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A Questionable History of the Holocaust

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A Questionable History of the Holocaust Alex Kershaw. The Envoy: The Epic Rescue of the Last Jews of Europe in the Desperate Closing Months of World War II. Cambridge: Da Capo Press, Incorporated, 2010. x + 294 pp. $26.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-306-81557-7. Reviewed by Shlomo Aronson Published on H-Judaic (February, 2011) Commissioned by Jason Kalman (Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion) This book focuses on the Holocaust in Hun‐ appointment of Eichmann to destroy the last Jew‐ gary by comparing the roles, the behavior, and ish community in Europe, and Eichmann's march the motivation of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi into that country "hot on the heels of no less than henchman responsible for deporting Hungarian eleven Wehrmacht divisions" (p. 17). Information Jews to Auschwitz, to that of Raoul Wallenberg, concerning Eichmann's aides Theodor Danneker the savior of Hungarian Jews, while telling the and Dieter Wisliceny is also provided, especially stories of the victims and some survivors. It be‐ the former's crimes against the Jews of France, in‐ gins with the Wannsee Conference of January cluding using Jewesses as "high-class whores." 1942, where Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Nazi Chapter 4 discusses Hungarian fascists who wel‐ terror and murder organizations and Eichmann's comed the invading Germans, and who created supreme boss next to SS chief Himmler, discussed for them the necessary apparatus for deporting the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in Eu‐ the Jews from the Hungarian province, while the rope with the representatives of the German civil Germans occupied Budapest city and created a bureaucracy. The second chapter tells the story of "Jewish Council" therein. a Jewish family in Slovakia, where the "Final Solu‐ These four chapters are unfortunately based tion" had begun, and where "Jewish women were on outdated secondary literature and hearsay. kidnapped by the SS to be used as sex slaves on They also include a number of factual mistakes. the Eastern Front." (p. 9). They fed Slovakia and Heydrich was not an Austrian "like Eichmann" (p. found refuge in Hungary, where Jews were pro‐ 4) but was born in Halle/Salle, Prussian Saxony, tected until the German occupation in March while Eichmann was born in Solingen, Rhineland, 1944. Germany. His family moved later to Linz, Austria. Chapter 3 recounts SS chief Heinrich Himm‐ Such mistakes suggest careless research, which ler's preparations for occupying Hungary and his becomes serious when the author repeats hearsay H-Net Reviews about Jewish women kidnapped by the SS in Slo‐ Jewish power in Hungary, not without some diffi‐ vakia to be used as sex slaves on the eastern front. culties."[1] Second in command was Dr. Hans-Ul‐ Sexual relations between Jews and "Arians" were rich Geschke, SS colonel and later general, Com‐ forbidden by the Nuremberg race laws of 1935. mander of the Security Police (Gestapo and Crimi‐ Slovakia was not occupied by the Germans. About nal Police) and SD (Nazi Intelligence) in Hungary. two-thirds of its Jewish population was deported He toppled Horthy in favor of the fascist Hungari‐ to Auschwitz by the Slovak government, which an Arrow Cross following Horthy's decision to stopped the deportations on its own--a story that spare the Jews of Budapest City. Both of them es‐ Zionist rescue workers in Hungary misinterpret‐ caped postwar justice, but not Eichmann, who ed, believing that the Germans were ready to stop was personally known to his Jewish interlocutors. the Final Solution altogether. Although not dis‐ The second part of the book treats the so- cussed in this book, the records of Slovak negotia‐ called Auschwitz Protocols, the famous Vraba tions with Eichmann's aide Wisliceny are re‐ Wetzler reports by Auschwitz escapees, who tried quired to understand the behavior of the Jewish to tell the world the truth about the fate awaiting Council and of the Zionist Rescue Committee in the deportees to Auschwitz. According to the au‐ Budapest when Eichmann's team arrived in Hun‐ thor's version Eichmann denied the reports in a gary, Wisliceny included. Moreover, Hungary was meeting with Rudolf Kasztner, the Zionist rescue occupied by a relatively small number of German operative, who was still hoping to negotiate a res‐ troops, Budapest City excluded, in order to perpet‐ cue deal with Eichmann--having no idea about the uate the image of an invitation made by Admiral latter's very limited competence in regard to the Horthy, the Hungarian chief of state, to the Ger‐ "Jewish Question" in Hungary or elsewhere . mans to lend support to Hungary against the Sovi‐ Chapter 6 provides a distorted version of the et threat. However, Horthy appointed an anti- so-called Brand's Mission or the "Blood for Goods" Semitic government, which collaborated with the deal, which was allegedly offered to Katzner and Germans to cleanse the Hungarian province of other Zionist operatives by Eichmann. He is de‐ the Jews. Behind them was the Wehrmacht wait‐ scribed as if he offered the Zionists--a very active ing for the Red Army. minority among Hungarian Jews eager to help Eichmann's role, as described in the latter rescue Jews wherever this proved possible using part of the book, as the main, decisive, almighty funds diverted from Palestine to Hungary--to ex‐ master of the fate of the Hungarian Jews, is based change one million Hungarian Jews for Western on outdated impressions of Jewish leaders who Allied strategic goods such as trucks and other had direct contact with him. In fact the deporta‐ commodities. Again, unfortunately, the author re‐ tions of the Jews from the Hungarian province lies on too limited source material: one primary were dictated by the Wehrmacht, which per‐ but obsolete Zionist source in English, and Ben ceived in them, on top of their own racist policies, Hecht's Perfidy (1961) to describe this complex is‐ a security risk upon the arrival of the Red Army at sue. He has not examined the German records the Hungarian border. Eichmann's role was an now available, any German or Hebrew sources, or important part of the Final Solution in Hungary, any of the recent scholarship on this "deal" by ei‐ yet he was the third cog in the SS machinery in ther the present reviewer (Hitler, the Allies, and Hungary. First was Otto Winkelmann, SS Ober‐ the Jews, 2006) or others. "Perfidy" was one of the gruppenfuehrer (full general) and Higher SS and cases of politicizing the Holocaust following the Police Officer in Hungary, who cabled Himmler so-called Kasztner Trial in Israel, in which Kaszt‐ after the successful operation against the Jews in ner, the representative of the Labor Party Mapai the Hungarian province that "we have broken the 2 H-Net Reviews in Hungary, found himself accused of collabora‐ ian Jews could not be brought out of Nazi-occu‐ tion with Eichmann. In exchange for the rescue of pied Hungary under wartime conditions, in a con‐ a small group consisting of his family and a few versation with Moshe Shertok, the Zionist foreign dignitaries, he was accused of hiding the terrible minister, who tried to use Brand's Mission to gain fate awaiting the vast majority of Hungarian Jew‐ time, if possible, during which the Final Solution ry. He was assassinated by right-wing extremists in Hungary would be suspended. Brand was ac‐ as a result. Similarily, Mapai's leaders in Palestine, companied by Bundy Grosz, a converted Hungari‐ David Ben-Gurion most significantly, were ac‐ an Jew who offered the British and the Americans cused of collaboration with the British authorities a "real deal," i.e., negotiations on separate peace in regard to Brand's Mission. Joel Brand was ar‐ agreements between the SD and the West against rested by the British while pursuing his mission, the Soviet Union. Thus, Grosz's role and British in‐ and when interrogated by Lord Moyne, the British telligence decryptions and German records now Minister Resident in the Middle East, he was available tell us that the Nazis never intended to asked by Moyne--"and what shall I do with a mil‐ release Jews in large numbers, and that the "truck lion Jews?" (p. 48). This sentence became a model deal" was a brain child of Fritz Laufer, a half-Jew‐ case for the "world's" behavior during the Holo‐ ish traitor and enemy agent, endorsed by Brand caust, and justified ex post facto the assassination and suggested by him to Eichmann, who readily of Lord Moyne at the hands of the Stern Gang in accepted it. Nevertheless, Kasztner continued the November 1944. Brand himself joined the Stern negotiations with Eichmann as if Brand's Mission Gang after the war and gave them the justification was still on and managed to release 1,684 promi‐ for Moyne's assassination, which became a part of nent Jews (including his wife and in-laws; the rest the legacy of the Israeli Right. of his large family was deported to Auschwitz) as However, the whole story pertaining to a sign of good will by the other side, and later the Brand's Mission as described by Ben Hecht, by rescue of no less than 20,000 Jews--whole families Brand himself, by Mapai's political enemies dur‐ included--who survived the war. Finally, he was ing Kastzner's trial, and by our author has noth‐ able to split the SS murder machine itself. In his ing to do with the realities of the Holocaust. To be‐ last effort to save Jews, mostly Hungarians, who gin with, Eichmann had no competence to strike were marched by foot from Auschwitz and other the rescue deal attributed to him, nor were the places for work in Germany and interned upon Germans interested in a deal to save the Jews of arrival in concentration camps, Kasztner succeed‐ Hungary, but in using them to split the Allies (the ed, preventing their execution ordered by the iso‐ trucks were intended to fght the Red Army lated Hitler in his Berlin bunker.
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