasztner and his role in the Holocaust, I bought a copy of "Kasztner's Train." I struggled through the first half of the book as it was overloaded with details and characters. After several months I picked up the book again and didn't dwell on trying to keep everything straight in my mind.

My husband's parents immigrated from Hungary prior to WWII. Thus, I found the content to be very interesting. And even though I have read a lot about the Holocaust, I still learned quite a bit.

I think the author tried to fit too much material into one book. A two-volume book or an entirely separate second book might have made some of the content less confusing.

[Jaye Latts · Rating 3 out of 5]

The way this book was written wasn't very good; it was difficult to follow the who/what/when of the narrative, so I felt sort of lost throughout the reading, except when we finally got closer to the end of the war and thus to the end of the story. I was shocked by the treatment of the Holocaust survivors by their fellow Jews when the war ended and many of them (survivors) moved to Israel. Rezso Kasztner's treatment was also deplorable.
Despite the not-great story-telling, this book is still worth reading.

[Cathy]

I saw a write up about this book in the Vancouver Sun by Malcolm Perry. It's the story of 1,684 Hungarian Jews that escaped the Nazi Holocaust in 1944. The escape was negotiated by Rezso Kasztner with Adolf Eichmann. I think this book may have been made into a movie. The author Anna Porter, left Hungary in 1956 and became Key Porter's publisher in 1969.

[Ciara · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Conflicted' is the one word I can say I feel about the Kasztner question.
As for the way it was written I feel Porter was very biased (in favor of Kasztner) throughout the book. It makes you feel obliged to read other accounts to form a full picture.
I'm still processing my thoughts on it all.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

True story and very interesting. It seemed very technical with lots of details.