Killing Kasztner
Why are thousands of non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust memorialized in Yad Vashem, while the one Jew who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews is virtually forgotten?
This is the question at the heart of this stimulating documentary from American filmmaker Gaylen Ross (
Dealers Among Dealers) about the controversial Zionist lawyer and journalist, Dr Israel (Rezsô) Kasztner, who saved as many as 1,684 Hungarian Jews from almost certain death.
In post-war Israel, Kasztner's rescue efforts were cast as acts of betrayal and collaboration because he had negotiated directly with the Nazis. When he sued his accusers of libel, a 1954 Israeli court judged he "sold his soul to the devil". Though later overturned, that ruling marked him for death by a shadowy right-wing group hoping to bring down the government of David Ben-Gurion, for whom Kasztner was working.
Featuring interviews with Kasztner's family, Holocaust survivors who owe their lives to him and, remarkably, his assassin, the film reopens the history books on his life, and the events surrounding this extraordinary episode in Israeli history.
