Rudolf Kastner

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Rezső Kasztner (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈkastnɛr ˈrɛʒøː]; 1906 – 15 March 1957), also known as Rudolf Israel Kastner (Hebrew: רודולף ישראל קסטנר), was a Hungarian-Israeli journalist and lawyer who became known for having helped a group of Jews escape from occupied Europe during the Holocaust on the Kastner train. After World War II, he was accused of having failed to inform the majority of Hungarian Jews about the reality of what awaited them in Auschwitz. He was assassinated in 1957 after an Israeli court accused him of having "sold his soul to the devil," a charge that was overturned by the Supreme Court of Israel in 1958. Kasztner was one of the leaders of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee (Va'adat Ezrah Vehatzalah, or Vaada), which smuggled Jewish refugees into Hungary during World War II. When the Nazis invaded Hungary in March 1944, he helped refugees escape. Between May and July 1944, Hungarian Jews were deported to the gas chambers at Auschwitz at the rate of 12,000 people a day. Kasztner negotiated with Adolf Eichmann, a senior SS officer and a mastermind of the Holocaust, to allow 1,684 Jews to leave instead for Switzerland on what became known as the Kastner train, in exchange for money, gold, and diamonds. Kasztner moved to Israel after the war, becoming a spokesman for the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 1952. In 1953 he was accused of having been a Nazi collaborator in a pamphlet self-published by freelance writer Malchiel Gruenwald. The allegation stemmed from Kasztner's relationship with Eichmann and another SS officer, Kurt Becher, and from his having given positive character references after the war for Becher and two other SS officers, thus allowing Becher to escape prosecution for war crimes. The Israeli government sued Gruenwald for libel on Kasztner's behalf, resulting in...