REZSO KASZTNER
The Daring Rescue of Hungarian Jews : A Survivor's Account
by Ladislaus Lob C 2008
Pimlico is the Publisher
pages 269-270
"The charge that Kasztner made up the Bergen-Belsen group entirely of his relatives and his Zionist cronies from Kolozsvar also stands on shaky ground. Given the appalling task of selecting a few hundred from hundreds of thousands, no selection could have been "right."
(My note : his relatives were a count of ten, while other relatives were left behind and exported or murdered in Auschwitz.)
"The dominance of Ziolnists from Kolozsvar is hardly surprising, since Kolozsvar was Hungary's second largest city with the largest and most active Zionist community, and the whole rescue enterprise was founded on Palestine immigration certificates...
"My father and I were only two of many non-Zionists, and the point is strongly made by Peretz Revesz, a former leading member of the youth movement who carried out many dangerous rescue missions of his own in Slovakia and Hungary with Kasztner's help."
page 279
"One of the most impressive witnesses was Israel Szabo. He explained that "the ordinary Hungarian in the street knew about Auschwitz" but "mass flight" was impossible, and believing that the Hungarian Jews could have "organized any resistance" would have been a "fatal error." They had been methodically worn down by the "expropriation of their wealth, the loss of their place of work, ... the closure inside their homes, in the ghetto under inhuman conditions."
This process had left them drained of all confidence and energy.
