Joel Brand ( hu, Brand Jenő; 25 April 1906 – 13 July 1964) was a member of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee (''Va'adat ha-Ezra ve-ha-Hatzala be-Budapest'' or ''Va'ada''), an underground

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Jew ...

group in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...

, Hungary, that smuggled Jews out of

German-occupied Europe German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 ...

to the relative safety of Hungary, during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...

. When Germany invaded Hungary in March 1944, Brand became known for his efforts to save the Jewish community from deportation to the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It co ...

in occupied Poland and the gas chambers there.. In April 1944 Brand was approached by '' SS-

Obersturmbannführer __NOTOC__ ''Obersturmbannführer'' (Senior Assault-unit Leader; ; short: ''Ostubaf'') was a paramilitary rank in the German Nazi Party (NSDAP) which was used by the SA (''Sturmabteilung'') and the SS (''Schutzstaffel''). The rank of ''Obersturm ...

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

Reich Security Head Office The Reich Security Main Office (german: Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and ''Reichsführer-SS'', the head of the Nazi ...

department IV B4 (Jewish affairs), who had arrived in Budapest to organize the deportations. Eichmann proposed that Brand broker a deal between the SS and the United States or Britain, in which the Nazis would exchange one million Jews for 10,000 trucks for the Eastern front and large quantities of tea and other goods. It was the most ambitious of a series of proposals between the SS and Jewish leaders. Eichmann called it "''Blut gegen Waren''" ( "blood for goods"). Nothing came of the idea, which ''The Times'' of London called one of the most loathsome stories of the war. Historians have suggested that the SS, including its commander, ''

Reichsführer-SS (, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest rank of the SS. The longest-servi ...

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

, intended the negotiations as cover for peace talks with the Western Allies that would have excluded the Soviet Union and perhaps even

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...

. Whatever its purpose, the proposal was thwarted by the British government. They arrested Brand in

Aleppo )), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black". , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , image_map1 = ...

(then under British control), where he had gone to propose Eichmann's offer to the

Jewish Agency The Jewish Agency for Israel ( he, הסוכנות היהודית לארץ ישראל, translit=HaSochnut HaYehudit L'Eretz Yisra'el) formerly known as The Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. ...

, and put an end to it by leaking details to the media. The failure of the proposal, and the wider issue of why the Allies were unable to save the 437,000 Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz between May and July 1944, became the subject of bitter debate for many years. In 1961 ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy trans ...

'' magazine called Brand "a man who lives in the shadows with a broken heart". He told an interviewer shortly before his death in 1964: "An accident of life placed the fate of one million human beings on my shoulders. I eat and sleep and think only of them.""Joel Brand, 58, Hungarian Jew In Eichmann's Truck Deal, Dies"
''The New York Times'', 15 July 1964.

Background

Early life

One of seven children, Brand was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in Naszód,

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1 ...

(today

Năsăud Năsăud (; german: Nassod, ''Nußdorf''; hu, Naszód) is a town in Bistrița-Năsăud County in Romania located in the historical region of Transylvania. The town administers two villages, Liviu Rebreanu (until 1958 ''Prislop''; ''Priszlop'') a ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

). His father was the founder of the Budapest telephone company, and his paternal grandfather, also Joel Brand, had owned the post office in Munkács (now

Mukacheve Mukachevo ( uk, Мукачево, ; hu, Munkács; see name section) is a city in the valley of the Latorica river in Zakarpattia Oblast (province), in Western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of Mukachevo Raion (district), the city ...

, Ukraine).. The family moved to Erfurt in Germany when Brand was four. When he was 19 he went to stay with an uncle in New York, then worked his way across the United States, washing dishes and working on roads and in mines. He joined the Communist Party, worked for the

Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...

as a sailor, and sailed to Hawaii, the Philippines, South America, China, and Japan. In or around 1930 Brand returned to Erfurt, where he worked for another telephone company his father had founded and became a functionary with the Thuringian KPD ( Communist Party of Germany). He was still living in Germany when

was sworn in as Chancellor on 30 January 1933, and on 27 February that year he was arrested, as a communist, just before the

Reichstag fire The Reichstag fire (german: Reichstagsbrand, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of ...

. Released in 1934, he moved to Budapest, Hungary, where he worked again for his father's company.; ; . He joined the ''

Poale Zion Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire in about the turn of the 20th century after ...

'', a Marxist-Zionist party, became a vice-president of the Budapest Palestine Office, which organized Jewish emigration to

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East J ...

, and sat on the governing body of the

Jewish National Fund Jewish National Fund ( he, קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Keren Kayemet LeYisrael'', previously , ''Ha Fund HaLeumi'') was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Syria (later Mandatory Palestine, and subsequ ...

Aid and Rescue Committee

In 1935 Brand married Haynalka "Hansi" Hartmann and together they opened a knitwear and glove factory on Rozsa Street, Budapest, which after a few years had a staff of over 100. The couple had met as members of a ''hachscharah'', a group of Jews preparing to move to Palestine to work on a ''

kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming ha ...

'', but Brand's plans changed when his mother and three sisters fled to Budapest from Germany and he had to support them. Brand's involvement in smuggling Jews into Hungary began in July 1941, when Hansi Brand's sister and brother-in-law, Lajos Stern, were caught up in the Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre. Because of the situation in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, 15,000–35,000 Jews had fled to Hungary, registering with the National Central Alien Control Office. The Hungarian government expelled 18,000 of this group to German-occupied Ukraine, where on 27–28 August 1941, the SS and Ukrainian collaborators shot 14,000–16,000 of them. About 2,000 survived. Brand paid a Hungarian counter-espionage officer to bring his wife's relatives back safely. The Hungarian Interior Minister was reportedly shocked when he learned about the massacre, and the deportations were halted. Through the ''Poale Zion'' party, the Brands joined other Zionists engaged in rescue work, including

Rezső Kasztner Rezső Kasztner (1906 – 15 March 1957), also known as Rudolf Israel Kastner, was a Hungarian-Israeli journalist and lawyer who became known for having helped Jews escape from occupied Europe during the Holocaust. He was assassinated in 1957 af ...

, a lawyer and journalist from

Kolozsvár ; hu, kincses város) , official_name=Cluj-Napoca , native_name= , image_skyline= , subdivision_type1 = County , subdivision_name1 = Cluj County , subdivision_type2 = Status , subdivision_name2 = County seat , settlement_type = City , le ...

(Cluj, Transylvania), and Ottó Komoly, an engineer. In January 1943 the group set up the Aid and Rescue Committee, known as the ''Va'adat Ha-Ezrah ve'Hatzalah'' or ''Va'ada'', with Komoly as chair. Other members included Andreas Biss (Brand's cousin), Samuel Springmann (a Polish jeweller whose family were in the

Łódź ghetto The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto (after the Nazi German name for Łódź) was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of G ...

), Sandor Offenbach, Dr. Miklos Schweiziger, Moshe Krausz, Eugen Frankel, and Ernő Szilágyi from the ''

Hashomer Hatzair Hashomer Hatzair ( he, הַשׁוֹמֵר הַצָעִיר, , ''The Young Guard'') is a Labor Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary, and it was also the name of the group ...

'' party. The ''Va'ada'' raised money, forged documents, maintained contacts with intelligence agencies, and ran safe houses. Brand testified during Adolf Eichmann's trial that, between 1941 and the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944, he and the committee had helped 22,000–25,000 Jews reach Hungary.

Oskar Schindler Oskar Schindler (; 28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was a German industrialist, humanitarian and a member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and amm ...

became one of the committee's contacts, smuggling letters and money into the

Kraków ghetto The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major metropolitan Nazi ghettos created by Germany in the new General Government territory during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It was established for the purpose of exploitation, terror, an ...

on their behalf. During a visit by Schindler to Budapest in November 1943, they learned that Schindler had been bribing Nazi officers to let him bring Jewish refugees into his factory in Poland, which he ran as a safe haven. This further encouraged the committee, after the invasion of Hungary, to try negotiating with the SS.

March–May 1944

Invasion of Hungary

When the Germans invaded Hungary on Sunday, 19 March 1944, they were accompanied by a ''Sonderkommando'' led by '' SS-

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

department IV B4 (Jewish affairs). Eichmann's arrival in Budapest signalled the Germans' intention to "solve" Hungary's

Jewish question The Jewish question, also referred to as the Jewish problem, was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century European society that pertained to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews. The debate, which was similar to other "national ...

. Following Hungary's annexation in 1941 of parts of Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, there were 725,000 Jews in the country, as well as over 60,000 Jewish converts to Christianity and others the Nazis counted as Jews, according to

Yehuda Bauer Yehuda Bauer ( he, יהודה באואר; born April 6, 1926) is a Czech-born Israeli historian and scholar of the Holocaust. He is a professor of Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University ...

. Most were liberal Jews and fully assimilated, nearly 30 percent were Orthodox, and a small minority were Zionists.. Randolph Braham writes that Jews were viewed with suspicion in Hungary as advocates for democracy, liberalism, socialism and communism. Restrictions had been in place before the invasion, including a prohibition on marrying Christians; according to the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust his ...

, the Hungarian Parliament passed 22 antisemitic laws between May 1938 and March 1944. The Jewish leadership in Hungary was aware of the mass murder of Jews in occupied Europe, but the rest of the Jewish community was not, in Braham's view; he writes that the leadership's failure to inform the community and to plan for Hungary's occupation is "one of the great tragedies of the era". After the invasion, the Hungarian government began isolating Jews from the rest of the community. From 5 April 1944 Jews over the age of six had to wear a 3.8 x 3.8 inch (10 x 10 cm)

yellow badge Yellow badges (or yellow patches), also referred to as Jewish badges (german: Judenstern, lit=Jew's star), are badges that Jews were ordered to wear at various times during the Middle Ages by some caliphates, at various times during the Medieva ...

. Jews were forbidden from using telephones, owning cars or radios, travelling or moving home, and had to declare the value of their property. Jewish civil servants, journalists and lawyers were sacked, and non-Jews could not work in Jewish households. Books by Jews or Christians with Jewish heritage were removed from libraries, and Jewish authors could no longer be published.

Meeting with Wisliceny

Rudolf Kastner at Kol Yisrael, early 1950s - cropped (2)

On the day of the invasion, Kasztner and Szilágyi hid in the apartment of Andreas Biss, a chemical engineer, in Semsey Street, Budapest. They were later joined by Komoly and his wife, and the Brands and their two children. Wanting to establish contact with the Germans, the committee offered a go-between $20,000 to arrange a meeting with SS ''

Hauptsturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Hstuf'') was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organizations such as the SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Hauptsturmführer'' was a mid-level commander and had equivalent seniority to a ...

Dieter Wisliceny Dieter Wisliceny (13 January 1911 – 4 May 1948) was a member of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) and one of the deputies of Adolf Eichmann, helping to organise and coordinate the wide scale deportations of the Jews across Europe during the Holocaust. ...

, one of Eichmann's assistants. David Crowe writes that the SS had become an economic force in its own right by 1944, as a result its plundering of Jewish businesses and its ownership of factories relying on slave labour from concentration camps. Jewish rescue workers had made several attempts to exploit SS corruption. In Bratislava, Slovakia, Gisi Fleischmann and Orthodox Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl, leaders of the

Working Group A working group, or working party, is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. The groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdis ...

(a group within the

Slovakian Jewish Council Slovak may refer to: * Something from, related to, or belonging to Slovakia (''Slovenská republika'') * Slovaks, a Western Slavic ethnic group * Slovak language, an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages * Slovak, Arkan ...

that served as the equivalent of the Aid and Rescue Committee), had paid Dieter Wisliceny c. $50,000 in 1942 to suspend the deportation to Poland of Jews from Slovakia. According to Bauer, only two transports left for Poland after Wisliceny was paid, and the Working Group believed their bribe had succeeded. In fact, the deportations had been halted for other reasons: Slovakian officials had been bribed; many Jews were protected by government documents showing they were, for example, essential workers; and there had been an intervention from the Vatican in June 1942. Encouraged by their apparent success, Fleischmann and Weissmandl devised a more ambitious proposal in November 1942. Known as the Europa Plan or ''Grossplan'', the aim was to bribe the SS with money from Jews overseas, primarily the United States, to stop the deportation of all Jews to Poland. Nothing came of the proposal, reportedly because Heinrich Himmler intervened to stop it in August 1943. The Aid and Rescue Committee decided to ask Wisliceny whether the SS were, as Kasztner wrote in a later report, "prepared to negotiate with the illegal Jewish rescue committee on an economic basis about the moderation of the anti-Jewish measures". Brand and Kasztner met Wisliceny on 5 April 1944. They told him they were in a position to continue Fleischmann's negotiations and could offer $2 million, with a down payment of $200,000. They asked that there be no deportations, mass executions or

pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...

s in Hungary, no ghettos or camps, and that Jews who held immigration certificates for Palestine (issued by the British mandatory government) be allowed to leave. Wisliceny accepted the $200,000, but indicated that $2 million might not be enough. He said there would be no deportations and no harm to the Jewish community while negotiations continued, and arranged for Aid and Rescue Committee exemptions from anti-Jewish laws to allow its members to travel and use cars and telephones.

First meeting with Eichmann

Following the contact with Wisliceny, Brand received a message on 25 April that Eichmann wanted to see him. Brand was told to wait in the Opera Café and from there was driven by the SS to Eichmann's headquarters at the Hotel Majestic. SS ''Untersturmbannführer''

Kurt Becher Kurt Andreas Ernst Becher (12 September 1909 – 8 August 1995) was a mid-ranking SS commander who was Commissar of all German concentration camps, and Chief of the Economic Department of the SS Command in Hungary during the German occupation ...

, an emissary of ''

, was also at the meeting. Brand wrote that Eichmann wore a "well-cut" uniform and had eyes he would never forget: "Steely blue, hard and sharp, they seemed to bore through you. ... It was only later that I noticed his small face with its thin lips and sharp nose." In a tone that Brand compared to the "clatter of a machine gun", Eichmann offered to sell him one million Jews, not for money, but for goods from overseas:.

I have already made investigations about you and your people and I have verified your ability to make a deal. Now then, I am prepared to sell you one million Jews ... Goods for blood – blood for goods. You can take them from any country you like, wherever you can find them – Hungary, Poland, the Ostmark, from Theresienstadt, from Auschwitz, wherever you like.

Eichmann said he would discuss the proposal with Berlin, and that in the meantime Brand should decide what kinds of goods he was in a position to offer. When Brand asked how the committee was supposed to obtain these goods, Eichmann suggested that Brand open negotiations with the Allies overseas; Eichmann said he would arrange a travel permit. Another member of the Va'ada had a

contact in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_in ...

, so Brand suggested he would travel there. He testified years later that on leaving the hotel he felt like a "stark madman".

Further meetings

Eichmann sent for Brand again a few days later. Eichmann was accompanied this time by Gerhard Clages, also known as Otto Klages, chief of Himmler's ''

Sicherheitsdienst ' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the ''Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...

'' (security service) in Budapest. Clages' presence meant that three of Himmler's senior officers – Eichmann, Becher and Clages – had involved themselves with the Brand proposal.. Clages handed Brand $50,000 and 270,000 Swiss francs that the Germans had intercepted, sent to the Aid and Rescue Committee by rescue workers in Switzerland via the Swedish Embassy in Budapest.. Eichmann told Brand that he wanted 10,000 new trucks for the

Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and unoccupied lands. The grew from th ...

to use on the Eastern front or for civilian purposes, as well as 200 tons of tea, 800 tons of coffee, 2,000,000 cases of soap, and a quantity of

tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isol ...

and other materials. If Brand returned from Istanbul with confirmation that the Allies had accepted the proposal, Eichmann said he would release 10 percent of the one million. The deal would proceed with 100,000 Jews released for every 1,000 trucks.

May–October 1944

Mass deportations begin

It remains unclear whether Eichmann told Brand to return to Budapest by a particular date. According to Bauer, Brand said at various points that he was given one, two or three weeks or was advised that he could "take istime". Hansi Brand testified during Eichmann's trial in 1961 that she and her children had to remain in Budapest, effectively as hostages.. Brand and Eichmann met again, for the last time on 15 May, the day the mass deportations to Auschwitz began. Between then and 9 July 1944, around 437,000 Jews, almost the entire Jewish population of the Hungarian countryside, were deported to Auschwitz on 147 trains. Most were gassed on arrival.

Brand leaves for Istanbul

Brand secured a letter of recommendation for the Jewish Agency from the Hungarian

Jewish Council A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every co ...

. He was told he would be travelling with Bandi Grosz (real name, Andor Gross), a Hungarian who had worked for Hungarian and German military intelligence; Grosz would travel to Istanbul as the director of a Hungarian transport company. The SS drove the men from Budapest to Vienna on 17 May, where they stayed the night in a hotel reserved for the SS. Grosz later testified that Brand's mission had been a cover for his own. He said he had been told by Clages to arrange a meeting in a neutral country between senior German and American officers, or British if necessary, to broker peace between the German ''Sicherheitsdienst'' and the Western Allies.; .

Meeting with Jewish Agency

In Vienna, Brand was given a German passport in the name of Eugen Band. He cabled the Jewish Agency in Istanbul to say he was on his way, and arrived by German diplomatic plane on 19 May.. Paul Rose writes that Brand had no idea at this point that the deportations to Auschwitz had already begun. Brand had been told by the Jewish Agency by return cable that "Chaim" would meet him in Istanbul. Convinced of the importance of his mission, he believed this was

Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israe ...

, president of the

World Zionist Organization The World Zionist Organization ( he, הַהִסְתַּדְּרוּת הַצִּיּוֹנִית הָעוֹלָמִית; ''HaHistadrut HaTzionit Ha'Olamit''), or WZO, is a non-governmental organization that promotes Zionism. It was founded as the ...

, later the first president of Israel. In fact the man who had arranged to meet him was Chaim Barlas, head of the Istanbul group of Zionist emissaries. Furthermore, not only was Barlas not there, but there was no entry visa waiting for Brand, and he was threatened with arrest and deportation. Brand saw this as the first betrayal by the Jewish Agency. Bauer argues that Brand, then and later, failed to grasp that the Jewish Agency was powerless. That his passport was in the name of Eugen Band would have been enough to cause the confusion. The visa situation was sorted out by Bandi Grosz and the men were taken to a hotel, where they met the Jewish Agency delegates. Brand was furious that no one sufficiently senior was available to negotiate a deal. The Jewish Agency agreed to arrange for

Moshe Sharett Moshe Sharett ( he, משה שרת, born Moshe Chertok (Hebrew: )‎ 15 October 1894 – 7 July 1965) was a Russian-born Israeli politician who served as Israel's second prime minister from 1954 to 1955. A member of Mapai, Sharett's term was b ...

, head of its political department and later second prime minister of Israel, to travel to Istanbul to meet him. Brand passed them a plan of Auschwitz (probably from the Vrba-Wetzler report) and demanded that the gas chambers, crematoria and railway lines be bombed. The discussions left him discouraged and depressed. He wrote that the delegates lacked any sense of urgency and were focused more on internal politics and Jewish emigration to Palestine, rather than the slaughter in Europe: "

hey Hey or Hey! may refer to: Music * Hey (band), a Polish rock band Albums * ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014 * ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the title song, 1980 * ''Hey!'' (Jullie album) or the title s ...

were undoubtedly worthy men ... But they lacked any awareness of how critical was the period of history in which they were living. They had not looked death in the face day after day, as we had in Budapest ..."

Interim agreement

Ladislaus Löb writes that proposals and counter-proposals flew between Istanbul, London and Washington. The Jewish Agency and Brand wanted the Allies to string the Germans along in the hope of slowing the deportations. The Agency gave Brand a document, dated 29 May 1944, that offered $400,000 for every 1,000 Jewish emigrants to Palestine, one million Swiss francs per 10,000 Jewish emigrants to neutral countries such as Spain, and 10,000 Swiss francs a month if the deportations were to stop. If the SS would allow the Allies to supply food, clothes and medicine to the Jews in concentration camps, the Nazis would be supplied with the same. Rose writes that the agreement was intended only to give Brand something to take back to Budapest. Brand cabled his wife on 29 and 31 May to tell her (and thereby Eichmann) about the agreement, but there was no response. Rezső Kasztner and Hansi Brand had been held in Budapest between 27 May and 1 June by the Hungarian Arrow Cross. They received the telegrams when they were released, but Eichmann refused to halt the deportations.

Arrested by British

In Istanbul, Brand was told that

was unable to obtain a visa for Turkey. The Jewish Agency asked Brand to meet Sharett instead in Aleppo on the Syrian-Turkish border. He was reluctant; the area was under British control and he was afraid they would want to question him, but the Agency told him it would be safe and he left by train with two of its delegates. While on the train, Brand was approached by two representatives of

Zeev Jabotinsky Ze'ev Jabotinsky ( he, זְאֵב זַ׳בּוֹטִינְסְקִי, ''Ze'ev Zhabotinski'';, ''Wolf Zhabotinski'' 17 October 1880 – 3 August 1940), born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky, was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist lead ...

Hatzohar Hatzohar (, an acronym for ''HaTzionim HaRevizionistim'' (), lit. ''The Revisionist Zionists''), officially Brit HaTzionim HaRevizionistim (, lit. ''Union of Revisionist Zionists'') was a Revisionist Zionist organization and political party in Man ...

(Revisionist Zionist) party and the

World Agudath Israel World Agudath Israel ( he, אגודת ישראל), usually known as the Aguda, was established in the early twentieth century as the political arm of Ashkenazi Torah Judaism. It succeeded ''Agudas Shlumei Emunei Yisroel'' (Union of Faithful Jewr ...

Orthodox religious party. They told him the British were going to arrest him in Aleppo: "''Die Engländer sind in dieser Frage nicht unsere Verbündeten''"("the British are not our allies in this matter"). As soon as he arrived at the Aleppo train station on 7 June, he was stopped by a British man in plain clothes and pushed into a Jeep that was waiting with its engine running. The British drove him to a villa, where for four days they tried to stop Moshe Sharett from meeting him. Sharett "fought a battle of telephones and cables," Bauer writes, and on 11 June he and the Jewish Agency intelligence group were finally introduced to Brand. The discussion lasted several hours. Sharett wrote in a report of 27 June: "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.'" At the end of the meeting, Sharett broke the news that the British were insisting Brand not return to Budapest. Brand became hysterical.

Proposal rejected

Brand was taken to Cairo, where he was questioned by the British for weeks. On 22 June 1944 he was interviewed by Ira Hirschmann of the American

War Refugee Board The War Refugee Board, established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January 1944, was a U.S. executive agency to aid civilian victims of the Axis powers. The Board was, in the words of historian Rebecca Erbelding, "the only time in American h ...

; Hirschmann wrote a positive report about Brand, but his influence was limited. Brand went on hunger strike for 17 days in protest at his detention. The British, Americans and Soviets discussed the proposal. British Foreign Secretary (later Prime Minister)

Anthony Eden Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 until his resignation in 1957. Achieving rapid prom ...

wrote a memo on 26 June outlining the options. The British were convinced they were dealing with a Himmler trick, that Grosz was a double agent, and that Brand's mission was a "smokescreen" for the Germans to broker a peace deal without the Soviet Union. If the deal had gone ahead and large numbers of Jews had been released in central Europe, Allied airborne and possibly land-based military operations might have had to stop. Bauer believes the British feared this was Himmler's motive—to turn the Jews into human shields—because it would have allowed the Germans to devote their forces to fighting the Red Army.. The Americans were more open to negotiating. A rift developed between them and the British who, Bauer writes, were worried about large-scale Jewish immigration to Palestine, then under British control. Eden did suggest a counter-proposal on 1 July, but it was reduced, Bauer writes, to a ridiculous minimum. He told the American government that the British would allow Brand to return to Budapest with a message for Eichmann suggesting that 1,500 Jewish children be given safe passage to Switzerland; 5,000 from Bulgaria and Romania be allowed to leave for Palestine; and that Germany guarantee safe conduct for ships carrying Jewish refugees. He did not say what he would offer in return. On 11 July Prime Minister

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...

put an end to the idea when he told Eden that the murder of the Jews was "probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed", and that there should be "no negotiations of any kind on this subject". Of Brand's mission he wrote: "The project which has been put forward through a very doubtful channel seems itself also to be of the most nondescript character. I would not take it seriously." The Cabinet Committee on Refugees decided on 13 July to "totally ignore the combined Brandt–Gestapo approach".

Leak to media

The British leaked details of Eichmann's proposal to the media. According to Michael Fleming, the BBC was the first to report it, which means, he writes, "it seems that the PWE /nowiki>Political_Warfare_Executive.html" ;"title="Political_Warfare_Executive.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Political Warfare Executive">/nowiki>Political Warfare Executive">Political_Warfare_Executive.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Political Warfare Executive">/nowiki>Political Warfare Executive/nowiki> (and hence the Foreign Office) released the information". On 19 July 1944—the day before the 20 July plot, the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler—the ''New York Herald Tribune'' (dateline London, 18 July) reported that two Hungarian government emissaries in Turkey had proposed that Hungarian Jews be given safe passage in exchange for British and American pharmaceuticals and transport for the Germans. On 20 July ''The Times'' called it "one of the most loathsome" stories of the war, an attempt to "blackmail, deceive and split" the Allies, and a "new level of fantasy and self-deception". The mass deportation of Hungarian Jews had already stopped by the time of the leak. Following publication in mid-June of parts of the Vrba-Wetzler report, which described in detail the use of gas chambers inside Auschwitz, the Jewish Agency in Geneva had cabled London asking that Hungarian ministers be held personally responsible for the killings. The cable was intercepted and passed to Hungarian regent

Miklós Horthy Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya ( hu, Vitéz nagybányai Horthy Miklós; ; English: Nicholas Horthy; german: Nikolaus Horthy Ritter von Nagybánya; 18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957), was a Hungarian admiral and dictator who served as the regent ...

, who on 7 July 1944 ordered an end to the deportations. The British released Brand on 5 October 1944. Brand said they would not allow him to return to Hungary and forced him to travel to Palestine. Bauer disputes this; in his view, Brand was simply afraid of returning to Budapest, convinced the Germans would murder him.

Himmler's involvement

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-S72707, Heinrich Himmler

Germany's Foreign Minister,

Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...

, had apparently known nothing about the proposal. He cabled ''

Brigadeführer ''Brigadeführer'' (, ) was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) that was used between the years of 1932 to 1945. It was mainly known for its use as an SS rank. As an SA rank, it was used after briefly being known as '' Untergruppenf ...

'' Edmund Veesenmayer of the SS on 20 July 1944 to ask about it, and was told on 22 July that Brand and Grosz had been sent to Turkey on the orders of

, head of the SS. Eichmann himself said during interrogation after the war that the order had come from Himmler, as did SS officer Kurt Becher: "Himmler said to me: 'Take whatever you can from the Jews. Promise them whatever you want. What we will keep is another matter.'" According to Bauer, the "clumsiness of the approach has been a wonderment to all observers". Bauer argues that Eichmann wanted to murder Jews, not sell them, but was forced instead to act as Himmler's reluctant messenger. On the day Brand left Germany for Istanbul in May 1944, Eichmann was in Auschwitz checking that it was ready for the trainloads of Jews about to arrive from Hungary. The camp's commander, ''Obersturmbannführer''

Rudolf Höss Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss (also Höß, Hoeß, or Hoess; 25 November 1901 – 16 April 1947) was a German SS officer during the Nazi era who, after the defeat of Nazi Germany, was convicted for war crimes. Höss was the longest-serving com ...

, said it would be difficult to process such large numbers, whereupon Eichmann ordered that new arrivals be gassed immediately rather than going through "selection". This does not suggest that he was going to halt the killing until Brand returned from Istanbul.. In Bauer's view, the presence at one of the meetings of Gerhard Clages of the SS signals that Himmler was interested in secret peace talks. Brand and Grosz arrived in Istanbul just two months before the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944. Himmler knew that attempts might be made on Hitler's life, although not where and when. He may have wanted to broker for peace in case Hitler did not survive, using low-level agents for plausible deniability; in the event that Hitler did survive, Bauer argues, Himmler would be able to offer him a peace deal with the West that excluded the Soviet Union. Brand himself came to believe that the proposal had been designed to drive a wedge between the Allies. Two months before his death in 1964, at the trial in Germany of Eichmann's deputies and , he said he had "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.""Allied Rift Called Aim of '44 Nazi Ransom Plan"
''The New York Times'', 21 May 1964.

Kasztner train

Brand's failure to return to Budapest was a disaster for the Aid and Rescue Committee. On 27 May Hansi Brand, who at some point during this period had become Kasztner's lover, was arrested and beaten by the Hungarian Arrow Cross. Kasztner wrote that on 9 June Eichmann told him: "If I do not receive a positive reply within three days, I shall operate the mill at Auschwitz"State Attorney Bach, Trial of Adolf Eichmann, session 59, par
6/6
31 May 1961. ("''die Muehle laufen lasse''"). During his trial in Jerusalem in 1961, Eichmann denied having said this to Kastner. He told the court that he did not have the authority to stop or start what was happening in Auschwitz, or to change the deal. The order from Berlin had said: "Deportations will continue in the meanwhile and will not be stopped until Joel Brand returns with a statement to the effect that these matters have been accepted by the Jewish organizations abroad." Hansi Brand told Claude Lanzman in 1979:

We ... ivedbetween fear and despair and hope. And that formed itself into such a heap of stuff, that I can't really describe it – how it was and what it was. Every evening, we went to pieces and during the night, we tried to build ourselves up again, so we could go into the street ... and look like human beings again ... And twas like being in a windmill; it turned and moved.

Bauer argues that the Aid and Rescue committee made the mistake of almost adopting the antisemitic belief in unlimited Jewish power, that Jewish leaders could move around freely and persuade the Allies to act, and that American Jews had easy access to money and goods. The committee had similar trust in the Allies, but the latter were preparing for the

invasion of Normandy Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Nor ...

, which began on 6 June 1944. "At 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." Despite the setbacks, Kasztner, Hansi Brand and the rest of the committee secured the release of around 1,684 Jews, including 273 children, who were allowed to leave Budapest for Switzerland by train on 30 June 1944. The committee paid SS officer

$1000 per person in foreign currency, shares, jewellery and gold, raised from the wealthier passengers to cover the cost of the rest. After an unexplained detour to the

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in Northern Germany, northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen, Lower Saxony, Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, i ...

, the passengers arrived in Switzerland in two batches in August and December that year. Joel Brand's mother, sister and niece were on the train, as were 10 members of Kasztner's family and 388 people from the Kolozsvár ghetto in his home town. Kastner's relationship with these passengers led to the criticism that his negotiations with Becher had focused on saving people he knew, an allegation that led to his assassination in 1957.

Later life

Move to Israel

Bauer concludes that Brand was a courageous man who had passionately wanted to help the Jewish people, but his life was plagued after the mission by suspicion, including from other members of the Aid and Rescue Committee, because of his failure to return to Budapest. After the British released him, he joined the

Stern Gang Lehi (; he, לח"י – לוחמי חרות ישראל ''Lohamei Herut Israel – Lehi'', "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel – Lehi"), often known pejoratively as the Stern Gang,"This group was known to its friends as LEHI and to its enemie ...

, who were fighting to remove the British from Palestine.. He and Hansi Brand lived for the rest of their lives in Israel, at first moving to the

Givat Brenner Givat Brenner ( he, גִּבְעַת בְּרֶנֶר, lit. ''Brenner Hill''; ar, غفعات برينر), is a kibbutz in the Central District of Israel. Located around south of Rehovot, it falls under the jurisdiction of Brenner Regional Co ...

kibbutz, then to Tel Aviv, with their two sons.

Testimony

Brand offered testimony about the blood-for-goods proposal during several trials. In 1954 he testified at the controversial libel trial in Jerusalem of Malchiel Gruenwald, who was sued by the Israeli government on behalf of

. Gruenwald was a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who had moved to Israel after the war. In a self-published pamphlet in 1952 he accused Kasztner, by then an Israeli civil servant, of having collaborated with the Nazis by dealing with Eichmann. Brand testified for Kasztner, but instead of defending him took the opportunity to accuse the Jewish Agency, whose officials became the first Israeli government, of having helped the British scupper the blood-for-goods proposal. After a trial that lasted 18 months, the judge concluded that, by negotiating with Eichmann, failing to warn the many to save the few on the Kasztner train, and writing an affidavit after the war for Kurt Becher, Kasztner had "sold his soul to the devil". It was because of Kasztner's support for Becher that the Americans decided not to prosecute Becher at Nuremberg. Kasztner also wrote affidavits for SS officers

Hans Jüttner {{Infobox military person , name = Hans Jüttner , birth_date = {{birth-date, 2 March 1894 , death_date = {{death-date and age, 24 May 1965, 2 March 1894 , image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J28010, Hans Jüttner.jpg , image_upright= 0.9 , image_ ...

and Hermann Krumey. The judge said that Kasztner's failure to do more to warn the community that they were being sent to the gas chambers, not resettled, had helped Eichmann maintain order, and that the Kasztner train had been a payoff.

Tom Segev Tom Segev ( he, תום שגב; born March 1, 1945) is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's New Historians, a group challenging many of the country's traditional narratives. Biography Segev was born in Jeru ...

called the ruling "one of the most heartless in the history of Israel, perhaps the most heartless ever". The

Supreme Court of Israel ar, المحكمة العليا , image = Emblem of Israel dark blue full.svg , imagesize = 100px , caption = Emblem of Israel , motto = , established = , location = Givat Ram, Jerusalem , coordinat ...

overturned most of the verdict in January 1958, ruling that the lower court had "erred seriously", but Kasztner was assassinated in 1957 as a result of the earlier judgment.

Eichmann and Frankfurt trials

Brand's book was published in Israel in 1956 as ''Bi-sheliḥut nidonim la mavet'' and in German in 1956 as ''Die Geschichte von Joel Brand''. It appeared in English in 1958 as ''Advocate for the Dead: The Story of Joel Brand'' by Alex Weissberg, and was serialized in March and April that year by ''The Observer'', which called it "the strangest story to come out of the war". Joel and Hansi Brand both testified in 1961 during the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Eichmann said he had chosen Brand because he had seemed like an "honest, idealistic man". That year ''

'' magazine called Brand "a man who lives in the shadows with a broken heart".Golden, Harry (21 April 1961). "A Stranger to the Human Race". ''Life'' magazine, p.&nbs
46
In May 1964 he testified in Frankfurt against two of Eichmann's assistants, SS-Obersturmbannführer Hermann Krumey and SS-Hauptsturmführer Otto Hunsche.

Death

Brand died of a heart attack, aged 58, during a visit to Germany in July 1964. He told an interviewer shortly before his death: "An accident of life placed the fate of one million human beings on my shoulders. I eat and sleep and think only of them." Over 800 mourners attended his funeral in Tel Aviv, including Colonel Arieh Baz on behalf of Israel's President

Zalman Shazar Zalman Shazar ( he, זלמן שז"ר; born Shneur Zalman Rubashov; be, Шнэер За́льман Рубашо́ў; russian: Шне́ер За́лмен Рубашо́в; November 24, 1889 – October 5, 1974) was an Israeli politician, author ...

, and

Teddy Kollek Theodor "Teddy" Kollek ( he, טדי קולק; 27 May 1911 – 2 January 2007) was an Israeli politician who served as the mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993, and founder of the Jerusalem Foundation. Kollek was re-elected five times, in 1969, 197 ...

, director-general of the prime minister's office, on behalf of Prime Minister

Levi Eshkol Levi Eshkol ( he, לֵוִי אֶשְׁכּוֹל ;‎ 25 October 1895 – 26 February 1969), born Levi Yitzhak Shkolnik ( he, לוי יצחק שקולניק, links=no), was an Israeli statesman who served as the third Prime Minister of Israe ...

. The eulogy was delivered by

Gideon Hausner Gideon Hausner ( he, גדעון האוזנר, 26 September 1915 – 15 November 1990) was an Israeli jurist and politician. Between 1960 and 1963, he served as Attorney General and was later elected to the Knesset and served in the cabinet. Hau ...

, the attorney general who prosecuted Adolf Eichmann."Joel Brand Buried in Israel; Shazar and Eshkol Represented at Ceremony"
''Jewish Telegraphic Agency'', 23 July 1964.

Sources

Notes

Citations

Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * First published as ''Die Geschichte von Joel Brand'', 1956; also published as ''Desperate Mission: Joel Brand's Story''. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *