Come on and Ride the Train: The Kastner Story Part VIII

a date which will live in infamy. [music] >> Both of those projects initiatives got off the ground because of the G. >> The 11 Olympic team members slain [music] in West Germany. to help Americ were Americans who had come to learn in the tarant. I save 1 million Jewish children who were made to be cut. [music] Whoever heard such beautiful words Gabri with Jew history sound bites and this episode is part eight of our ongoing series about the Castner train. This part will be about the Kner trial, the characters in the trial, the witnesses, the proceedings of the trial, what was discussed and what was not discussed at the trial, the verdict and the appeal to of that verdict to the Supreme Court in Israel, the assassination of Rudolph Kasner uh before the uh Supreme Court finished with its deliberations and then finishing off with the verdict of the Supreme Court. That's what we're going to try to accomplish today. There are five main characters at the trial. Um there's many, many more people who made an appearance, but these are the five primary characters. Um Malle Greenwald is the defendant. He's the one who made the we spoke about in last week because last week was a replay of the uh was the fast earthquake. We had a off week, but two weeks ago, the last part seven, um, we opened up the trial. Malg is the defendant because he is the one who accuses Castner of collaboration with the Nazis, of not warning Hungarian jury about the impending deportations to Avitz, and testifying um on behalf of ESS officer Kurt Becker. Um and um the state of Israel um sues Mala Greenwald of liel. So Malcila Greenwald is the defendant. Shul Tamir is probably the most important person at the trial. He is the lawyer for the defense. He's the lawyer for Moil Greenwald and he's the one who basically ran the trial. And then we have Bin Yammen Halevi is the judge. He's the one who oversees the proceedings and later gives delivers the verdict. So he's an important person. That's already three individuals. The fourth one is Kaim Conn. Kaim Con is the prosecutor. He's the attorney attorney general of the state of Israel at the time. He doesn't start off as the prosecutor, but very quickly he becomes the prosecutor in the trial because um he they need his prowess. He need to Tamir has just uh taken over too much there. So they needed to bring in the the top uh the top guns on the prosecution side. So Cohen is called in. So he becomes one of the main characters. And the fifth and final main character is Kner himself. Obviously, he's the main witness. He's a witness at this trial. But since he is this primary subject, um so his testimony is the most important testimony. It's the lengthiest testimony. It comes under the greatest cross-examination and it is the most explosive testimony. The way Shul Tamir is able to question him about his activities during the time of the negotiations in the war. So those are the five people. Now we're rather familiar with Castner himself uh from earlier in the story. But who are these other fellows? So, I want to introduce um each of these other four individuals with a quick bio profile about their life and accomplishments because I think that their life stories of each of these respective individuals are worth bearing in mind as we follow them over the course of the trial because each and every one of them brought their own baggage, their own agenda, their own biases, their own vision into the courtroom. So, let's start with Malkeil Grimwald himself. He's born in 1882 in I mean it's technically Hungary but what was then the Austrohungarian Empire. [snorts] Um his father was a rabbi. Um he grew up in a Orthodox home. He eventually moves to Vienna as a young man. In Vienna he ran a small hotel and he also worked part-time as a journalist. And um he also joined he was a very staunch Zionist very ardent Zionist and he joined the Misrai religious Zionist party. [snorts] He wrote um as a journalist um for a Misrai um publication and from early on from his time as a young man in Vienna he was a provocative and very critical. He was very very sharp pen and he criticized um basically everyone labor leaders, political figures. He frequently attacked the Histadrut and other establishment Zionist leadership. He attacked leaders of Misrai. He attacked religious Zionist leaders. He attacked everybody. um and he was in very prominent and vocal in his journalistic pieces. Now he eventually he was a victim actually of an anti-semitic in in Vienna an anti-semitic uh attack um and he uh suffered some injuries and he eventually decides to um act on his Zionist beliefs and he immigrates to British mandate Palestine ter in 1938 with his wife and children. and he settles in Jerusalem and he buys a little hotel on Kikartion in Jerusalem and he again continues with his journalistic activity and again he becomes very known for his um provocative raelousing attacks on the leadership on the establishment and his critiques on many topics on many people on many leaders. So he um he also was very anti-British because of his Zionism. He he uh organized um illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine and he attacked the British for their white paper that banned immigration. His son Yitzkak Grunvald joined the Ergun underground and unfortunately he was killed in the 1948 war of independence in a battle on Hartion and Malkeila Greenwald renamed his hotel the Mount Zion hotel. So he had this um reputation for controversy and legal troubles because of his writings, because of his journalistic activity, because he and he got this reputation. He he he he was provocative. He was very outspoken critic of all kinds of figures. And when he started this self-published and translated, he wrote in German and I think his daughter translated his uh stuff for him into Hebrew. this letters to my friends in the misrai. He uh his his goal and he stated it he was very public with his goal was to attack corrupt leaders, unworthy religious officials, greedy public servants and any people in authority with particular intensity directed at members of the establishment Mapai, the leftist secularist establishment leadership and other establishment figures. Now, it's it's interesting to note that the uh the uh Castner accusation was not the first time that he had to deal with liel threats. So, this was a apparently a recurring issue in Malkel Grunwald's journalistic career. He very often had to, you know, he was forced to issue public apologies when his allegations were lielists and, you know, not even not true. um and his his when in 1952 when he um wrote this about Castner, it was just one in a long string of activities like this and this just happened to blow up into the most famous one um when he accused Castner of collaboration with the Nazis when he accused Castner of that his that Kner's actions or more more inactions had ultimately contributed to the deaths of Hungarian Jews Hungarian Jews. while securing the rescue of that one train. And he accused Castner of testifying on behalf of Kurt Becker, the SS officer, who was a SS murderer. And here he gets off scot-free because of Castner's testimony. So this eventually becomes his main story. That's what puts him on the public stage. And the he's sued for liable. He has to defend himself in court. And when he is um he's exonerated in in court by Halevi. So the state of Israel appealed the decision to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court overturn most of the lower courts court's decision. By the way the it's a liel trial, right? So the state of Israel appeals the lower court Havy's district court decision to the Supreme Court. 1958 when the Supreme Court overturns Halevy's decision, not all of it, most of it because the Supreme Court upheld Halevy's decision about um Castner's testifying on behalf of Kurt Becker. That the Supreme Court agreed was not liable. It was completely true and it's a horrible thing that Castner did that everyone seems to agree was a was a crime what Castner did. But everything else was overturned. So that means that Grunvald is convicted of liable, right? That's that's basically what it is. So what happens to him? It's a a footnote of the story. No one talks about it. So he actually was given a suspended sentence of of probation, a year's probation, not like house arrest, but kind of like something in between. Um and uh he actually was convicted and sentenced by the Supreme Court because it was liable because it's a liel trial. It's not about it wasn't a Castner trial even though that's what we call it. Um any event following the trial, Grunvald his life continues to be controversial. He he he uh continues to write journalistic pieces that get people angry and people start try to get sue him for liable. That things continues. It's a it's a theme throughout his journalistic career. Unfortunately, he continued to have personal tragedy. His daughter, um committed suicide in 1956. um in the early 1960s. This is already a decade later um after the tri almost a decade later after the trial and a few years after the Supreme Court decision, he was convicted of making a false statement in efforts to maximize his reparations from Germany and received a fine for that. Grunvald continued to live in Urusim until he passed away in 1968 at the age of 85. He's buried in I believe on Harus. Um in any event, um I just want to give a few examples of um of some of his attacks not related to Castner because it's interesting that he he did this to other people too. Um he he would make these accusations that were kind of like a kind of like sensationalist about public figures especially about the Mapai establishment but not only. He would make it about leaders of religious groups, rabbis, political leaders of Misrai, um politicians of all kinds of political parties but his main one was Mapai. Now he he wrote these these these articles regularly. So every time this was his this was his thing. He he was a he would accuse them of corruption. He would accuse them of greed. He would accuse them of misconduct and um and they were they were sensationalist in nature and he would make accusations and sometimes when it was really audacious he would get in trouble for it and that kind of like was a recurring theme. By the way, that already started in Vienna. He already um was accusing everyone of being communist and and and and things like that. And when he was when he in his journal in his journalistic articles in Vienna, he was a combative pamphlete and and uh writer. Um in 1943, he was charged. It means a decade before he wrote the Castner article, Mal Gral was charged with extortion because he was accused of demanding money in exchange for not publishing defamatory material about someone in aam newspaper. The conviction was later invalidated to due to procedural issues, but the incident underscored the risky nature of his attacks. That same year he challenged the outcome of an election for synagogue officers in a misrai religious shul and was fined for insulting them in an article. So again his journalism is crossing legal lines even internally within Ms. Rahi not only against Mai. Another fine he got, he was fined for insulting a young woman falsely um in one of his articles um by accusing her falsely of something. Uh so it wasn't limited to Castner and very often he was forced to make public apologies. When he was threatened with liel suits a few times he would make these public apologies at the Cafe Vienna which was on the ground floor of his hotel. He would make retractions. He would make apologies. He did it in public at this cafe. Even after the Castner case in 1964, he um he was involved in another lawsuit uh and and Schmool Tamir defended him again um in that lawsuit again in 1964. So that was that was his style. Okay. So that's his style and it happened to have exploded and become a big thing in the Castner trial. That's one character. Shmul Tamir. Who's Shal Tamir? He's the main character, we said, right? He runs the trial. He's the def he's he's the legal counsel for the defendant. And Shmul Tamir, he's born Shul Katnelson in 1923, passes away in 1987 in his 60s. And he's a very prominent lawyer. He was an underground fighter. He was a Knesset member. He was a minister in the Israeli government. He played a major role in the underground against the British. Um and and later on became a lawyer and politician. So there's three Shul Tamirs. One is as the underground fighter, one is as the famous lawyer and later on there's Shul Tamir the politician. So he's born into this very prominent Cass Nelson family. They're related to everybody. Maybe if I have a chance we'll get into who he's related to um at the end of his profile. He's like a very it's a very very prominent secular Yishuv family. Um very prominent Zionist family. His father was this pioneering physician. His father was close with Joseph Trump, the famous early Zionist leader. Um his mother was in the Knesset also. Later on in 1938, the young 15-year-old Shimul Tamir joined the Ergun, the right-wing Jewish underground fighting organization, and he took part in all this armed resistance against the British. He was commander of the Ergun fighters in Jerusalem. He led a bunch of attacks on the British there. And when he was arrested by the British, he was deported in 1946 to the British detention camps in Kenya. And while he was in the British detention camps in Kenya, he completed his law studies and became a lawyer. After the state of Israel's established in 1948, he comes back to Israel and he changed his name to Shmul Tamir from Shmul Katz Nelson and he uh becomes this very prominent lawyer known for his high-profile cases and for his politically charged cases. Why? because he is an irrun fighter. He's a member of the rightwing, the Jabatinski irrun revisionist Zionist. And there is nothing he can't stand more than the left-wing secular Zionist. I mean, he's he's just as secular, if not more than than the left, right? He's very secular, very secular family. But he does not like the Mapai establishment, the leftist um labor Zionist establishment, which the Mapai is the they're the rulers. They're the leaders of Israel. They're the leaders of the Jewish agency before the establishment of the state of Israel. And they are the ones in charge after the state. and he is looking for any way to get back at them to to and almost all of his famous cases and he had several of them were ways to get back at the MAI. He was looking to get at the Mapai um with the Caster Liel trial. The liel trial of Mackil Grunvald was the was the most famous of them but he had several of them. Okay. So, he's known as this fierce uh advocacy lawyer challenging the establishment through the courts. Um he becomes he's involved in politics. He's involved first in the Kirut party which is the father of the today's leur. Um he fell out he had a fallout with them also. He becomes a member of the Knesset in 1965 in the Gal party. Then he was in the Dash party. Then he was an independent member of the Kessed. He actually, interestingly enough, he served in the Knessed in the same political party together with Binyam Halevi, the Judge of the Kner trial. We'll get to that in a second. uh he later on was a minister of justice in Beagan's Kesset in the late '7s and um he eventually left um the Beagan coalition because of differences with the party leadership as well because he was you know a bit controversial and outspoken wherever he was. He remained a very respected and prominent leader in the legal field in political field in all kinds of things. I just want to mention a couple of other cases that he was involved with that was not related to the caston trial but shows the the style of Shimul Tamir. The Dove Shalansski case is one of Tamir's early notable cases. He defended Dove Shalansky who later became the speaker of the Knesset. Oilansky was a Holocaust survivor from Litta from Lithuania and he later became the speaker of the Kesset. Very prominent Israeli politician. Fascinating individual in his own rights. But in 1952, Shilanski was arrested and charged with possessing an explosive device and it was that he was going to use against Israeli citizens because this is during the peak. 1952 is the peak of the uh dispute in Israeli society about whether the state of Israel and whether Holocaust survivors should receive reparations from West Germany. With the Mapai establishment voting in the Knesset that they should receive reparations from Germany, it would boost the Israeli economy and it would give much needed funds both for survivors and the state. and the Beagan um le uh uh right, they felt that this is blood money. This is allowing West Germany to feel like, oh, that's it. We took care of it with a few dollars. And the, you know, you can't cover the guilt of what was perpetrated in the Holocaust with some reparations. And at the peak of that um the Dove Shalansky who's a member of the right he is accused of of trying to plant an explosive device and kill people at the peak of these in opposition to these reparations and he's arrested and brought to trial and his lawyer is Schmool Tamir and Tamir defends Scholanski and what he does is he goes against the Mapai the establishment. And he says, "I'm going to be there for the underdog. I'm going to be there for those on the right who are being attacked by the left." And they're accusing them of crimes that they never committed and I'm going to defend them. And that was the whole nature of the trial. That is one year before the Castner trial. Right? It's just good to keep in mind. Then we have another uh um case that Tamir took just a year or two after the Castner trial in the mid 1950s. There was an anti-establishment organization called Shuratameit Nadvim who published a pamphlet accusing Amos Bengurian who is David Bengurian the prime minister's son. They accused him of corruption. Okay. So, the police, the Israeli police acc um sued filed a a liel suit, not a liel suit. They accused Shuratamen Vim of liel against Amos Bengurian. So, there's that trial is also a two-year trial, a liel trial again. And these Shuratamen Nadvim are on the political right. Amus Bengurian is the son of the prime minister of the establishment Mapai on the political left and Tamir turned that whole trial into a platform of accusing the Mapai the establishment of corruption in Amos Bengurian is just one example and his father the prime minister is corrupt and the whole Mapai is corrupt and everyone is doing that and this trial is not just about Amos Bengurian it's about the whole Mapai that's corrupt. Okay. And that happens literally a year or two after the Caster trial. So the Dov Shalonsky trial happens right before and he makes it about Mai. The Amos Bengorian liel trial is right after and he makes it about Mai. So it shouldn't shock anybody which I think people usually look over that. It shouldn't shock anybody that that Tamir did the same thing in the Castner trial. just for some reason the Castner not for some reason for for obvious reasons the the Knastner trial is uh much more remembered by By the way there are several more examples I just don't want to get into all of them so this was the Tamir approach in the 1950s he's in he's a rightwing Zionist he's in part of the revisionist Jabatinsky Zionist movement that's he was already in the Urugun before that he's involved in politics he later serves in the Knesset um in those those type you know the right political parties on the right um for many years and the powerful Mapai establishment is something that really irks him for many years and he uses his incredible he's an amazingly talented he's a brilliant lawyer wellspoken and he's he's really good at what he does and he is is is he's using the platform of the courts of his position as a lawyer to use all these opportunities not only to defend these specific people, but to use it as a platform to speak about how awful the Mapai is, right? And he does that consistently in many trials. Okay, that's that's his prerogative. And he had the legal talent to do it. He was he was he was just really good at um so his courtroom work as a lawyer kind of blended with his ideological and political uh needs. Okay. He came from a very prominent background. His like I said his father was was a basically close with Joseph Trumpor and the Kats Nelson family. He was a very prominent family. Very prominent Zionist family. His uncle of Rome Kats Nelson was a signer of the Israeli declaration of independence. He was a prominent diplomat. One of his another uncle was one of the founders of the Ergun. His aunt Raul Kasn Nelson was married to Zalman Shazar, the third president of the state of Israel and ironically part of the Mapai establishment. Okay, it's a you know see a little shik in you know cross shik there. Interesting. Um so he's part of a a a very important family. Okay, let's move on to Binyam Halevi the judge. Binyamin Allevi was born in 1910 in Germany. Um he studied law in all these prominent German universities in Fryberg and Berlin. Becomes a lawyer the year Hitler came to power 1933. So you know wasn't Jewish lawyers couldn't get jobs in Germany at that time after Hitler came to power. So he moves to Palestine in 1933 and he's working as a lawyer. He then works as a judge. He's hired by the British already as a judge. Um so the the British make him into a judge at that time. And then once the state of Israel is established, he becomes the district court judge um in excuse me in Jerusalem. He was later appointed to the Supreme Court and he served there until he retired from the Supreme Court in 1969 to go into politics and he goes spends many years in the Knesset after retiring as a Supreme Court justice which is in interesting as well. [snorts] So although he's famous for the Castner trial, he also and for the most famous part of his of his role in the Castner trial is the legendary words that he said in his verdict that Castner sold his soul to the devil. Um which was is probably the most memorable thing about the whole Kner trial that Halevi Puskin in the verdict that Castner sold his soul to the devil. And even though the Supreme Court later overturned most of Haley's decision except for the part about where Caster testified on behalf of Kurt Becker. Um but but it's interesting to note that years later Halevi expressed his regret not over his verdict. He stood by his verdict until he died. But he said his choice of words, specifically those words that he sold his soul to the devil, which so resonated in the public mind in history in the media at the time. He said, I should not have used those words. He said, this is what he said. I said, he called the phrase unnecessary rhetorical flourish that was poorly interpreted in the public sphere. Interesting. So he regretted those words using those words. Either way he precided over many other very important trials including the Akishman trial. I think uh people don't realize that that uh that Halevi was one of the three judges in the 1961 Aishman trial a few years later which is fascinating that the same person was at both trials. Um he later served in the kasset and when he served in the kasset it was together with his old buddy Shmul Tamir right so Shmul Tamir was able to run the whole trial basically with Halev's permission and then later they're politically aligned in the same right-wing party serving together in the Knesset in this party. Interesting. Now there happens to be they also are buried near each other in the Sanhedria cemetery right next to Ramad in Jerusalem. Interesting. That is uh Halevi. Who's the last one and that maybe not but either way the last one on our list is Cohen Cohen is the prosecution in the Castner trial. Cohen is born in 1911 in Lubebec in northern Germany right near Hamburg into a very orthodox family probably the most famous rabbitical family in Germany in at the time. Why? Because his mother was a Carlbach. His mother was one of the many many children of Rabbi Schlommo Carlbach. And he was one of the most famous rabbis in Germany. And most of his children were rabbis. And by the way, on Conn's father's side, his very rabbitical family also. But the Karbachs are legendary. One of Kaim Con's uncles was Carlbach, the rabbi of Hamburg, who was killed by the Nazis. Another one, one of his of Kaim Kh's uncles was Rabi Carl Bach, which means that Kim Cohen, the attorney general of the state of Israel, later Supreme Court justice for the state of Israel for over 20 years, minister of justice in the Israeli government, one of the most famous uh personalities in the history in the legal history of Israel, was also a first cousin of none other than Schlommo Carbach. So that's uh interesting. Nice there. So either way, so grows up at a very religious home. He went to a religious now it's a religious home in Germany, right? It's tyramar, right? He had general education as well but he was given a strong talm talmutic education very scholarly family very rabbitical family and a very auras family as all the kalbaks were. So kon go grows up as a member of a gurus opposed to zionism and the he he had opposition to zionism like the rabbitical members of his family did. Very interesting that con had that when he was 18 he came to Israel to study in yeshiva but he eventually ended up in the meaz harav yeshiva of mizakayenuk and he started to get zionist tendencies there and at the same time being that he's a comes from the school of tyramarets combining the modern world with the Torah world He also attended Hebrew University at the time. Um so he combined the two. Now after he finished his yeshiva studies at me Kazarav where he was a student of Rav Cook, he returns to Germany and he completes his law degree at Frankfurt University. And then with the rise of Nazism, he returns to Eritis in 1933 and rises through the legal profession. He opens up legal practice in your he worked for a religious firm. He a prominent religious firm that was very affiliated closely. It was basically the legal arm of a good he uh he um he and that's that's where he started to have a troubled relationship with religion. He saw a lot of the uh you know the the lawyers have to and between law and politics he didn't see the best side of August let's just say that and he was very uh turned off we'll say he had some other issues with religion especially because of the holocaust and um he slowly left religious observance and by the time the late 1940s uh were around he had completely left religious observance He became somewhat opposed to religion over time. He became very secular over time. And in fact later on in life, many years later when his wife passed away and he wanted to remarry, so the woman he wanted to remarry was a divorcee and Cohen was a Coen and the Rabanut would not allow him to marry. So he went to the United States and had a conservative um conservative rabbi um marry him and so he got married with this conservative marriage. Now Kon is one of the most prominent people in Israeli society. He's a justice on the Supreme Court, former attorney general, former minister of justice. This was a scandal. like he's like escaping this guy is escaping Israel because the raut doesn't let him marry cuz he is a cayenne and he wanted to do something against the Torah against and this is again from someone who grew up very religious and he became very very secular in any event so he he's one of the architects of the state of Israel's legal structure he's the architect of the one of the architects of these is Israel's legal system, justice system, the Supreme Court, its legal codes. Very interesting. He serves as director general of the Ministry of Justice, the attorney general of Israel, um the minister of justice and then a Supreme Court justice for 21 years and then uh later on in retirement, he was involved with all kinds of other organizations. He passed away in 2002 at a ripe old age of 90 something 91 I think. So he um didn't pass away that long ago um 2002 relatively 24 years ago. In any event the decision to go to trial was not a simple one. It was con's decision. Uh perhaps in retrospect was a mistake. He may have regretted that decision because it was a mistake to sue Mala Greenwald for liel because that opened a Pandora's box to to this whole story which it would have been completely ignored and forgotten had the state not made that rather foolish decision to open it all up by suing Grunvald for liel and then Tamir took it from there. So there's a the the trial, you know, proceeds and there's an enormous number of witnesses and it's a long trial. It goes on for almost a year and the there's 59 witnesses called by the government, in other words, called by the prosecution. And there's 36 witnesses called for by the defense. And these witnesses are cross-examined. long procedures and this long an amazing like hearing about all these aspects of rescue activities and the Holocaust in Hungary and going through it. Some of them very prominent members of the rescue activities um in Hungary during the war for instance for the defense. Tamir calls for the defense. He calls Mosha Krauss who is the former head of the Palestine office in Budapest and who is a rival of Castner during the war during this rescue activity and the two hated each other and got in each other's way and Krauss defend uh criticized Castner already during the war and now Krauss took the witness stand and explained to the court what was wrong with what Castner did. Another prominent witness at the trial for the defense, in other words, for Tamir against Kner was Piliger, the member of the the Orthodox leader of um the Jewish community of Buddha Budapest, the most prominent Orthodox leader in Hungary, a prominent leader in Agura Cisro, and he's also a member of the Budapest Jewish Council, the Udenat. So, he interacted with Aishman and the Nazis and the SS. and he testified a very interesting testimony, not really against Castner per se, probably because Freder was guilty of the same things and as was the rest of the Budapest Jewish Council of not telling Hungarian jury that they were being deported to Awitz. They were the same quiet about it. They knew about the Nazi plans. They interacted with the SS and they didn't even save 1600 people on a train. All they I mean they tried getting their people on the train. Truth is, we can't take that away from Freediger or the Neol members of the uh Budapest Jewish Council, the Uden, because they helped their people get on Castner's train. But in any event, they definitely did not tell Hungarian jury. So, Freud did not testify against Castner. But what he said is that all these negotiations and all these rescue plans, none of them would have worked anyway because the Nazis weren't interested in negotiating. That was basically his um um testimony. It's interesting that the um that the uh uh audience erupted spontaneously against Freud because they saw that as a failure of Jewish leadership in Hungary during the war which they also did again later on his testimony by the Aishman trial. And of course the main witness himself is Kner himself but there are other ones. Uh Hanzi Brand Brund um she also testified about the Nazi negotiations. Um another person who testified for the defense against Castner which is another entire angle of the trial. Very interesting testimony was the mother of Khan Senes. What was the story of Khanes? There were a group of paratroopers who were trained by the British military to paratroop into Nazi occupied Europe into Yugoslavia, Slovakia, and Hungary [snorts] to organize armed Jewish resistance against the Nazis. That's what the goal of the paratroopers was. That's what the British wanted them to do. And they figured if Jewish Jews from the Yeshu, Jews from Palestine would paratroop in, trained by the British, they would be able to organize armed Jewish resistance against the Nazis. And three of them cross the border into Hungary. All three are caught by the Nazis and they are tortured and horrible, horrible stories. It's a great story. I mean, it's it's not a great, it's a terrible story. It's an interesting piece of history that maybe we'll get to one day. Um, Parrots Goldsteain and uh, forgot the name of the third one and I don't have him in my notes. Parrots Golshian I don't have in my notes either. I just happen to remember his name. Khan is the most famous of the three and she and the other two are caught by the Nazis. They're tortured to give information. Very terrible story. But the point is is that they paratroop into Hungary or into Slovakia and then or into Yugoslav, I forgot where they cross into Hungary after they paratrooped into Nazi occupied Europe. And it's just around the time of the negotiations that Kner is having with the SS around the train. And because of that, even though he's contacted right away as a Zionist leader, these obviously are Zionists. They come from the east and to help them out and to try to get them out of jail and not have them tortured and to get them rescued, he does not because he fears that this will interfere with his negotiations. So, he kind of like betrays these paratroopers, these brave paratroopers who then are killed by the Nazis. And uh unfortunately, a very tragic ending to that story. Um, Khan Senes becomes this heroine in Israeli history till today. And and Castner is accused at the trial by Kanesenesh's mother of abandoning her daughter and of the other two paratroopers that because he didn't want his rescue negotiations for the train to to be to be wrecked uh by by him him trying to rescue the paratroopers. He kind of like just ignored the paratroopers. That was a very uh sad uh and emotionally charged part of the testimonies as well. Um the whole Joel Brand story, Joel Brand is a major witness at the trial because he talks about his whole mission to try to get Hungarian jury rescued and how that didn't work out. So that's a another important very important testimony both at this trial and later at the Aikman trial also. Now Tamir um Schmult Tamir does his best and he was very good at it to politicize the trial to make it not about Castner at all to make it about the Mapai and the former leadership of the Jewish agency because the Mapai is the former leadership of the Jewish agency. And the way he did it was was by saying by claiming unsubstantiated and has never been proven to the best of my knowledge till today that Castner was acting on orders of the Jewish agency leadership in Palestine. There's no evidence to support that. But that was Tamir's contention because he didn't care about Castner. He probably didn't know much about Castner either. It wasn't about Castner as far as he was concerned. It was about the Mai. It was about the the leadership, the establishment. And I'll give you a great example of how Tamir did that. At the time of the Castner trial, this is in between stints where Bengurian was prime minister. There was a short time about two three years where where Bringgorian was not the prime minister. The prime minister was Mosha Sharet, second prime minister of the state of Israel. And Mosha Sharet was the one who met Joel Brand on the brand mission. He was one of the heads of the Jewish agency. Now although the brand mission was not the primary topic of the trial, right? It's a liel trial against what Grunvald claimed against Castner in the article. And the way Judge Halevi divided into four categories was number one that um Castner with his negotiations with the SS for the train enabled the murder of Hungarian jury by the SS by the Nazis because he did not warn them. Number two, along the same lines, he collaborated with the SS. So collaboration is already the second thing. And number three, he testified. Kner testified on behalf of Kurt Becker after the war. And number four, Knastner received lots of money in exchange for doing that. By the way, that fourth one is the only one that Halevi said was liable. In other words, it was not true. Kner did not receive money. Okay. In any event, none of those four are actually directly related to the brand mission. They're indirectly related. So, it could be brought up at the trial. But, um, Tamir successfully made it a centerpiece of the trial, the whole brand mission and the failure of the brand mission. Why? Because the brand mission is the closest that Tamir is able to get to the Mapai leadership. Because then Brand was sent to the Jewish agency leadership. He was also sent to the Western Allies. But Tamir couldn't do anything about the Western Allies, nor was he interested in doing anything about the Western Allies. He was interested in the Mapai. And the brand mission was his ticket to there. And that's why Tamir was able to make wanted to make and successfully made a huge he seized upon the brand mission because it's it's more interesting for him. This is about the Mapai leadership. This is about the Jewish Agency leadership. This is about the leadership of the issue during the war. And not only that, this is the current prime minister of the state of Israel because Mosha Shared is the one who met Joel Brand. And what did Tamir try to do? He wanted to drag the prime minister of the state of Israel to testify at the trial in order to humiliate him. And this way, Tamir can cross-examine his hated rival, the the Mapai leader, the prime minister of the state of Israel, Mosha Sharet. He was not successful. He couldn't get Sharet to testify at the trial, but he tried. That was his goal. He wanted to get Sharet to testify at the trial. This was this was this was Tamir's plan. Um, [snorts] so that's a great example of it. Now I want to speak a little bit about some things that came up and also didn't come up at the trial. Um they talked about at the trial about how the point of it was the f the first two um liel points that Halevi broke it down to was that Kner enabled the murder of the Hungarian Jews because he didn't tell them about the deportation to Awitz. And because of that is point number two is that he collaborated with the SS in the extermination of Hungarian jury because he wanted these negotiations just for his train and therefore there was no attempted warning to Hungarian jury. Those were the first two point that was the main topic at the trial. Now the idea was the belief was again like in the 1950s and I mentioned this last episode also and this is a belief till today when everyone speaks about the Castner story is that there's this belief that the SS were incredibly inept. They really did not know how to kill Jews. They were so awful at this job of killing Jews. The only way they were able to do it is with Castner. Kner, he was the expert. And because he he helped them, then the SS were suddenly able to to carry it out. And of course, it's not only Castner, it's the whole Budapest Jewish leadership who were quiet and didn't warn them. So when we say Castner, we mean the whole Budapest Jewish leadership, the Budapest Jewish Council, the Freudigers, the Samarans, the all the all them that the SS needed their help, right? The SS couldn't have done it without them. So, I dispute that point. The SS wanted their help. They wanted things to run more smoothly. They definitely liked it when it was more efficient. Did they need it? It might have been a little more difficult for them. It might have taken them a little more time, a little more manpower, but we underestimate how incredibly experienced the SS was at this point in deception and deceiving the Jews, in organizing deportations. This is late in the war. They were running like a welloiled machine. The SS knew exactly what they're doing. They knew exactly what they wanted. They knew how to do it and they would get it done. We also underestimate the ideological drive of the SS. They were hellbent on murdering Jews. They wanted to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The final solution. And they were going to do it by hook or by crook. It would be better if the Jews cooperated. It would be better if they had this. But they're going to get it done regardless. That is a argument that I've made a few times. I've been called all kinds of names for making this argument. This is an argument that people really don't like to hear for some reason and I've gotten a lot of hate mail for it. But guess what? I believe it and I have a lot of evidence to back it up. But I want to bring up another point that I don't think I've emphasized enough on this series and I don't think is emphasized enough when we talk about this story. Everyone loves to talk about the SS and everyone loves to talk about Castner and everyone loves to emphasize how this is late in the war and the SS was understaffed. They didn't have a lot of manpower and they needed Castner and they needed the Budapest Jewish Council to keep the Jews quiet in Hungary to keep everyone quiet to deceive them to to tell them that everything's going to be okay and to not warn them about the deportations because the SS simply didn't have the manpower to carry out the deportations and the only way they could do it is if they have this deception. That is a claim that's made. They needed the Jewish leadership. Now, they certainly wanted the Jewish leadership. That's I mean it's it's obvious they want things to run more smoothly and perhaps they even got it right. The Jewish leadership Kner and others they went along with it. But a much more important point I think is overlooked. They needed a manpower and they had it. They had a huge source of almost limitless manpower that was more than willing to help them deport the Jews to Avitz and help them deport the Jews to Avitz. You know who that was? The Hungarians, the Hungarian non-Jews, the Hungarian political establishment, the Hungarian military, the Hungarian what's called gender army. It's this militia. It's the Hungarian civilian population, the Hungarian civil service, the Hungarian intelligence, Hungarian municipalities. They're the ones who pretty much did the entire operation under SS supervision. So the claim that it was just a few SS and the few SS understaffed couldn't have done anything without the Jewish leadership collaboration is misleading because it ignores the collaboration of the Hungarian non-Jews, the Hungarian State Department, Hungarian intelligence services, the Hungarian records, the Hungarian police and military, the Hungarian civil service. There's so much to say about this. There was full collaboration. the entire ghettoization process of Hungarian jury and almost the entire deportation process of Hungarian jury during that terrible summer of 1944 when 434,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Awitz was carried out by Hungarians and there was no manpower shortage there at all. There was loads of Hungarians around. You know why? Because it was hungry. And by the way, this is a really good topic for another time. We can do an episode on that. But the Hungarian collaboration in the Holocaust which led to the extermination of Hungarian jury in such a short period of time is almost unmatched in the entire Holocaust. Which is pretty impressive because there was so many collaborators across Europe. French and Dutch and Ukrainian and Lithuanian and Polish and and Italian and all countries. There were collaborators with the Germans. And yet the Hungarians were pretty much near the top. It's pretty impressive how eager Hungarians were were were to collaborate with the Nazis to deport Hungarian jury. Nothing close to this existed in Poland and in most other occupied countries. And this may surprise many listeners. My personal theory is that we spent the last 80 years blaming Jewish leaders for the responsibility of the extermination of Hungarian jewelry that we've neglected the study of Hungarian collaboration and therefore forgotten about it. Okay, so that's uh something to keep in mind. Now, the um there's plenty more to say uh about about how the SS was deceiving the Jewish leaders and about how, you know, I think we as Jews are still fighting between ourselves today. Still not realizing that we were pawns. We were being used by the SS, by the Nazis. We were being abused this entire time. It's tragic to say and it's not nice to say, but we were almost like helpless v victims and it's harsh to hear that, but the SS was very successful at laying these traps um like like deceiving uh pretending that they're really interested in negotiating. You think Aishikman was ever planning on stopping the final solution? The whole brand mission was a deception. Iman was never planning on stopping the final solution. It was Himler's cover story to explore the possibility of making a crack between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. That's why Bondi Gross was the main person in the brand uh uh uh uh mission and not Brand himself. Brand was just a cover story. The SS was fooling them and trying to uh deceive the Hungarian Jewish leadership the whole time. Getting back to the trial, let's get back to the trial a little bit. Shmul Tamir. One of the most important things, the most important contributions he did for the trial, you got to say to his credit, is that he brings Holocaust survivors to the witness stand, which would later become much more prominent and famous in the Aikishman trial. And these tell their own experience. And to hear the voices of survivors was super important, especially since Tamir brings survivors from Kluj. And he asks them point blank on the witness stand. Did you know about Avitz? Did you know Kasner visits Kuj in early May 1944? Did you hear about Avitz? Did you hear about the deportations? Did you hear about the gas chambers? And one after another, these survivors include said no. No one told us anything. We didn't know anything. We didn't hear. We were never warned. That is an indictment. That's from the survivors mouths themselves. They have the credibility. They said what they knew. And that is a strong strong indictment against Castner. It's probably what moved Halevi in his verdict because he was quiet. He didn't say anything. He didn't warn anyone. He had an opportunity to tell people to warn them about Avitz and he did not. That's that seems to be a historical fact. Now again, do you say that that was a misjudgment or was that collaboration? And that's another question. And I don't know if you can decide that in a courtroom or that's for us, for history to decide. Was it a bad judgment, a bad moral judgment, a horrible moral judgment of a Jewish leader in a very challenging time? Or is that called collaborating with the Nazis because he, you know, wants to get Hungarian jury killed and he only wants to save one train? I don't know. I mean that's that's a that's a that's that's a that's that's a question. Now the other point for Halevi to ponder which was discussed at the trial was how did Kner understand the goal of the Castner train? How did he understand from the SS? Did Knner understand from the SS that you can save one train? Because Hungarian jewelry is lost. You have no hope of saving Hungarian jewelry but maybe we could save one train. Is that what C Knastner understood? Or did Kner understand that? Let's try to save one train. And if we could get one train out, this is a test balloon. Woo! We got one train out. That means we cracked the code of the final solution. We know how to get through the the to the SS. We know how to rescue Jews from the final solution. Then maybe we can do more trains. Maybe we could say we can do 10 train loads afterwards. Maybe we can continue these negotiations. How did Kner understand it in real time? What was the purpose of this train? Was the purpose of the train was to save a few because we gave up on Hungarian jewelry? They're all lost. Or would this be the first of many? And that was something Halevy had to ponder over the course of the trial. Another question which arose and was debated with the witnesses and between the prosecution and the defense at the trial is that it is certain that he did that was a given. He definitely did not tell Hungarian Jews about Avitz. He definitely did not warn the Jews of Kuj when he visited there in on May 3rd about Avitz. The question was how do we interpret that silence? Do we say that he was just stupid? Do we say he was a coward? Do we say that he was a collaborator with the Nazis? Do we say that it was strategic on his part? Another question was did he just not say anything or did he actively calm them down? And that has never been resolved till today. There's a dispute among historians. What was it? Because there's the majority, the overwhelming majority of historians say it was never proven at the trial. It was never proven um at any point that he act that he as Castner actively calmed him down. We do know that the Hungarian Jewish leadership did the Hungar the Budapest Jewish Council the the Samush and Freigers and all those people they actively calmed down the Hungarian Jewish population. There was Hungarian Jewish leadership that was actively trying to calm them down. Was Castner involved with that or did he just remain silent and not warn anybody? That has never been resolved till today. There's a dispute about it. Um the general conclusion of the Supreme Court was that history should judge Castner, not a courtroom. So we I guess are involved with that. Um, I want to say one more thing, a few more things if I have time. Let's see. What are we holding? We have a couple more minutes. The leadership dilemmas u of Jewish leadership during the Holocaust is is part of the story of the Holocaust. It's everywhere during the Holocaust. This is part of what the Nazis did to the Jews. This is part of how the Nazis dehumanized the Jews. They succeeded in putting the Jews and their leadership in impossible situations, forcing leaders to make horrible, wrong, immoral decisions. [snorts] And I think that the continued internal fight about that legacy among the Jewish people is almost handing another victory to the Nazis. It's another story of the Holocaust that we are still involved in history, you know, in making that blame and like forgetting about who actually carried out these crimes, which is the Nazis themselves, the Germans themselves. Um, one of the things that came up not only during the trial, but after the trial was how awful this testimony was that Castner gave for Becker. Not only did he exonerate Becker with his testimony, but he tried to testify on Krum's behalf, Herman Krum, another SS officer. In other words, Castner was very proactive about testifying on behalf of SS officers that were involved in the negotiations for his train during the war. It's incomprehensible. Halevi, the Supreme Court, and every single historian who has ever discussed Castner could not believe that Castner did such a crime. That is something that Castner for sure is going to go down in history as a criminal, as someone who did something evil that he testified on behalf. And to some, that's the end of the story. If he testified for Becker and if he tried to testify for Krumi, that means he's a collaborator. And that means that anything he did during the war can be viewed as a collaborator because a person who testifies for Nazis, there's no donus. There's no benefit of the doubt in that instance because if he's testifying for SS, he's a bad guy. That's the position of some until today, which is a legitimate position because there is no explanation of why he would do something like that to testify for Becker and to go ahead and try to testify for Kumi. Um, so two more points. The to finish off the trial, there was this psychological need. I think I spoke about this last time as well. In Israeli society at large and the Jewish people in an even broader sense, there's the psychological need that was aptly expressed by Halevy's verdict that Castner sold his soul to the devil. He in the 1950s, the pre-Iman trial era when no one knew anything about the Holocaust, the devastating destruction of Hungarian jewelry in such a swift and horrifying fashion was not understood. No one had an explanation. No one understood how the Nazis carried out the final solution at this early time. There weren't books written. There was no Aman trial. There was no movies. There was no Holocaust education. No one understood this. How could it be? Hungarian jury existed until March 1944, until April 1944 and then in August there was no they were gone. H how is that possible? It was so devastating and so horrifying. There was no explanation for it. It was just this it was there. It this emptiness was in the air. And Halevi said Castner sold his soul to the devil. He was able to give the Jewish people, Israeli society an answer. It was Kner. It was because of in we it was AN INSIDE JOB. THE Jewish leadership failed the Jewish people. Now I understand it puts a face to the story. It simplifies it. The complexity of history, the complexity of the final solution is complex and no one in the 1950s understood it. But now if we simplify it was, oh, it was an inside job. We were stabbed in the back by our own leadership. Now it makes sense. We got it. And Halevi did this service to to the Jewish people. He he was able to kind of like, oh, okay, now I get it. And that has um that remains that's uh that that was something that came from the trial. Okay. The verdict of the trial, there's four counts of liel. Number one, causing the in Kner caused the indirect murder of Hungarian jury. Um uh um Halevi said not liable because it's true. Number two, that Castner collaborated with the Nazis. Haley said it's not liable. Kner sold his soul to the devil. Number three, test Castner testified on behalf of ESS officers, murderers such as Kurt Becker. Haley says not liable. He testified on Kurt Becker's behalf. Number four, that Castner received lots of money to do so. That's liable. And he fined a symbolic fine of one LRA, I think, to Grunvald for liel that he falsely claimed that Castner received money. So that was the soul selling his soul to the devil. Okay. The state of Israel doesn't like Havy's verdict naturally. So they appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. In between while the Supreme Court is deliberating on this, the um Kner gets assassinated. Um, right around midnight, March 4th, 1957, Castner is getting out of his car, going into his house in Tel Aviv, and he is shot. Three bullets. It was a three-man team. Um, a uh a Zev Xeen was the wasn't was the alleged assassin. Till till today, it's it's uh it's it's disputed. And this guy um Yoseph Menus was the head of the group and Dan Shemer was the driver. And the three men waited in a jeep parked outside Castner's house. Xeen disembarks, approaches Castner as he's locking his car and asks him, "Are you Israel Castner?" Kner says, "Yes." Zevex pulls out a gun and fired three times. The first shot did not hit. The second shot did not hit. The third shot hit him and wounded him. Kner tried to escape. He was hospitalized. And this is March 3rd. March 15th, almost two weeks later, he died of his injuries. So he's for two weeks um in the hospital. Okay. In a documentary made in 2008, Killing Castner, which I saw, they interviewed Zevax. Zevax was a young man in his 20s at the time. And Zevax in 2008 on this documentary, which I remember, I was amazed to see it. Zevex says, um, I did not fire that L. There was a second shooter, right? This is 1957. the second shooter of the Kennedy assassination only happened six years later. But already here he's saying there's a second shooter. Um and that is a belief in many uh among many till today that there was a second shooter. That second shooter has never been found. What made it even more complicated was that Zevax used to work for the Shabbach for the Israeli security service and he was no longer working for Shabbach when he carried out the assassination. So there gave birth to all kinds of conspiracy theories that perhaps it seemed that Zevstein was part of this right-wing group that was so angry about the Castner uh trial that he was guilty of collaborating with the Nazis and causing the murder of Hungarian Jew that they assassinated him. And that is the official reason until today. There are conspiracy theories that it was really the Shabbach who killed him because he was you know this was this he was a liability. If he would go to trial himself be tried for collaboration then maybe he would implicate members of the government and heads of the Mapai and this would not be good. So the Shabbach decided to get rid of him. That's definitely a conspiracy theory that Ben Heck uh implies in his book Pery. That's a conspiracy theory that others believe as well. It has never been proven. And like all conspiracy theories, it might be true. I definitely don't have an opinion. I have no idea. Um but it's also worth noting that Zebax was convicted for life. I think the other two were as well and they were pardoned after a couple of years. So they did not serve out their sentences. Um so interesting. So there's there's this uh whole thing about the Shabbach and they were they were pardoned after 7 years. But either way in January 1958 the Supreme Court in a 4:1 decision overturns Halevy's verdict. The only thing they kept from Helvy's verdict was the fact that Castner testified on behalf of Kurt Becker that they said Halevy got it right. Kner did testify on behalf of Kurt Becker and therefore what Grunvald wrote was not liable. Mosha Silberg, Justice Mosha Silberg, Zilberg was the dissenting justice who upheld Halevy's verdict but the other four did not. Now I want to contrast um Havy's verdict with some of the Supreme Court's verdicts. This is what Halevi said in his verdict. I'm quoting direct quote obviously translation from Hebrew to English. By accepting this gift, Knastner sold his soul to the devil. The immediate result of the agreement was that Castner became dependent on the goodwill of the Nazis. so long as some hope still beat in his heart that the anazis would honor the rescue agreement. That's Haley's view. Shimon Agranat, the Supreme Court Justice, wrote, "The facts clearly show that all that at all the crucial times, Knastner set his sights on the goal of saving Hungarian jewelry as a whole. Whereas the realization of the Bergen Belin plan, the rescue train, which was intended only for a small number of Jews, always remained merely part of his objectives and never became for him an exclusive goal. So that was Agranat's view. Again, I'm going to read from Haley's verdict. Another comparison, Halevy's view was, this is a quote from Halevi, it was forbidden for the head of the Jewish rescue committee to be the keeper of the Nazis secrets and to withhold from their victims knowledge of the fate awaiting them. By safeguarding the secrets of the German Nazi Reich, Knastner violated his duty of loyalty toward Hungarian jury and rendered the Nazis substantial assistance in deceiving their victims. dissemination of the truth about the concrete preparations that had been made for the deportation to Avitz could at least have made it considerably more difficult for the Nazis and was also a prerequisite for preparing the people for organized action such as escape. Um that's Halevi. Now again now to Agranat this is a quote from Agranat's decision. Hungarian jury was not psychologically prepared to engage in acts of uprising and rebellion. The smuggling out of the great majority of the Jews of of of Kohishvar meaning Kuj was not feasible. Knastner was entitled to consider that conveying knowledge of Avitz to the Jewish leaders of Kuj could not bring about any rescue achievement whatsoever. over here. I mean, just if I would put in my own two cents, Agunat is not very convincing because it sounds paternalistic. It sounds patronizing like uh they they're not psych Hungarian Jews not psychologically prepared to engage in acts of uprising, rebellion. I don't know. It doesn't resonate so at least maybe the maybe it's just the wording. Maybe historically it makes sense, but the wording is a little uh I don't know, turns me off a little bit. Um, here's another quote from another Supreme Court Justice, Schneer Zalman Khan. Just again a direct quote. Determining today what Dr. Kner's actions were, or more precisely, what his intention was in 1944 is virtually impossible. One cannot find truth or falsehood when the subject of inquiry is the thoughts of a Jewish leader and his intentions on the basis of the extensive and varied material presented during the trial proceedings. It is easy to portray Castner in the blackest of terms and to place the mark of cayenne upon his forehead. But it is also possible to portray him in the purest white and see him as a righteous man of his generation, one who risked his life to death in order to save others. It is quite possible that moral flaws can be found in him. And so what do these matters prove? Is one to conclude from them that Kner was a murderer or an accomplice to murderers? That's Schneer Alman Kashin's words. And then we have one last one from David Goine, another Supreme Court justice. Those same proofs that were presented regarding the Castner Becker relationship after the war do not accord with viewing Dr. Kner as a Jewish Zionist nationalistic figure and instead are consistent precisely with the findings of the lower court of Halevi that the acts carried out during the war were acts of collaboration with the Nazis. So that is words of the different Supreme Court justices and you see how complex and complicated it was even for them at that time and it has not gotten simpler in the ensuing years. So there's some that it becomes clear, some that isn't clear. And now that we have the um trial done, the goals for next week, I want to talk about the legacy of the trial in Israeli society and the wider Jewish world. I want to talk about Ben Heftan period. I want to talk about other books and projects about him. I want to talk about the historical research done about him by professor Yehuda Bower, Yakam Vitz, Randolph Bram, Paul Bugdaner and others, documentaries, movies, plays. I also want to talk about some very incriminating evidence against Castner presented by no less than Iman himself. Aishman gave an interview to a Dutch neo-Nazi in Argentina before he was captured by the Mossad and he spoke about Kner and those are very interesting because it does not make Castner look good. So I want to speak about the assassin interviews that's what they're called assassin interviews and the legacy of the trial and Ben Heft and Peridy and all that next week in our final installment of this series. Tune in next week and for this is Udig Gabber with Jewish History Sound Bites. You can reach me at uhudygabra.com for questions, comments, sources, tours, trips, sponsorships, and lectures. You can subscribe to Jewish history sound bites on your favorite podcast platform. And I hope you enjoyed.