Kasztner's Train : The True Story of Rezso Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust

Kasztner's Train: The True Story of Rezso Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust

Anna Porter
$24.95 Regular price


The true, heart-wrenching tale of Hungary's own Oskar Schindler, a lawyer and journalist named Rezso Kasztner who rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews during the last chaotic days of World War II -- and the ultimate price he paid.

In summer 1944, Rezso Kasztner met with Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust, in Budapest. With the Final Solution at its terrible apex and tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews being sent to Auschwitz every month, the two men agreed to allow 1,684 Jews to leave for Switzerland by train. In other manoeuvrings, Kastzner may have saved another 40,000 Jews already in the camps. Kasztner was later judged for having "sold his soul to the devil." Prior to being exonerated, he was murdered in Israel in 1957.

Part political thriller, part love story and part legal drama, Porter's account explores the nature of Kasztner -- the hero, the cool politician, the proud Zionist, the romantic lover, the man who believed that promises, even to diehard Nazis, had to be kept. The deals he made raise questions about moral choices that continue to haunt the world today.


Prize(s): Winner Canadian Jewish Book Award for History (2008), Winner Nereus Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize (2007), Nominated Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction (2008) 


Douglas & McIntyre
ISBN: 9781553654032
Paperback / softback
6.0 in x 9.0 in - 520 pp
Publication Date: 05/08/2008
BISAC Subject(s): BIO006000-BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical,HIS043000-HISTORY / Holocaust,HIS022000-HISTORY / Jewish 
 

Description


The true, heart-wrenching tale of Hungary's own Oskar Schindler, a lawyer and journalist named Rezso Kasztner who rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews during the last chaotic days of World War II -- and the ultimate price he paid.

In summer 1944, Rezso Kasztner met with Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust, in Budapest. With the Final Solution at its terrible apex and tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews being sent to Auschwitz every month, the two men agreed to allow 1,684 Jews to leave for Switzerland by train. In other manoeuvrings, Kastzner may have saved another 40,000 Jews already in the camps. Kasztner was later judged for having "sold his soul to the devil." Prior to being exonerated, he was murdered in Israel in 1957.

Part political thriller, part love story and part legal drama, Porter's account explores the nature of Kasztner -- the hero, the cool politician, the proud Zionist, the romantic lover, the man who believed that promises, even to diehard Nazis, had to be kept. The deals he made raise questions about moral choices that continue to haunt the world today.


Prize(s): Winner Canadian Jewish Book Award for History (2008), Winner Nereus Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize (2007), Nominated Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction (2008) 

Details


Douglas & McIntyre
ISBN: 9781553654032
Paperback / softback
6.0 in x 9.0 in - 520 pp
Publication Date: 05/08/2008
BISAC Subject(s): BIO006000-BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical,HIS043000-HISTORY / Holocaust,HIS022000-HISTORY / Jewish