Gaylen Ross’s documentary Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt with the Nazis examines the life of Rezso Kasztner, a Hungarian Jew who helped many Jews escape the concentration camps but was also accused of collaborating with the Nazis and withholding information about Auschwitz. Ross will be in town this weekend when the film opens at the Cedar Lee Theatre (2163 Lee Rd., 216.321.5411, clevelandcinemas.com). She’ll lead question and answer sessions after the 1:30, 4:15 and 7 p.m. screenings on Friday, April 16, Saturday, April 17 and Sunday, April 18. In addition, Dr. Anna Rubin, a local woman who survived because she rode on a truck transport that Kasztner arranged, will also attend the screening. Ross recently phoned in from her New York home to discuss the movie. Here’s what she had to say.
I think you might have mentioned this in the movie, but what intrigued you about Kasztner’s story?
In 1997 or 1998, I was producing and writing a film about the Swiss banks and the holocaust accounts, and a woman who was a claimant said she got to Switzerland on the Kasztner train. That’s when I stopped her and said, “What are you talking about?” I had never about the train or about the rescue or a Jew who had negotiated with Adolf Eichmann. I thought it was an amazing story. I finished the film about the Swiss banks. Then, I was doing other films and this was in the back of my mind. And then I started researching and that’s what you have to do before you begin to film or raise money or do any of the things you have to do. That’s when I discovered how complicated and difficult this story was in terms of what happened to Kasztner. The trial and his murder in Israel complicated the rescue story so his tale never got told here.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2010.
Gaylen Ross claims “The reality is that Kasztner saved thousands of lives that would not have existed if he had not done the negotiation.” This is of course pure fiction. She has no evidence for this but seems bent on trying to rehabilitate a Nazi collaborator, which is what the latest scholarly research shows that Kasztner actually was.
For those interested in a more accurate picture of Kastzner, I suggest Dr. Eli Reichenthal’s essay, “The Kasztner Affair Revisted,” contained in Randolph L. Braham (ed.) “The Holocaust: Essays and Documents,” (Columbia University Press, 2009) pp. 99-136. For anybody that reads Hebrew, Dr. Reichenthal has elaborated on this in his book that has been published this week by Ben Gurion University Press: “Was he indeed murdered twice? The Kasztner affair and the Holocaust in Hungary” (Hebrew).
In response to Mr. Ezra, I would only add please read the volumes of writing about Kasztner from Dr. Ronald Zweig, Yehuda Bauer, Dina Porat, Shlomo Aronson, Dov Dinur, Yechiam Weitz, and what is now said about Kasztner at the Holocaust Memorial at Yad Vashem. Everyone is entitled to an essay, but the years of work of scholars and historians are what I have considered most valuable. They are not writing fiction. And while Mr. Ezra and I may disagree about conclusions, i would hope we may do so with respect and civility.
The sources listed by Gaylen Ross are not as impressive as she would have us believe.
– Whatever their personal views, Dina Porat and Ronald Zweig have published nothing in support of Kasztner, which makes me wonder if Gaylen Ross actually read their books.
– Shlomo Aronson is interviewed by Gaylen Ross in her film. There he credits Kasztner with the rescue of “18,000” Hungarian Jews sent to Strasshof in Vienna, where “all” of them survived. It was established at the Nuremberg Trials, the Kasztner Trial and the Eichmann Trial that these Jews were sent to Strasshof for slavery and eventual extermination. Moreover, 1/4 of these Jews were in fact killed.
– Although Dov Dinur and Yechiam Weitz are pro-Kasztner polemicists and not historians, I urge Gaylen Ross to read one of the documents uncovered by Dinur. In that document – the transcript of a meeting between Kasztner and Becher dated July 15, 1944 – Kasztner explicitly admits that he withheld his information about the Holocaust of Hungary’s Jews from the outside world. Kasztner also admits that the victims “went into the wagons like cattle” because he “failed to tell them about the terrible fate awaiting them” in Auschwitz.
– As for Yehuda Bauer: in his book “Jews For Sale?” he claims that in this transcript Kasztner threatens Becher with an armed uprising if the “Kasztner Train” hostages are not released from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The transcript contains nothing of the kind.
With all due respect and civility, I would like to ask Gaylen Ross how she could produce a 2-hour documentary about this issue without interviewing a single Hungarian Auschwitz survivor.
I would like to thank Ms. Ross for her response and also the reply by Paul Bogdanor, one with which I agree. I can add one further point, Ms. Ross suggests that I consider what is said about Kasztner by Yad Vashem. May I suggest the following article published by Yad Vashem:
Randolph L. Braham,”Rescue Operations in Hungary: Myths and Realities,” Yad Vashem Studies XXXII (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2004)p.27n5. This article is currently available free on line at the following location:
http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/…
What can clearly be seen is that the claim in her film made by Shlomo Aronson, that Kasztner can be credited with saving thousands of Jews sent to Austria, is a myth, it is not reality. In fact, he does not even make that claim in his book which deals with this subject: “Hitler, the Allies and the Jews.”
The case of Kasztner is certainly an interesting one and Ms. Ross should be credited with her interesting twist of getting together Kasztner’s killer with Kasztner’s daughter. That is an aside from my general point. This is the following – the Holocaust was a terrible time in Jewish history but any documentary film that deals with this subject should present a true and fair account of the historical events. Sadly Ms. Ross’s documentary does not do this.