Джоэль Бранд
Дата рождения	25 апреля 1906 (1906-04-25)
Место рождения	Naszod, Transylvania (now Năsăud, Romania)
Дата смерти	13 июля 1964(1964-07-13)
Место смерти	Израиль

Джоэль Бранд (25 апреля 1906 – 13 июля 1964) был моряком и разнорабочим родом из Трансильвании, но выросшим в Германии. Стал известен благодаря попыткам спасти во время Холокоста еврейскую диаспору Венгрии от депортации в концентрационный лагерь «Освенцим». В частности, его помнят за его переговоры с офицером СС Адольфом Эйхманом об обмене 1 миллиона евреев на 10 000 грузовиков и другие товары; эту сделку нацисты назвали "Blut gegen Waren" ("кровь за товары").^[1]

В 1940-х годах Бранд был членов венгерского Aid and Rescue Committee — организации сионистов, которая помогала евреям, живущим в оккупированной фашистами Европе, сбежать в относительно безопасную Венгрию перед вторжением Германии в эту страну 19 марта 1944 года. ^[2] Вскоре после вторжения Бранда вызвали на встречу с Эйхманом, который прибыл в Будапешт для надзора за депортацией еврейской диаспоры. Эйхман попросил Бранда помочь заключить сделку между СС и США (или Британией), по которой нацисты обязывались выпустить до 1 миллиона евреев при условии, что западные союзники снабдят Германию 10 000 грузовиков для Восточного фронта, а также мылом, чаем и кофе в крупных объемах.^[3]

Из этого предложения, описанного газетой «Таймс», как «одна из самых отвратительных историй войны», ничего не вышло. Историки считают, что это было задумано в качестве прикрытия для заключения высокопоставленными нацистскими чиновниками, включаю Генриха Гиммлера, мирового соглашения с Западными союзниками, не включавшего Советский Союз и, вероятно, даже самого Гитлера. Какова бы ни была цель предложения, оно было подорвано Еврейским агентством для Израиля и подозрительным британским правительством. Британцы арестовали Бранда в Труции, куда он отправился, чтобы обсудить с ними предложение, затем leaked the story to the BBC, which broadcast it on 19 July 1944.^[4]

Действия правительства Великобритании и Еврейского агентства – и более широкий вопрос о том, почему союзники не смогли спасти 435 000 венгерских евреев, депортированных в Освенцим в период с мая по июль 1944 года, большинство которых было казнено газом – до сих пор служат предметом ожесточенных споров. Hungarian Holocaust survivors in particular have argued that the failure to act on Eichmann's offer was an unforgivable betrayal. В 1953 году Бранд сказал на суде в Иерусалиме: "Rightly or wrongly, for better or for worse, I have cursed Jewry's official leaders ever since. All these things shall haunt me until my dying day. Это гораздо больше, чем человек может вынести."^[5]

Бранд родился в [Naszod]], Трансильвания; в 1910 году переехал с семьей в Германию в Эрфурт. Когда ему было 19, он поехал к дяде в Нью-Йорк, then worked his way across the United States — уборкой снега, мытьем посуды, работой на дороге и в конторе архитектора. Бауэр пишет, что он вступил в коммунистическую партию, затем работал на Коминтерн моряком. Он съездил на Гавайи, в Филиппины, в Японию, Китай и в Южную Америку перед тем, как вернуться в Германию в 1930, где он стал партийным функционером в Тюрингии и работал в телефонной компании.^[6]

30 января 1933 года, когда Гитлер был приведен к присяге в качестве канцлера, Бранд находился в Германии. Членство Бранда в коммунистической партии привело к его аресту 4 недели спустя, после поджога Рейхстага 27 февраля, когда нацисты начали облавы на коммунистов и социалистов. Когда в 1934 году его выпустили, он покинул Германию и поселился в Венгрии, в Будапеште, где работал в телефонной компании, основанной отцом, и стал сионистом, вступив в the Поалей Цион, марксисиско-сионистскую партию. Он также был вице-президентом of the Budapest Palestine Office, and sat on the governing body of the Jewish National Fund.^[7]

В 1935 году Бранд женился на другой участнице движения сионистов Будапешта — Ханси Хартман, и они вместе открыли трикотажно-перчаточную фабрику на Rozsa Street. Они встретились, как члены группы евреев, которые жили коллективно, имели общие жилье и деньги, готовясь к переезду в Палестину, хотя планы Бранда поменялись, когда его мать и 3 сестры сбежали в Будапешт из Германии, и ему пришлось оказывать им материальную поддержку.^[9] Ханси управляла мастерской,в то время как Бранд должен был продавать товары, но Роберт Флоренс пишет, что Бранду не нравилось быть продавцом. Он был общительным мужчиной, предпочитавшим встречаться с женщинами, сидеть в кафе и играть в карты, пишет Флоренс, и иногда выигрывал в покер за один вечер такую сумму, которую зарабатывал за неделю торговли перчатками.^[10]

В июле 1941 года сестру и зятя Ханси поймали в ходе депортаций Kamenets Podolskiy, когда правительство Венгрии депортировало 18 000 евреев, которые не смогли доказать наличие у себя венгерское гражданство в оккупированной немцами Украине; от 14 000 до 16 000 было расстреляно СС 27 и 28 августа 1941 года. Бранд заплатил венгерскому контрразведчику по имени Joszi Krem 10 000 pengoes за безопасное возвращение родственников Ханси.^[7]

Этот инцидент положил начало участия Бранда в тайном провозе через границу еврейских беженцев из Польши и Словакии в относительно безопасную Венгрию.^[11] Он объединился с другими сионистами, участвовавшими в спасательной работе, включая Рудольфа Кастнера, адвоката и журналиста из Cluj, and Samuel Springmann, польского еврея, владевшего ювелирным магазином.^[12]

В начале 1943 года к ним присоединился Ottó Komoly, инженер из Будапешта и член Либеральной партии сионистов. Highly respected within the city's Jewish community, Komoly's membership gave the group credibility.^[13] He became their chairman, and with that, the Va'adat Ezrah Vehatzalah be-Budapest – the Aid and Rescue Committee (Vaada for short) – was born. Комитет состоял из Komoly, Кастнера, Джоэля и Ханси Брандов, Samuel Springmann, Sandor Offenbach, Andreas Biss, Dr. Miklos Schweiziger, Moshe Krausz, Eugen Frankl, and Erno Szilagyi from the left-wing Hashomer Hatzair.^[14] Во время процесса над Адольфом Эйхманом Бранд сообщил суду, что с 1941 года по март 1944 группа помогла 22,000–25,000 евреев в оккупированной нацистами Европе попасть в Венгрию.^[7]

Немцы вторглись в Венгрию в воскресенье, 19 марта 1944 года, не встречая сопротивления. Были отданы следующие распоряжения: евреи были обязаны носить значок со звездой Давида; банковские счета евреев закрывались, а деньги изымались; также все евреи должны были составить подробную опись своего имущества.^[15]

Бранд был спрятан в явочной квартире Йозефом Виннигером, курьером немецкой военной разведки, который продавал Бранду данные о беженцах-евреях. The Aid and Rescue Committee decided to try to establish contact with the Germans, and offered a go-between $20,000 if he could arrange a meeting with one of Eichmann's assistants, SS officer Dieter Wisliceny. Another Zionist rescue worker, Gizi Fleischmann, had had contact with Wisliceny before, in Bratislava, while working for the Women's International Zionist Organization. The committee decided to continue with Wisliceny where Fleischmann had left off.^[15]

Они предложили Вислицени 2 миллиона долларов по 20 тысяч долларов в месяц, if he would ensure no ghettoes or camps would be set up in Hungary, there would be no deportations or mass executions, and that Jews who held certificates allowing them to emigrate to Palestine would be allowed to do so. Вислицени согласился рассмотреть некоторые условия, и сказал, что принимает 200,000 долларов как авансовый платеж.^[15]

После контакта с Вислицени Бранд 25 апреля получил сообщение о том, что сам Эйхман хочет его видеть в тот день. Он должен был ждать в Opera Cafḗ, куда должен был прибыть автомобиль СС, чтобы его оттуда забрать^[16] и доставить его в Hotel Majestic, где Эйхман создал свою штаб-квартиру. Brand testified in 1953 – during the trial in Jerusalem of Malchiel Gruenwald, accused of libeling Rudolf Kastner^[17] – "The words which then passed between us have imprinted themselves on my memory till I die."^[18] Brand said Eichmann rose to greet him, introduced himself, then said, in a tone that reminded Brand of the "clatter of a machine gun":^[19]

Шаблон:"Blood for goods" proposal

I have got you here, так что мы можем поговорить о деле. Я уже провел исследования о вас и ваших людях и я проверил вашу способность заключить сделку. Так вот, я готов продать вам 1 миллион евреев. ... Товары за кровь – кровь за товары. Вы можете взять их из какой угодно страны, где бы вы их не нашли – в Венгрии, Польше, the Ostmark, from Theresienstadt, в Освенциме, оттуда, где вам угодно.^[19]

Бранд спросил Эйхмана, как комитет должен был получить товары, Эйхман предложил ему поехать за границу и провести прямые переговоры с союзниками. Эйхман сказал Бранду, что им нужны любые грузы, но особенно — грузовики: 10,000 грузовиков за 1 миллион евреев.^[20] Он также попросил 1000 тонн чая, кофе и мыла. По словам Бауэра, Герман Krumey, помощник Эйхмана, попросил станки, кожу и другие товары, но предложение скоро было улажено на 10,000 грузовиков и различных потребительских товаров.^[21] Согласно поздним свидетельским показаниям Рудольфа Кастнера, упомянутыми цифрами были 200 тонн чая, 200 тонн кофе, 2,000,000 ящиков мыла, 10,000 грузовиков для использования войсками СС на Восточном фронте, и неопределенные количества вольфрама и других war materials.^[22]

Эйхман заявил, что готов предложить 1 тысячу евреев авансом, и еще 10% по получении первого платежа. Бранда спросили, куда он хотел поехать, чтобы сделать предложение союзникам, и он выбрал Стамбул.^[23] Когда он спросил Эйхмана, какую гарантию освобождения евреев он может предложить, тот ответил, что, когда Бранд вернется из Стамбула с подтверждением того, что союзники приняли (предложение), он распустит Освенцим и выпустит 10% одного миллиона евреев на границу в обмен на первую партию из 1000 грузовиков. После этого сделка была бы продолжена шаг за шагом, таким же образом: 1000 грузовиков в обмен на каждые 100 000 евреев. "You are getting away cheap," Eichmann is said to have added.^[24]

На судебном процессе Грюнвальда Бранд рассказал, что, выходя из здания, он чувствовал себя «полным безумцем». Он свидетельствовал: "Что нам было делать с предложением этого монстра? ... Я очень хорошо узнал немцев и их жестокую брехню. Но мысль о 100,000 евреев «авансом» пытала мой разум и не давала мне передышки. Я не имел права думать о чем-либо, кроме этого авансового платежа."^[25] He believed that if he could return from Istanbul with a promise, at least the first 100,000 might be saved.^[24]

По словам Бранда, унтерштурмбанфюрер Курт Бехер, офицер СС и шпион Генриха Гиимлера, главы СС, стоял позади Эйхмана во время встречи.^[26] Если это верно, то, согласно Бауэру, это значит, что встреча была чрезвычайной важности. Бранд также дал показания, что Gerhard Clages, глава Службы безопасности Гиммлера в Будапеште и враг Эйхмана, присутствовал на более поздней встрече (снова с Бехером и Эйхманом).^[27]

Bauer writes that this meant Himmler had involved three of his men of the same rank to negotiate with Brand: Eichmann, whose job it was to kill Jews; Clages, whose task for Himmler was to reach out to forge a positive relationship with the West, because Germany knew it was losing the war; and Becher, who according to Bauer was meant to ensure the SS did not lose any money or goods.^[27]

Бранд встретился с Эхйманом еще раз, 15 мая. Эйхман сказал ему, что должна начаться депортация из Венгрии в Освенцим – что и было сделано в тот день, по дневной норме от 7 до 12 тысяч евреев с тех пор до 7 июля – но сказал, что высланных не убьют, пока будут идти переговоры.^[28]

Герхард Clages вручил Бранду 50,000 долларов США и 270,000 швейцарских франков. Brand told U.S. emissary Ira Hirschmann during an interview on 22 June 1944 that Eichmann had offered to blow up Auschwitz – "dann sprenge ich Auschwitz in die Luft" – and free the first "ten, twenty, fifty thousand Jews" as soon as he heard from Istanbul that an agreement had been reached in principle.^[29]

Эйхман сказал Бранду, что тот может свободно путешествовать, но должен скоро вернуться в Будапешт. According to Bauer, Brand was not consistent in his testimony regarding how long Eichmann had given him, but said at various points that it was one or two weeks, two or three weeks, or that he could "take [his] time."^[27] A report prepared by Kastner and entered as evidence during Eichmann's trial states that Eichmann expected Brand to return within two weeks.^[30] Hansi Brand testified during Eichmann's trial that she and Brand met Eichmann the day before Brand left for Istanbul, and she was given to understand that she and her children would be held in Budapest until her husband returned.^[10]

The day after his last meeting with Eichmann, Brand secured a letter of recommendation from the Zentralrat der Ungarischen Juden (the main Hungarian Judenrat) and was told he had a travelling companion, Bandi Grosz (real name Andor Gross, also known as Andrea Gyorgy), a Hungarian-Jewish convert to Catholicism, alleged by various sources to have been a spy for the Germans, Hungarians, British, and Americans.^[31] Grosz was travelling undercover as the director of a Hungarian transport company engaged in talks with the Turkish state transport corporation.^[32] The men left Budapest on 17 May 1944 and were driven by the SS to Vienna, where they stayed the night in a hotel reserved for SS personnel.^[33]

Historians now view Brand's trip as a cover for Grosz's mission. Grosz, who was low level enough to provide plausible deniability for the Germans in case anything went wrong, later testified that he had been told by Clages, on behalf of Heinrich Himmler, to arrange a meeting in a neutral country between two or three senior German security officers and American officers of equal rank – or British officers as a last resort – to negotiate a separate peace between the German Sicherheitsdienst (SD) (part of the SS) and the Western Allies, a peace deal that would exclude the Soviet Union.^[33] Grosz later explained: "The Nazis know that they have lost the war. They know that peace cannot be reached with Hitler. Himmler wants to use all possible contacts to get down to negotiations with the Allies."^[34]

В Вене Бранд получил немецкий паспорт на имя Евгений Банд. Brand cabled ahead to the Jewish Agency in Istanbul to say he was about to arrive, then flew first to Sofia, then to Istanbul, by German diplomatic plane, arriving on 19 May.^[35] Paul Lawrence Rose writes that Brand had no idea at this point that the deportations to Auschwitz had already begun.^[36] He had been told by the Jewish Agency by return cable that "Chaim" would be in Istanbul to meet him. Excited by his mission, and believing that others would understand its importance, he believed "Chaim" referred to Chaim Weizmann, then president of the World Zionist Organization, who later became the first president of Israel. But in fact the man who intended to meet him was Chaim Barlas, head of the Istanbul group of Zionist emissaries.^[35]

Brand was further confused when, arriving in Istanbul, he found that, not only was no one waiting to meet him at the airport and no entry visa had been arranged, but that he was threatened with arrest and deportation, which he later took as the first sign of betrayal by the Jewish Agency.^[37] Bauer argues that Brand, then and later, never understood the actual powerlessness of the Jewish Agency. The fact that his passport was in the name of Eugen Band, and not Joel Brand, would in itself have been enough to cause the confusion.^[35] The visa situation was eventually sorted out by Bandi Grosz, and the men were taken to a hotel, where the Jewish Agency emissaries were waiting.^[32]

Raul Hilberg writes that Brand was angry and excited, arguing that he had to telegraph the next day to say that the agreement was secured, but matters were not so simple for the Jewish Agency. They could not be sure that their telegrams to Jerusalem would not be intercepted. No one had the influence to obtain a plane. No one from the War Refugee Board was available. The American Ambassador was in Ankara and no plane seat could be obtained for a trip there.^[32]

They told Brand that Moshe Sharett, head of the Jewish Agency's political department, and the Zionist movement's chief ambassador and negotiator with the British in the British Mandate of Palestine (and later the second prime minister of Israel), would be arriving in Istanbul to meet him, which gave Brand hope that the situation was being taken seriously. He passed them an accurate plan of the Auschwitz complex (possibly the Vrba-Wetzler report) and demanded that the gas chambers and railways lines be bombed. According to Hilberg, he later said that he had the impression the Agency officials were not quite taking it all in. "They did not, as we did in Budapest, look daily at death."^[32]

In the meantime, the Agency gave Brand a piece of paper dated 29 May, referred to as an "interim agreement" (which Brand called a Protokoll in three books he later wrote about the proposal), purporting to be a written agreement that it would accept Eichmann's offer in principle.^[38] The document promised the Germans $4,000 for each 1,000 Jewish emigrants to Palestine, and one million Swiss francs for each 1,000 Jewish emigrants to Spain. In return for allowing the Allies to supply goods to the Jews in the concentration camps, the Germans would receive equivalent supplies for themselves.^[39]

Rose writes that the interim agreement was really intended only to allow Brand to return to Budapest; had he returned empty-handed, he risked having himself and his family killed by the SS. He sent his wife a telegram on 27 May to tell her about the agreement, hoping she would tell Eichmann and that this might delay the deportations, and after receiving no response, sent another on 31 May, telling her that he intended to leave for Budapest on 4 June. Unknown to him, both his wife and Rudolf Kastner had been held in Budapest between 27 May and 1 June by the Hungarian Arrow Cross. They first received news of the agreement when they were released. Rose reports that Eichmann rejected it as inadequate, though Hansi Brand later testified that Eichmann saw it as a "good token."^[38]

The text of the document was sent by the Jewish Agency in Istanbul by diplomatic courier, arriving in Budapest on 7 July. Kastner took it straight to Eichmann and Kurt Becher. Kastner said he asked Becher whether the interim agreement was sufficient to open negotiations regarding all the Jews held by the Germans. Becher reportedly said that Himmler might agree. In the meantime, Kastner asked for two things. First, he requested that a trainload of over 1,600 Jews he had arranged to travel to Switzerland, thanks to a separate series of negotiations with Eichmann (see Kastner train), be allowed to resume its journey; the train had been diverted, for reasons that remain unclear, to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. And secondly, he asked that no further Jews from Budapest be deported. Becher agreed, but said he had to seek approval from Himmler.^[40]

В Стамбуле Бранду стало ясно, что Моше Шарет приезжать не собирается; Бранду сказали, что Шарету было отказано в визе и что британцы активно мешали ему поехать в Турцию. Вместо этого Бранда попросили поехать в Алеппо на сирийско-турецкой границе для встречи с Шаретом.^[37] Он не хотел этого делать, потому что область находилась под британским контролем, and he was afraid the British would want to question him. Тем не менее, его убедили пойти, и он уехал поездом в сопровождении двух членов Еврейского агентства.

On the train, Brand became even more nervous after being approached by men who said they were agents of Zeev Jabotinsky's Hatzohar party (Alliance of Zionists-Revisionists Party) and the World Agudath Israel Orthodox religious party. They told him that the British were going to arrest him in Aleppo.^[41]"Die Engländer sind in dieser Frage nicht unsere Verbündeten", they told him. ("The British are not our allies in this matter.") If he continued on his journey, he would not be allowed to return, they said.^[42]

Brand told the court that he was terrified when he heard this, because not returning to Budapest within the time frame specified by Eichmann meant "the failure of my mission and the extermination of my family and a million other Jews in Hungary."^[41] He was assured by one of his travelling companions from the Jewish Agency that nothing was going to happen to him in Aleppo, and he wanted to believe this: "I could not believe that England – this land which alone fought on while all other countries of Europe surrendered to despotism – that this England which we had admired as the inflexible fighter for freedom wanted simply to sacrifice us, the poorest and weakest of all the oppressed."^[42]

After arriving in Ankara, the men continued by train to Aleppo. According to Ben Hecht, just before arriving, the Jewish Agency official who had assured Brand he would not be arrested told him that, should he indeed be picked up by the British, he was not to speak to them without a member of the Agency present. Hecht argues that this was the ultimate betrayal. Not only had the Agency effectively handed Brand over to the British, Hecht says, but they also acted to ensure he remain silent unless the Agency itself gave him permission to speak. As soon as Brand arrived in Aleppo on 7 June, he was arrested by two men in plain clothes who blocked his way, then pushed him into a Jeep waiting with its engine running.^[42] He discovered later they were British intelligence.^[41]

According to Raul Hilberg, details of Brand's business in Istanbul had been passed to London and Washington.^[42] The Cabinet Committee on Refugees in London, which included British Foreign Secretary (later Prime Minister) Anthony Eden and Colonial Secretary Oliver Stanley, had considered the "blood for goods" proposal, and had decided against pursuing it. If the suggestion had indeed come from the SS, it was a clear case of blackmail, and in any event, supplying extra trucks would have strengthened the enemy's hand, writes Hilberg. In addition, he writes, to leave the selection of refugees to be saved up to the Nazis, without considering the interests of Allied prisoners, would leave the British government opened to domestic criticism.^[44]

Bauer stresses other factors in the British decision. The British were convinced they were dealing with a Himmler trick of some kind, he writes, possibly an attempt to strike up a separate peace deal with the West in order to cause a rift between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. Bauer also writes that, if the deal had gone through, and large numbers of Jews had been released from Nazi-held territories, a consequence of them being transported through central Europe would have been to halt Allied airborne military operations, and possibly also land-based ones, turning the Jews, in effect, into human shields. Bauer believes the British feared this may have been Himmler's primary motive in proposing the deal, because the suspension of Allied attacks would have allowed the Germans to concentrate more of their forces against the East.^[45]

Brand's failure to return to Budapest within the two weeks expected by Eichmann was regarded as a disaster by other members of the Aid and Rescue Committee. A report written by Kastner states that Eichmann started demanding that Brand return, and wanted a "clear-cut answer" as to whether the proposal had been accepted. The report says: "We had to explain to him every day that discussions on this matter between London, Washington, and Moscow could be protracted. There were enough reasons for delay. Apparently the Allies could not easily be brought to a common denominator about such a delicate matter. The continuation of the deportations of Hungarian Jews was complicating the negotiations." On page 48 of the report, Kastner wrote "on June 9 Eichmann said, 'If I do not receive a positive reply within three days, I shall operate the mill at Auschwitz'."^[30] ("Ich lasse die Muehle laufen."^[10])

Brand testified that he was taken to an elegant Arab villa where some high-ranking British officers were staying, and on June 11 was introduced to Moshe Sharett with whom he spoke during two sessions of six hours each. Sharett wrote in his report of 27 June 1944: "I must have looked a little incredulous, for he said: 'Please believe me: they have killed six million Jews; there are only two million left alive'." After the second session, Sharett spoke to British officials and turned again to Brand, telling him: "Dear Joel, I have to tell you something bitter now." He told Brand he would have to go south, not back to Budapest, because the British had demanded it.^[44] Brand reportedly started screaming:

Do you know what you are doing? This is simply murder! That is mass murder. If I don't return our best people will be slaughtered! My wife! My mother! My children will be first! ... I have come here under a flag of truce. I have brought you a message. You can accept or reject, but you have no right to hold the messenger ...^[44]

Despite his protests, Brand was taken to Cairo, where he was questioned by the British for days. On the 10th day, he went on hunger strike, writing in a letter to the Jewish Agency: "It is apparent to me now that an enemy of our people is holding me and does not intend to release me in the near future. I have decided to go on a hunger strike again and will do my utmost to break through the bayonets guarding me."^[46] On the 17th day, he was handed a note from one of the Jewish Agency men with whom he had travelled to Aleppo, urging him not to be difficult.

Brand later testified that Lord Moyne, the British Minister Resident in the Middle East, and a close friend of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was present during one of the interrogations and is alleged to have said: "What can I do with this million Jews? Where can I put them?"^[46] Moyne was assassinated in Cairo a few months later, on 6 November 1944, by Eliyahu Bet-Zuri and Eliyahu Hakim of the Lehi (Stern Gang).^[47] Ben Hecht writes that Ehud Avriel, the Jewish Agency official who had accompanied Brand to Aleppo and told him the British would not arrest him, insisted it was not Lord Moyne who had said this, and asked Brand not to repeat Moyne's name in Brand's autobiography, Advocate for the Dead, but Brand repeated the allegation under oath during Eichmann's trial.^[46] During a meeting with Moshe Sharett on 6 July 1944, Anthony Eden expressed his sympathy regarding the decision to block the negotiations with Eichmann, but said he had to act in unison with the United States and Soviet Union.^[48]

British intelligence leaked details of the Brand mission to the media. On 19 July, BBC Radio broadcast a story that two emissaries of the Hungarian government had appeared in Turkey, proposing that all Jews in Hungary would be allowed to leave if England and America supplied pharmaceuticals and transport to the Germans, with a promise from the Germans that the equipment would not be used on the Western front. The proposal, which the BBC called "humanitarian blackmail," was reported as a crude attempt to set the Allies against each other. The report added that it was not clear whether the plan had the approval of the German and Hungarian authorities. The New York Herald Tribune carried the same report, and The Times of London called it one of the most loathsome stories of the war.^[49] The Manchester Guardian wrote that "Two Nazi or Hungarian agents called on the Allies with a certain extortion proposal, which the Allies scorned with indignation." Davar, the Hebrew-language newspaper in Palestine, reprinted the Guardian's story.^[50]

The leaks killed whatever might have remained of the initiative, although the mass deportations of Jews from Hungary had already been stopped by the Hungarian government on July 7. Following publication in June of parts of the Vrba-Wetzler report, which provided the first evidence (that the Allies accepted as credible) of the mass murder taking place inside Auschwitz, Hungarian government ministers feared they would be held personally responsible by the Allies after the war, and they ordered a halt to the deportations.^[49]

The British released Brand in October 1944 but, according to Ben Hecht, would not allow him to return to Hungary, compelling him instead to travel to Palestine. Bauer disputes this, arguing that the story of Brand being forced to go to Palestine was spread around Israel during the 1953 libel trial in Jerusalem of Malchiel Greenwald, a freelance writer who, in a self-published pamphlet, had accused Brand's colleague on the Aid and Rescue Committee, Rudolf Kastner (by then an Israeli government spokesman), of having collaborated with the Nazis. The Israeli government sued Greenwald on Kastner's behalf, and Brand offered testimony about his and Kastner's contacts with Eichmann, and the "blood for goods" proposal. The Israeli government lost the case, the judge alleging that Kastner had indeed "sold his soul to the devil" in his dealings with Eichmann, and although the decision was overturned on appeal, Kastner had already been assassinated.

In fact, writes Bauer, by the time the British released Brand, he was afraid to return to Budapest, convinced the Germans would murder him, so he chose instead to travel to Palestine. Once there, he tried to contact Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization. Weizmann responded by saying that his secretary would arrange an appointment for them to meet, an appointment that Brand said was never made.^[5]

Bauer writes that we know the deal originated with Himmler because a cable from Edmund Veesenmayer of the SS to the German Foreign Office on 22 July 1944 stated that Brand and Grosz had been sent to Turkey on the orders of Himmler.^[51] SS officer Kurt Becher also indicated that his orders came directly from Himmler: "So I came into contact with Joel Brand ... Trucks were a big problem. So trucks were discussed, 10,000 trucks that is. There were many discussions. Himmler said to me: 'Take whatever you can from the Jews. Promise them whatever you want. What we will keep is another matter'."^[52]

Eichmann himself later testified that the order came from Himmler, and a report from Kastner shows that Eichmann did not seem happy about having to deal with Brand. Kastner wrote that when Brand failed to return from Istanbul, Eichmann said: "Yes. I saw all of this in advance. I warned Becher countless times not to allow himself to be led by the nose. If I do not receive a positive answer within forty eight hours, I will have all this Jewish bag of filth from Budapest laid low." ("Werde ich das ganze juedische Dreckpack von Budapest umlegen lassen.")^[30]

Bauer writes that the "clumsiness of the approach has been a wonderment to all observers."^[51] He argues that it is obvious that Eichmann was Himmler's reluctant messenger, and that Eichmann's own inclination was to continue murdering Jews, not to sell them. On the day Brand left for Vienna and Istanbul, Eichmann travelled to Auschwitz to make sure Rudolf Hoess, the commander of the camp, would be ready to receive the first arrivals scheduled to leave Hungary on 14 May. Hoess told him there would be problems processing such large numbers, whereupon Eichmann ordered that there should be no selections but that all the new arrivals should be gassed immediately, which does not indicate that he was willing to delay the exterminations until Brand returned from Istanbul, as Brand seemed to believe.^[53]

Bauer argues that the presence of Clages at the meetings signals that Himmler had changed the emphasis from "blood for goods" to secret talks aimed at peace. Bauer writes that there is no indication of what exactly Himmler wanted to achieve, because he did not commit his thoughts to paper, but Bauer points out that Brand and Grosz arrived in Istanbul just two months before the assassination attempt, on 20 July 1944, on Adolf Hitler, and that Himmler knew there was a plot, though did not know where and when it would be carried out. It is possible, Bauer argues, that Himmler wanted to open negotiations for peace in the event that Hitler did not survive, using two low-level agents, a Jew and a spy, in case he had to distance himself from their mission; and if Hitler did survive, Himmler could offer him the chance to conclude a separate peace deal with the West, excluding the Soviet Union.^[54]

Brand himself eventually adopted such a theory. Two months before his death, he spoke of his belief at the trial in Germany of Eichmann's deputies Hermann Krumey and Otto Hunsche that the "blood for goods" proposal had originated with Himmler, in an effort to drive a wedge between the Allies. "I made a terrible mistake in passing this on to the British. ... It is now clear to me that Himmler sought to sow suspicion among the Allies as a preparation for his much desired Nazi-Western coalition against Moscow."^[55]

In Budapest, the Vaada waited anxiously for Brand's return. On 27 May, Hansi Brand was arrested and beaten by the Hungarian Arrow Cross, though she testified at Eichmann's trial that she withstood it and gave them no information.^[56] Hilberg writes that the Vaada did not expect the Allies would actually supply goods to Eichmann, but it hoped for a gesture that would allow protracted negotiations with the Nazis to begin while the Jews waited for the arrival of the Red Army.^[57]

Brand's failure to return to Budapest meant the Vaada was thrown back on its own resources, bitter about the lack of help from the outside world, and in particular from Jews living in safe countries. Bauer argues that their mistake was to adopt the almost anti-Semitic belief in unlimited Jewish power.^[45] The committee believed that Jewish leaders could move freely during the war and could persuade the Allies to do whatever needed to be done to save the Jews of Hungary. They had similar trust in the goodwill and power of the Allies, but the latter were gearing up for the invasion of Normandy just as Brand set out on his mission, and "[a]t that crucial moment", writes Bauer, "to antagonize the Soviets because of some hare-brained Gestapo plan to ransom Jews was totally out of the question."^[58]

Rudolf Kastner wrote that the Vaada had no choice but to believe in the possibility of rescue. Of Jewish communities living in countries unaffected by the Holocaust, he wrote: "They were outside, we were inside. They moralized, we feared death. They had sympathy for us and believed themselves to be powerless; we wanted to live and believed rescue had to be possible."^[59]

Brand was a bitter man when he was finally released by the British. He joined the Lehi (Stern Gang), who were fighting to remove the British from Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The situation created a rift between him and his wife, who for many years wondered what the truth was behind her husband's failure to return in time. Bauer concludes that, despite the failure of the mission, Brand was an extremely courageous man who had passionately wanted to help the Jewish people, yet whose life was thereafter plagued by the suspicions of family and friends.^[2] Brand offered testimony in Israel and Germany about the "blood for goods" proposal during several trials, including that of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961, which saw Eichmann executed, and of Eichmann's assistant, Hermann Krumey, in Frankfurt in 1964. Ronald Florence writes that he seemed to live only to set the historical record straight.^[60] He died in 1964 of liver disease brought on by alcoholism, reportedly a broken man.^[2]

Книги и статьи

• Bauer, Yehuda. "Teaching about the Holocaust (Part 2)", Online Dimensions: A Journal of Holocaust Studies, Volume 18, No. 2, Winter 2005.
• Bauer, Yehuda. Jews for Sale: Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933–1945. Yale University Press, 1994.
• Brand, Joel. Advocate for the Dead: The Story of Joel Brand. Translated into English by Alex Weissberg. Andre Deutsch, 1958 (also published as Desperate Mission: The Story of Joel Brand).
• Breitman, Richard and Aronson, Shlomo. "The End of the 'Final Solution'?: Nazi Plans to Ransom Jews in 1944", Central European History, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1992, pp. 177-203.
• Florence, Robert. Emissary of the Doomed: Bargaining for Lives in the Holocaust. Viking, 2010.
• Hecht, Ben. Perfidy. Milah Press, first published 1961; this edition 1999.
• Karny, Miroslav. "The Genocide of the Czech Jews", in Karny, Miroslav. (ed) Terezinska pametni kniha. 2 volumes. Praha, Czech Republic: Melantrich, 1995, pp. 19–54.
• Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. First published 1961, this edition Yale University Press, 2003.
• Mendelsohn, John. Relief in Hungary and the Failure of the Joel Brand Mission. Volume 15 of The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes. The Lawbook Exchange Limited, 1982.
• Rose, Paul Lawrence. "Joel Brand's 'Interim Agreement' and the Course of Nazi-Jewish Negotiations 1944-1945", The Historical Journal, Vol. 34, No. 4, December 1991, pp. 909-929.
• Szita, Szabolcs and Lambert, Sean. Trading in Lives?: Operations of the Jewish Relief and Rescue Committee in Budapest, 1944-1945. Central European University Press, 2005.
• The New York Times. "Allied Rift Called Aim of '44 Nazi Ransom Plan", 21 May 1964.

Суд над Эйхманом

• "The Trial of Adolf Eichmann", 11 April 1961 – 29 May 1962, The Nizkor Project, проверено 20 марта 2012.
• Testimony of Joel Brand. Session 56, 29 May 1961; Session 57, 30 May 1961; and Session 59, 31 May 1961, проверено 20 марта 2012.
• Testimony of Hansi Brand. Session 58 30 May 1961; and Session 59, 31 мая 1961, проверено 20 марта 2012.

Книги

• Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. The Viking Press, 1963.
• Brand, Joel. A Mission on Behalf of the Sentenced to Death. Tel Aviv, 1957 (Hebrew).
• Brand, Joel and Brand, Hansi. The Devil and the Soul. Tel Aviv, 1960 (Hebrew).
• Biss, Andreas. Der Stopp des Endlösung: Kampf gegen Himmler und Eichmann in Budapest. Seewald, 1966.
• Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. Volume 2, Wayne State University Press, 2000, first published 1981.
• Cesarani, David (ed). Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary 1944. Berg Publishers, 1997.
• Elon, Amos. Timetable: The Story of Joel Brand. Arrow, 1981.
• Hirschmann, Ira. Life Line to a Promised Land. The Vanguard Press, 1946.
• Kipphardt, Heinar. Joel Brand: Die Geschichte eines Geschäfts. Suhrkamp 1965.
• Porter, Anna. Kasztner's Train: The True Story of an Unknown Hero of the Holocaust. Walker & Company, 2008.
• Rosenfeld, Alvin H. The End of the Holocaust. Indiana University Press, 2011.
• Segev, Tom. The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust. Picador, 2000.
• Vrba, Rudolf. Escape from Auschwitz. Sidgwick and Jackson, Grove Press, 1963; later as I Escaped from Auschwitz. Barricade Books, 2002.
• Zweig, Ronald W.. The Gold Train: The Destruction of the Jews and the Looting of Hungary. Harper Collins, 2002.

Статьи

• Biss, Andreas. "Andreas Biss antwortet Yehuda Bauer", Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 27. Jahrg., 1. H., March 1979, pp. 162-166 (German).
• Braham, Randolph L. "Joel Brand," in Gutman, Israel (ed). Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust. Macmillan, 1990, vol. 1, pp. 238–240.
• Kasztner, Rezsö with Landau, Ernest (ed). "Der Bericht des judischen Rettungskomitees aus Budapest (1942–1945)", Munich, 1961.
• Kimmerling, Baruch. "Israel's Culture of Martyrdom", The Nation, 10 January 2005.
• Time magazine. "On Trial", 11 July 1955.
• The Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance. "Hungary", проверено 23 января 2011.
• The Guardian. "Mass Murderer of Jews Found", 24 May 1960.
• Zahn, Leo. "Devil's Poker: A True Story", проверено 23 января 2011.

Шаблон:Blood for goods (end)

Шаблон:Persondata