Trading in Lives?
Operations of the Jewish Relief and Rescue Committee
in Budapest, 1944–1945
Szabolcs Szita has published extensively on
the persecution of the European Jewry during the Second
World War. He is cofounder of the Holocaust Documentation
Center in Budapest Hungary, and has been its Research
Director since 1990. He is the recipient of the Sandor
Scheiber Prize, and the Csatkai Prize.
Set in the tumultuous moments of 1944–45 Budapest,
this work discusses the operations of the Budapest Relief
and Rescue Committee. Drawing out the contradictions
and complexities of the mass deportations of Hungarian
Jews during the final phase of World War II, Szita suggests
that in the Hungarian context, a commerce in lives ensued,
where prominent Zionists like Dr. Rezso Kasztner negotiated
with the higher echelons of the SS, trying to garner
the freedom of Hungarian Jews. Szita's portrait of the
controversial Kasztner is a more sympathetic rendition
of a powerful Zionist leader who was later assassinated
in Israel for his dealings with Nazi leaders. Szita
reveals a story of interweaving personalities and conflicts
during arguably the most tragic moment in European history.
The author's extensive research is a tremendous contribution
to a field of study that has been much ignored by scholarship-the
Hungarian holocaust and the trade in human lives.
Contents
Chapter 1 The Operations of the Budapest Relief
and Rescue Committee Chapter 2 The German Occupation
of Hungary, May 19, 1944 Chapter 3 The Sonderkommando
and the Ungarnaktion Chapter 4 The Deportation
of Hungarian Jews in the Eyes of the World Chapter
5 The SS Trading in Human Lives Chapter 6
The "Sample Train" Chapter 7 Another
Chapter in Human Trade; Forced Labor for the SS Chapter
8 More Looting—Daylight Robbery on a Different
Plain Chapter 9 In the Lion's Maw Chapter
10 Spring 1945 Chapter 11 The Links Endure;
Epilogue
2005
240 pages + photos (16 pages)
ISBN 978-963-7326-30-1 cloth $50.00 / €45.00 / £40.00
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