On May 19, 1944, Brand and Grosz landed in Istanbul. While Grosz went on his separate “mission,” Brand conveyed the SS proposal to the Yishuv’s delegates in Istanbul. A series of quickly unfolding events followed. One of the Yishuv envoys in Istanbul, Venia Pomeranz, traveled to Jerusalem to inform Ben-Gurion of the German proposal. The Jewish Agency Executive, convened by Ben-Gurion, decided to intervene immediately with the Allies, even if the chances of a deal with the Germans were generally seen as very slim. The British high commissioner in Palestine, informed by Ben-Gurion, agreed that Moshe Shertok, in charge of foreign affairs in the Executive Council of the Jewish Agency, be allowed to travel to Istanbul to meet with Brand. While Shertok’s departure was delayed, Brand himself had to leave Turkey. Thus it was in Aleppo (Syria), where he was kept under British arrest, that the envoy from Budapest met with Shertok, on June 11.75 Brand repeated the gist of the German message to Shertok. The issue became further complicated, at least on the face of it, by a German offer to invite one of the Jewish Agency delegates in Istanbul, Menachem Bader, to travel to Budapest—even to Berlin—and negotiate directly there. The Germans even seemed ready to relinquish their demand for trucks and return to the initial idea of an adequate financial offer. According to postwar testimony, Eichmann promised to liberate 5,000 to 10,000 Jews, upon reception of the first positive answer from the West and in exchange for German POWs.76
Although the leadership of the Yishuv soon understood that Grosz’s mission was the main German ploy and Brand’s a mere accessory and additional bait, Shertok and Weizmann nonetheless interceded with Eden in London for some gesture that would allow time to be gained and eventually save part of Hungarian Jewry. On July 15 they were told that the German “offer” was rejected. Churchill himself, in a letter to Eden of July 11, estimated that the German proposal was not serious, as it was a “plan broached through the most doubtful channel…and is itself of a most doubtful character.”77 In the meantime Brand had been transferred from Aleppo to Cairo, where he remained under British interrogation. At that point his mission came to an abrupt end. It seems that before his death in 1964, Brand himself reached the conclusion that his mission had essentially been a German maneuver meant to undermine the alliance between the Soviets and the West.78
For the Yishuv leadership the failure of this rescue attempt, as flimsy as its chances had been, represented a serious setback. The hope of saving hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews disappeared. For Ben-Gurion, moreover, the crucial question surfaced once again: Who would build the Jewish state in Eretz Israel? “We are now on the brink of the end of the war,” he declared in September 1944, “with most of the Jews destroyed. Everyone wonders: Where will we find the people for Palestine?” Later he wrote: “Hitler harmed more than the Jewish people whom he knew and hated: he caused damage to the Jewish state, whose coming he did not foresee. The state appeared and did not find the nation that awaited it.”79
On July 10 Ribbentrop informed Veesenmayer that Hitler had agreed to the demands addressed to Horthy by the United States, Sweden, and Switzerland to repatriate their Jewish nationals from Budapest to their home countries. But, Ribbentrop added, “We can agree to this accommodation only under the condition that the deportation of Jews to the Reich, temporarily stopped by the Regent, be immediately resumed and brought to its conclusion.”80 On July 17 the foreign minister demanded that Veesenmayer inform the regent of the following, in Hitler’s name: “The Führer expects that now the measures against the Jews of Budapest be taken without any further delay, with the exceptions…granted to the Hungarian government. However, no delay in the implementation of the general Jewish measures [ Judenmassnahmen] should occur as a result of these exceptions. Otherwise, the Führer’s acceptance of these exceptions will have to be withdrawn.”81
As for the Reichsführer, he met Hitler on July 15 for a discussion of the “Jewish question” in Hungary and indicated Hitler’s approval of his proposals with a check.82 A few days later Himmler boasted in a letter to Gauleiter Martin Mutschmann about the 450,000 Hungarian Jews he had already sent to Auschwitz and assured him that, despite some difficulties encountered elsewhere—in France, for example—in Hungary the task would be completed. “Be assured,” Himmler concluded, “that particularly at this decisive moment of the war, I do possess the necessary hardness, as before.”83
It remains hard to believe that the shrewd Kastner had high hopes regarding the success of Brand’s mission. Whatever the case may be, he must soon have understood that SS officers of Wisliceny’s ilk—and the whole Budapest group—were also ready for more limited deals that could be explained away as ransoming operations for the Reich. And such operations could also be highly lucrative for some of the SS participants. Thus, in a series of negotiations that lasted from April to June 1944, Kastner convinced Wisliceny, Eichmann, and Himmler’s underling (whose function at the time was supplying horses to the SS), Kurt Becher, to allow a train with (ultimately) 1,684 Jews to leave Budapest for Switzerland, as a sign of German goodwill, in the framework of the wider “exchange negotiations.” The price was one thousand dollars per Jew, and Becher, who negotiated the final arrangement, managed to have some of the lucky passengers pay twice.84 On June 30 the train left, first—and unexpectedly—for Bergen-Belsen: The Kastner Jews nonetheless reached Switzerland in two transports, one in the early fall; the second, several weeks later. Although Kastner was not alone in choosing the passengers, his influence on the selection committee was considerable; it led to postwar accusations of nepotism and to two court cases in Israel; eventually it cost Kastner his life.85
When, in mid-August, the Swiss delegation in Budapest informed Bern that a first batch of 600 Hungarian Jews, temporarily sent to Bergen-Belsen, would arrive in Switzerland within days, the information was positively received by head of the police division, Rothmund, but with some hesitation by his chief, Federal Councillor Steiger.86 As for Carl Burckhardt of the ICRC, he immediately grasped the advantage of letting these unexpected refugees enter Switzerland, as we know from a Swiss official’s memorandum of August 14, 1944: “Mr. Burckhardt did not seem at all surprised by the information sent by the delegation in Budapest; he declared he was delighted. It is a very good thing for Switzerland to be able now to do something positive for the Jews. It will make a good impression in foreign countries and could help to dissipate the resentment that could develop against our country from the stories of refugees and foreign [Swiss camp] inmates (mainly intellectuals) who are dissatisfied with the way they are being treated.”87
Some Jews left Hungary by their own means. The SS negotiated the acquisition of the Manfred Weiss industrial empire belonging to Jewish family and its Jewish and non-Jewish associates. By acquiring major munitions and machine-tool firms, Himmler and Pohl hoped to join the select elite of German industry. They had no difficulty in convincing Hitler of the advantages of this particular extortion. Becher, once again the go-between in Budapest, kept a neat percentage of the benefits. In exchange some fifty members of the Jewish families involved were allowed to leave for Switzerland, Spain, or Portugal with the help of the SS—and were even paid part of the sums that had been agreed upon.88
During the same months another rescue project of a very different kind also collapsed: the Allied bombing of the railway line from Hungary to Auschwitz and, possibly, of the extermination sites in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
On May 25, 1944, the highly competent and motivated representative of the War Refugee Board in Bern, Roswell McClelland, passed on to Washington a message he had received from Isaac Sternbuch, the representative of the American Union of Orthodox Rabbis in Switzerland; the message was addressed to the Union of Orthodox Rabbis in New York: “We received news from Slovakia,” Sternbuch wrote, “according to which they ask prompt air raids should be made over the two towns Kaschau (Kosice) as transit place for military transports and also Presov as town junction for deportations coming through Kaschau and also the whole railroad line between them where ther
e is a short bridge of about 30 yards. It is the single near route from Hungary to Poland, whereas all the other small and short lines, going eastwards, can be used only in Hungary, but not for the traffic to Poland being already battlefields. Do the necessary that bombing should be repeated at short intervals to prevent rebuilding. Without named towns just one too long route via Austria remains which is almost impracticable.”89
The “Working Group” was the source of the information from Slovakia received by Sternbuch. A first letter sent by Weissmandel sometime in early May 1944 had not been acknowledged, so that on May 31 the Slovak rabbi repeated his entreaty and again gave details about the deportations: These details were extraordinarily precise, as was the description of the killing installations (probably based upon the Vrba-Wetzler report). Weissmandel’s letter ended with an agonized plea: “Now we ask: how can you eat, sleep, live? How guilty will you feel in your hearts if you fail to move heaven and earth to help us in the only ways that are available to our own people and as quickly as possible?…For God’s sake, do something now and quickly.”90
Intense consultations and contacts followed in late June, after Jewish organizations and the WRB in Washington received Sternbuch’s message. Pehle transmitted the message to the assistant secretary of war, John J. McCloy, but with reservations: “I saw Assistant Secretary McCloy today on the proposal of the Agudas Israel that arrangements be made to bomb the railroad line between Kassa (Kosice) and Presov being used for the deportation of Jews from Hungary to Poland. I told McCloy that I wanted to mention the matter to him for whatever exploration might be appropriate by the War Department but that I had several doubts about the matter, namely (1) whether it would be appropriate to use military planes and personnel for this purpose, (2) whether it would be difficult to put the railroad line out of commission for a long enough period to do any good; and (3) even assuming that this railroad line were put out of commission for some period of time, whether it would help the Jews in Hungary. I made it very clear to Mr. McCloy that I was not, at this point at least, requesting the War Department to take any action on this proposal other than to appropriately explore it. McCloy understood my position and said that he would check into the matter.”91
A few days later Leon Kubowitzki, the head of the Rescue Department of the World Jewish Congress, addressed a letter to Pehle, this time suggesting not the bombing of the railway line from Hungary to Auschwitz but rather the destruction of the death installations at the camp by Soviet paratroopers or Polish underground units. The idea of bombing the installations from the air came at the same time from another Jewish representative, Benjamin Akzin.92
On July 4, 1944, McCloy dismissed this flurry of projects and entreaties in a letter to Pehle: “I refer to your letter of June 29th, enclosing a cable from your representative in Bern, Switzerland, proposing that certain sections of railway lines between Hungary and Poland be bombed to interrupt the transportation of Jews from Hungary. The War Department is of the opinion that the suggested air operation is impracticable. It could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations and would in any case be of such very doubtful efficacy that it would not amount to a practical project. The War Department fully appreciates the humanitarian motives which prompted the suggested operation but for the reasons stated above, the operation suggested does not appear justified.”93
In the meantime Shertok and Weizmann, despite their failure to sway the British government in regard to the Brand mission, now pleaded for the bombing operations. Although Churchill was briefly involved and appeared to be in favor of some action, by mid-July London was as negative as Washington. At the top of the refusal letter that he received on July 15, 1944, from the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, Eden scribbled: “A characteristically unhelpful letter. Dept. will have to consider what is to be done about this. I think that we should pass the buck to this ardent Zionist in due course, i.e. tell Weizmann that we have approached Sir A. Sinclair and suggest he may like to see him. AE July 16.”94
Höss had been recalled to Auschwitz to supervise the extermination of the Hungarian Jews. For the flawless implementation of his task, he was awarded the War Merit Cross first and second class. On July 29 he returned to Berlin.95
V
In late July 1944 the Red Army liberated Majdanek. In their hasty flight the Germans did not manage to destroy the gas chambers and other traces of the camp’s murderous activities: Soon, pictures of killing installations, victims’ belongings, mounds of glasses, hair, or prosthetic limbs appeared in newspapers all around the world.
For the Germans, erasing traces of their crimes hence became highest priority. On July 13, the Polish physician Klukowski noted: “Recently, we heard a rumor that the Germans are planning to open the graves of the murdered Jews, remove the bodies, and burn them…. Strange things are going on in the Jewish cemetery. No one is allowed to enter. The cemetery is surrounded by military guards armed with rifles. Warning signs stating that anyone entering will be shot were posted. Many cars and trucks come and go. A large group of prisoners was brought from Zamóść. The cemetery has been divided into sections; then the Germans built fences covered with tarps, so no one can observe what is taking place.”96 And on July 14 he added: “We learned that the Germans are moving Jewish bodies to be burned at the Rotunda. No bodies were burned at the cemetery.”97
The next day Klukowski once more took up the same topic: “Sometimes, with heavy wind, you can smell the odor of decomposed bodies from the Jewish cemetery.”98 A day later the Germans left: “Today around 10:00 a.m., the Germans completed their work in the cemetery and left. The roads are all open. The church is open also. The Germans did a lot of digging; they did move something but it is impossible for them to have removed thousands of badly damaged bodies in only a few days.”99 This indeed was the gist of the matter: The Germans had killed too many Jews to be able to move all the corpses and burn them.
On July 26 the Russians entered Szczebrzeszyn.
On August 23 Antonescu’s regime collapsed, and on the thirty-first, the Soviet army occupied Bucharest. A few days later it was Bulgaria’s turn. Among the dramatic upheavals in eastern and southeastern Europe, the events in Poland turned into a dismal tragedy: On August 1, after the Soviet forces had reached the Eastern bank of the Vistula in the Warsaw area, the Home Army gave the signal for an uprising in the city. A fierce urban battle unfolded between the insurgents and German reinforcements, while the Soviets at first could not, then did not intervene in any forceful way. On October 2, the remaining Polish forces finally surrendered, while their capital had been reduced to ruins and rubble. Soon thereafter the Soviet army occupied Warsaw. At the outset, Rokossovski’s divisions had been pushed back by German counter-attacks along the Vistula; later on, Stalin, in his own way, solved the problem of a nationalist opposition to the communist rule he meant to impose on Poland: He let the Germans decimate it.100
In March 1944 Emmanuel Ringelblum and his son were caught by the Germans before the Polish uprising and shot. Many other Jews, who had also found refuge on the Aryan side of the city, such as Calel Perechodnik, perished during the battle for Warsaw.
On May 5, 1944, one more anonymous diarist began recording details of his life in the Lodz ghetto in the margins of a French novel by François Coppée, Les Vrais Riches [“The Truly Rich”]. The diarist was an adolescent who at times wrote down his entries in English (to hide some of the comments from his twelve-year-old sister), but also in Polish, Hebrew and mainly in Yiddish. For the approximately 77,000 Jews still living in the ghetto and working for the Wehrmacht, daily life was, as before, dominated by one major obsession: food. The young diarist had every good reason to write his first entry in English, on May 5, 1944:
“I committed this week an act which is best able to illustrate to what degree of dehumanization we have been reduced—namely, I finished my loaf of bread at a space of three days,
that is on Sunday, so I had to wait till next Sunday for a new one. I was terribly hungry. I had a prospect of living only from the [factory] soups which consist of three little potato pieces and two decagrams of flower [sic]. I was lying on Monday morning quite dejectedly in my bed and there was the half loaf of bread of my darling sister…. I could not resist the temptation and ate it up totally…. I was overcome by a terrible remorse of conscience and by a still greater care for what my little one would eat for the next few days. I felt a miserably helpless criminal…. I have told people that it was stolen by a supposed reckless and pitiless thief and, for keeping up appearance, I have to utter curses and condemnations on the imaginary thief: ‘I would hang him with my own hands had I come across him.’”101
By the time the anonymous diarist started writing, the ghetto’s end had arrived. In line with Himmler’s decision, extracted from him by Greiser, as we saw in the previous chapter, the extermination of the ghetto population started again. Between June 13 and July 14, 1944, more than 7,000 Jews were deported to Chelmno.102 Within a month, however, the killing site had to be dismantled as the Red Army was approaching: No repetition of the Majdanek fiasco would take place. The brief respite in the deportations triggered hope and joy in the ghetto, as Rosenfeld noted on July 28: “We are facing either apocalypse or redemption. The chest dares breathe more freely already. People look at each other as if to say: ‘We understand each other, right!’…There are plenty of skeptics, nigglers, who don’t want to believe it and still have doubts about that for which they have been longing and waiting for years. They are being told: ‘It has to come sometime, and now that the time is here, you don’t want to believe it.’ Then they look with a vacuous gaze into empty space and bask in their pessimism. After so much suffering and terror, after so many disappointments, it is hardly surprising that they are not willing to give themselves over to anticipatory rejoicing…. And if at long last, the day of the ‘redemption’ should be at the doorstep, it is better to let oneself be surprised than to experience yet another disappointment. That’s human nature, this is the human mentality of Ghetto Litzmannstadt at the end of July 1944.”103 It was Rosenfeld’s last diary entry.
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