Come on and Ride the Train: The Kastner Story Part IX

Episodes

Saturday Feb 07, 2026

Come on and Ride the Train: The Kastner Story Part IX

Saturday Feb 07, 2026

In this final installment of the Kastner train series, the legacy of the Kastner trial is explored in three ways. In a series of interviews in 1957 known as the Sassen documents, Adolf Eichmann described his view of the role that Kastner played in the negotiations. In 1961 famed Hollywood screenwriter and novelist Ben Hecht authored Perfidy, a harsh critique of Kastner and the Zionist leadership. Who was Ben Hecht and what are the limitations of Perfidy. Finally, a broad swath of scholars, historians, historical figures and writers are presented in a sweeping summary of the spectrum of views criticizing and defending Kastner.

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Arnie Lustiger

1 months ago

Your Kastner Train series is nothing less than a tour de force. Like you, I read Perfidy in Yeshiva and accepted it as essentially true, but with a nagging thought in the back of my mind that the story was oversimplified. Your series clarified the history, paradoxically by raising many questions about the accepted narrative without destroying it entirely. However, within the last four minutes of the final installment you dropped something of a bomb, but only derech agav. ”In his rescue efforts throughout the war, before and after that, he probably saved thousands, maybe tens of thousands of others.” Did I miss this part of the discussion in the earlier installments? Could you clarify this point? If this is true, the conclusions one draws about Kastner’s role as a possible collaborator changes entirely. Another question. It has been 50 years since I read Perfidy, but I remember a passage regarding one incident where many thousands of Jews being guarded in a transit camp on the way to Auschwitz by very few (six?) SS men , because the were losing the war and had very few soldiers to spare to implement the final solution. The Jews did not resist because they were lulled into complacency by Kastner (or, in your clarification, by the entire Jewish leadership) . You repeatedly emphasized the role of the many Hungarian collaborators and their role in the deportations, and that there was no lack of personnel to carry out the final solution. Do you have any information on the specific incident to which Ben Hecht was referring? Again, I can’t thank you enough for all the work and research you put into this series. - Arnie Lustiger (. You may remember my name because you gave my family tours of Har Hazeisim and Rehavia/ Sharei Chesed two years ago. We just purchased an apartment in Nachalat Achim, just north of Shaarei Chesed)