Kasting aspersions?

“Touch of memory” (Grapevine, April 7) again relates the Kastner saga, though diplomatically refrains from expressing an opinion on whether Kastner deserves to have been assassinated, or whether he deserves to be praised for having saved many Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust. I would like to reveal some facts that may throw some light on the subject.

I was acquainted with Dr. Israel Kastner in 1952-1953 when I worked with him as his assistant in his capacity as public relations director in the Communications Ministry headed by Dov Joseph. One day Kastner arrived in the office with a thick file containing many type written pages in German. It was the report he had submitted to the leadership of the World Zionist Organization on his activity to save Jews in Hungary from the horrors of the Holocaust.

This was one of my most exciting reading experiences. I don’t know why it was important for Kastner to have me read the report. I was then merely a young man who had just graduated from the university, without any public position, then as now, that might have enabled me to do anything in his favor.

The report described in minute detail his negotiations with Eichmann about the refugee train and also his profound despair when his desperate request of the Zionist leadership to send him at least a small symbolic advance payment to convince the suspicious Eichmann that Kastner’s financial promises were indeed made with the backing of the World Zionist leadership. But Kastner was not granted any consent by the leadership, and therefore was forced into a dangerous situation to retain Eichmann’s trust regarding Kastner’s backing despite its total absence.

In Kastner’s office I frequently had the opportunity to observe his talent as a manipulation wizard of people. Frequently he succeeded – always with gentlemanly elegance – to convince his conversation partner to do what Kastner wanted, even against his partner’s own will. Thus I imagined how Kastner could probably convince Eichmann. Kastner’s intelligence was doubtless by far superior to that of Eichmann. Eichmann, though in a position of immense power, was intellectually no more than a dumb bureaucrat.

After I had returned the report to Kastner he almost never mentioned its content. He only remarked with bitter, Kurt-Tucholsky-like irony: “I am the gift that the party, Mapai, gave to Dov Joseph.” He also said bitterly: “In England I would have got the Victorian Cross for what I did. Here I got a blow on the head (kibalti al harosh).”

Based on my acquaintance with Kastner and on the report I read, I believe that an unforgivable wrong has been done to Kastner, even before his assassination. DR. URY EPPSTEIN Jerusalem

The Grapevine column refers to the Kastner/ Gruenwald trial in the 1950s.

In the book Perfidy (which was initially banned in Israel), author Ben Hecht writes about the trial, which he attended. Dr. Yisrael Kastner filed a civil claim for damages libel against Malchiel Gruenwald, a journalist (and not a hotelier as stated in the column) for writing in a newspaper that he (Kastner) had collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War. The presiding judge decided that Kastner had collaborated with the Nazis and his claim was dismissed. He appealed and his appeal was partially successful (he was not completely exonerated as stated in the column).

The column that much of the material relating to the trial and conviction of those who killed Dr. Kastner remains classified. As to why, it may be that his murderers were former members of the Shin Bet as stated in Perfidy.

EPHRAIM STEIN Jerusalem