Regardinog the Kasztner affair, I think some perspective is needed. At the outset there is a big difference between mistakes in judgment, negligence and intentional harm. The standards by which we judge someone change with each level of complicity. When it comes to mistakes of judgement, we need to evaulate what was the standard of conduct? Moreover, we have to avoid judging a situation with the advantage of hindsight. To establish negligence, one must prove that a reasonable person would have acted differently in the same situation. Intentional harm requires malice aforethought. As I will demonstrate, Kasztner at best made some blunders in judgment and nothing more, if even that.
What are the facts as we know them? Kasztner was a Hungarian lawyer/journalist who at the time of the German invasion of Hungary was living in Budapset. As a Zionist leader in Hungary he had certain entre with Hungarian officialdom. both Jewish and non-Jewish. We know he negotiated with Eichmann and with Kurt Becher, that a trainload of Jews left Budapest and arrived in Switzerland via Bergen Belsen. Those are the undisputed facts. Now let’s fill in some blanks with accusations and analysis of them.
Let’s begin with a minor issue, the Vrba/Wetzler report. There is some dispute as to whther Kasztner was given a copy of the report in German or Hungarian. If he was given a German copy, it would have to have been translated, which takes time. But the accusation is that Kasztner 1)actively supressed the report or 2) delayed transmitting it or 3) actually used it as a tool to negotiate with Eichmann to his personal benefit and the destruction of other Jews. Nonne of the people who level any of the three accusations were actually in Budapest at any of the relevant times. How can they therefore know what Kasztner intended or did? Let’s look at each claim though and see what culpability we could find if they are true. ACTIVE SUPRESSION: Why might he have done that? Perhaps he wanted verification of allegations that on their face seemed outlandish. After all an atrocity such as Auschwitz had never been known in human history prior to WWII. Perhaps he feared that the Jewish reaction to the deportations would have resulted in greater and more immediate loss of life and therefore he supressed the report in order to negotiate and cancel all deporatations of Hungarian Jews. Remember this was a “chess game” and the stakes were higher than we can ever imagine. I ignore the third possibility because there is no evidece at all that he was a monster. May it have been a mistake to delay/supress the report? perhaps. Would a reasonable person have acted differently? I’m not sure. Moreover, we know that he did not supress it but passed it on the Swedish legation and Hungarian resistance.
Let’s consider now the actual train. Accusers say that Kasztner was a criminal because he 1) charged for tickets on the train 2) put his family, friends and cronies on the train and 3) actually made a profit off it. It’s true that some people did buy there way onto the train. Most however were not charged. Why were seats sold? To pay Eichmann. The Allies blocked all attempts at sending money for bribes. Neither the Zionist movement not the joint in Europe had sufficient funds to send to Kasztner. So Kasztner, in an attempt to appear as if he had the money, took it from those passengers who had what to give. BTW, in the end Kasztner paid about 1/10th the agreed upon price, and that money was later confiscated by the Allies. Places on the train were split up between the different communities and groups extant in Budapest. The Neologs, Orthodox, Zionist and other groups were asked to submit lists of proposed passengers. I don’t know how seats ultimtaely were allotted. Kasztner and his associates made that decision. But it was impossible to save everyone; should he have therfore saved no one? Indeed he did put his wife and father in law on the train. So what? He also put the Satmer Rov and the Belzer Rebbe (no friends of his to be sure, even after the fact) on the train Anyone would have done the same. As to the profit accusation, show me the money. No there is nothing to accuse Kasztner of here.
KURT BECHER: Kasztner supplied him a crucial affidavit in his application for de-nazification. This was a huge blunder which I cannot explain. But at the same time, no one died or was harmed as a result. It’s also possible that Kasztner genuinely felt that Becher was no such a villain. Assuming he did feel this way, there was no ethiacal impreitive to assist this cog int he Nazi killing machine. But no one died as a result.
When you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. Kasztner, due to the forces of history laid down with the dirtiest dog of them all. Sure he made errors in judgment and even miscalculated. But can anyone actually say that s/he would have done differently; that s/he could have done better; that Kasztner should have known better? The evidence clearly says no.