The Man Who Tried to Save a Million Jews
Jenő Yoel Brand (1906-1964) was born in what is now Romania to a family of traditional Hungarian Jews. He spent a part of his childhood in Germany, and then moved to New York when he was 19. He struggled to make a living, working difficult odd jobs, and eventually joined the International Communist Party, soon becoming one of their sailors and traveling across the Pacific. He returned to Germany in 1930, but when Hitler came to power Brand was arrested for being a communist. He was released the following year and returned to Hungary, joining the communist-Zionist Poale Zion organization, and then the Jewish National Fund. He started a clothing business with his wife, and the couple grew wealthy, employing over 100 people in their factory. The Brands were planning to make aliyah and join a kibbutz, but an influx of German Jews entering Hungary compelled them to stay and support the refugees. By 1943, they had set up the Aid and Rescue Committee, forging documents and running an underground network of safe houses. All in all, the committee saved about 25,000 Jews, at times collaborating with people like Oskar Schindler and Rudolf Kastner. In 1944, the Nazis invaded Hungary, and notorious SS officer Adolf Eichmann requested a meeting with Brand. He offered 1 million Jews in exchange for supplies from the Allies to help German soldiers fighting the USSR. Eichmann called it the “blood for goods” deal, and wanted 1000 trucks full of supplies for every 100,000 Jews. After three meetings, he gave Brand several weeks to come back with an answer. Brand immediately got on a train to Istanbul, planning to meet up with future Israeli president Chaim Weizmann. When he arrived, it was a different “Chaim” waiting for him, offering no assistance. Brand felt betrayed by the Jewish Agency, who told him to now go to Aleppo and meet another future Israeli president, Moshe Sharett. On the way, Brand was stopped by the British and arrested, imprisoned in Egypt and brutally tortured. The British had no interest in saving Jews, nor bringing in anymore refugees into the Holy Land. (In fact, during the little-known 1943 Bermuda Conference, the British and Americans had already decided to do nothing about the Holocaust and resolved not to help the Jews of Europe.) Brand eventually went on a hunger strike, and was only released after 17 more days. By that point, most of the Jews he was trying to save were already murdered. Brand was not permitted to return to Hungary, and resettled in Israel. Not surprisingly, he joined the Stern Gang that fought passionately against the British to expel them from the Holy Land. Brand went on to testify at the 1954 Kastner trial, as well as the 1961 Eichmann trial, where the latter denied that he ever had the authority to stop the mass-killings. Some say the “blood for goods” deal was a Nazi ruse and only meant to confuse and split the Allies. Others say it was a legitimate offer made by desperate Nazis, and a million Jews could have been saved. Brand himself believed a bit of both. Shortly before his death, Brand told a reporter: “An accident of life placed the fate of one million human beings on my shoulders. I eat and sleep and think only of them.” Brand died, quite literally, of a broken heart, suffering a fatal heart attack at the young age of 58.
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Words of the Week
The local population in Palestine is racially more closely related to the Jews than to any other people… It is quite probable that the fellahin in Palestine are direct descendants of the Jewish and Canaanite rural population, with a slight admixture of Arab blood… it is impossible to distinguish between a Sephardic porter and an Arab labourer…
– Dov Ber Borochov (1881-1917)
Ferenc Hoffman (1924-2005) was born in Budapest, Hungary to a secular Jewish family. He loved to write from a young age, and won a prize for a novel he wrote while still in high school. He was also an avid chess player. During World War II, he was first expelled from university before being imprisoned at a number of concentration camps, ending up in the Sobibor death camp. One of the ways he survived is by challenging the guards to chess matches. Another is by maintaining his sense of humour. After the Holocaust, he went by the name Franz Kishunt, studying sculpting and art history while also writing satire. In 1949, he escaped communist Hungary and made aliyah, becoming “Ephraim Kishon”. He was a passionate Zionist and would staunchly defend the State of Israel for the rest of his life—often being disparaged by the media for his hardline views. Within two years of settling in the Holy Land, Kishon was fluent in Hebrew (he literally hand-copied an entire dictionary) and began writing satire for a number of papers. His most famous column was Had Gadya in the Ma’ariv newspaper, which he wrote almost daily for over 30 years. Kishon soon became Israel’s greatest and most famous humourist. He also wrote popular plays, an opera, and books that have been translated into some 40 languages, including So Sorry We Won! about the Six-Day War. In the 1960s, Kishon entered the world of film. He wrote, directed, and produced five movies, the first being the critically-acclaimed Sallah Shabbati, highlighting the struggle of Mizrachi Jewish refugees to Israel. The film won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar, making Kishon the first Israeli with that distinction. (The film also launched the international career of Israeli actor Chaim Topol, most famous for portraying Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.) Kishon’s fourth film, The Policeman, also won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar. Not surprisingly, Kishon has been credited with opening up Israeli cinema to the world, and paving the path to Hollywood for Israelis. He won a long list of awards, including the Bialik Prize and the Israel Prize. He was a billiards champ, a pioneer in the field of computer chess, and even created a board game (“Havila Higiya”) once popular in Israel. Kishon has been called the “father of Israeli satire”, and inspired an entire generation of Israeli humourists.
Yekutiel Yehudah Halberstam (1905-1994) was born to a Hasidic family of the Sanz dynasty in the small Jewish town of Rudnik, Poland. At just 14, he lost his father, and replaced him as the town rabbi. At the age of 21, he was invited to become the rabbi of Klausenberg (then part of Hungary), and head its yeshiva. During the Holocaust, his entire family was sent to Auschwitz, and Rabbi Halberstam tragically lost his wife and 11 children. Nonetheless, he did not lose faith and continued to serve as an inspirational leader for the Jews in the camps. During a 1944 death march that took place on Tisha b’Av, the Rebbe recited the traditional Kinot as the Nazis tortured the Jews. Since it was Tisha b’Av, the Jews took off their leather shoes, so the Nazis used the opportunity to make the Jews march on broken glass. They then left them to die of thirst in the summer heat. As