The difficulties of creating a Holocaust archive: Yad Vashem and Israel Kastner 1947–1948

Abstract

This paper tells two intertwining stories reflecting post-Holocaust power struggles between Jewish communities and organizations and their impact on Holocaust documentation: the efforts to create a Holocaust archive in Yad Vashem from the late 1940s and the hitherto unknown involvement of Israel Kastner in these efforts. Kastner, a controversial leader and activist in Hungary during the Holocaust, was at the apex of a stormy public debate in 1950s Israel (known as the ‘Kastner trial’) and was murdered in 1957. His role in the Holocaust of Hungarian Jews is still debated by historians and in the Israeli public sphere. Yet, his involvement with Yad Vashem, the venerable Zionist-Israeli institution, did not come to light in the trial or in historical research. It is unearthed and discussed in this paper.

Keywords:

• Holocaust
• archive
• Yad Vashem
• Israel Kastner
• memory
• Israel

Notes

1. Shenhabi, Yad Vashem Directorate meeting, October 26, 1947, Central Zionist Archive J1/6448.

2. David Weinberg, “Between America and Israel: The Quest for a Distinct European Jewish Identity in the Post-War Era,” Jewish Culture and History 5, no. 1 (2002): 91–120.

3. On the Historical Commissions see Laura Jockusch, Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Boaz Cohen, “Holocaust Survivors and the Genesis of Holocaust Research,” in Beyond Camps and Forced Labour. Current International Research on Survivors of Nazi Persecution, ed. D. Johannes-Steinert and I. Weber-Newth (Osnabrueck: Secolo Verlag, 2005), 290–300.

4. See Natalia Aleksiun, “The Central Historical Jewish Historical Commission in Poland 1944–1947,” Polin 20 (2008): 74–97.

5. The Wiener Library in London, one of the first documentation centers, active during the war as an information center for the allies, was struggling to adapt itself to the post war situation and did not take an active part in the contest for leadership.

6. See Mooli Brog, “In Blessed Memory of a Dream. Mordechai Shenhavi and Initial Holocaust Commemoration Ideas in Palestine, 1942–1945,” Yad Vashem Studies 30 (2002): 297–336.

7. Zerah Warhaftig, “The Central World Archives in Jerusalem for the History of the Holocaust and the Heroism of Our People in Recent Years” (Hebrew), YIVO Archive 1258/489 (1947).

8. One should rather say ‘Yad Vashems’ in the plural, since the Yad Vashem established in the pre-state years died out after the State of Israel was established in 1948 (‘the first Yad Vashem’) and was re-established by the young state in 1953 as a state commemorative authority for the Holocaust. The documentation predicament challenged both institutions.

9. On Robinson and the institution see: Boaz Cohen, “Dr Jacob Robinson, the Institute of Jewish Affairs and the Elusive Jewish Voice in Nuremberg,” Holocaust and Justice: Representation & Historiography of the Holocaust in Post-war Trials, ed. David Bankier and Dan Michman (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem and Berghahn Books, 2010): 81–100.

10. “Minutes from a meeting with Dr J. Robinson,” March 31, 1947, American Jewish Archives H218/5.

11. On the publication of the Stroop Report by the CDJC in Paris he commented, ‘Publishing a book in such a [non-professional] way is a sin.’

12. In the Hebrew original, ‘landlord,’ ‘owner.’

13. Ibid., Tartakower.

14. Ibid., Dr Meizel.

15. Warhaftig, “The Central World Archives,” 3.

16. Ibid., 4.

17. Ibid., 6–7.

18. Ibid., 4.

19. Ibid., 6.

20. Ibid., 8.

21. “Memo from [Yad Vashem’s] Professional Committee Meeting,” February 15, 1948. Yad Vashem Archives (YVA) AM1/292.

22. Israel Kaplan and Moshe Feigenboim to Pesach Piecacz, August 4, 1950, Israel Kaplan’s private archive. The letter tells a Kafkaesque tale of their encounter with Israeli bureaucracy in their attempts to locate the crates and release them from the port. Of Yad Vashem they wrote, ‘It was seldom that we found the door open [in the Yad Vashem office], it was locked for most of the time.’

23. Central Zionist Archive (CZA), J1/6448.

24. Shragai to Warhaftig, January, 14 1948, CZA, J1/6448.

25. “Memo from [Yad Vashem’s] professional committee meeting,” February 15, 1948. YVA AM1/292.

26. Ibid.

27. Kastner’s name appears in several versions: in Hungarian the name was Rezső Kasztner. During the war he sometime used the German form, and signed documents as Rudolf. In Israel he used his Hebrew name Israel or Yisrael. In this paper, I chose to use Israel Kastner as is used in many academic, literary and journalistic works.

28. ^“Affidavit of Dr Rudolf Kastner, former President of the Hungarian Zionist Organization, 9/13/1945. This report has been transcribed from the original report and sworn statement made by Dr Rudolf Kastner in London to the United States Major Judge Advocate General Warren Farr.” http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/kastner.html. Nuremberg document 2605-PS, Exhibit USA-242. Used by prosecution in the nineteenth day of the trial, Thursday, December 13, 1945, to describe the fate of Hungarian Jewry. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/12-13-45.asp. It was also referred to in the prosecution’s claim of a Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression in chapter XI on the concentration camps http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/chap_11.asp and in chapter XVI concerning Ernst Kaltenbrunner http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/chap16_part06.asp.

29. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of European Jews (Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books, 1961), 31, f. 1.

30. Reszö Kazstner, Der Bericht des Judischen Rettungscommittes aus Budapest 1942–1945 (typescript), Geneva 1946. See Laszlo Karsai and Judit Molnar, eds., Rezső Kasztner: The Kasztner Report, The report of the Budapest Jewish Rescue Committee 1942–1945, (Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 2013).

31. See trial documents chapter XVI concerning Ernst Kaltenbrunner http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/chap16_part06.asp. also see Shlomo Aronson, Hitler, The Allies and the Jews (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 325–6.

32. Michael Marrus, “The Jewish Lobby at Nuremberg: Jacob Robinson and the institute of Jewish Affairs 1945–1946,” Cardozo Law Review 27/4 (2006): 1651–65; Boaz Cohen, “Dr Jacob Robinson, the Institute of Jewish Affairs and the Elusive Jewish voice in Nuremberg.”

33. ”Minutes of the office committee meeting,” December 10, 1945, 5. American Jewish Archives C14/16.

34. For an evaluation of Kastner’s efforts on this issue and especially on his efforts to have Eichmann included in the indictment see Aronson, Hitler, The Allies and the Jews, 327–32.

35. Taylor to Kastner, February 11, 1948, Israeli State Archive 30.0.50.58.

36. Testimony in court IV case IX, March 19, 1948, Nuremberg, Israel State Archives 30.0.50.59.

37. Aronson, Hitler, The Allies and the Jews, 23. Cohen, ‘Jacob Robinson,’ 94.

38. On Kastner and the trial see Yechiam Weitz, The Man Who Was Murdered Twice. The Life, Trial and Death of Israel Kasztner (Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 2011).

39. Shoshana Barri (Ishoni), “The question of Kasztner Testimonies on Behalf of Nazi War Criminals,” Journal of Israeli History 18, no. 2: 139–166, especially, 145.

40. See Barri, Aronson ibid and, for the last and latest claim see, Eli Reichenthal, A Man Who Was Murdered Twice? Rudolf Kasztner and the Holocaust in Hungary, a re-examination, Ben Gurion University Press, Beer Sheva 2010 (Hebrew), especially, 134. An analysis and evaluation of these theories is outside the scope of this paper.

41. Friedlander to Kastner, April 30, 1947, YVA AM1/178. Kastner replied on May 21, 1947: ‘Please write to me in more detail about Yad Vashem. It seems that it would have been good if it would have been established two years ago … [sic.],’ YVA AM1/178.

42. ”Memo No. 12 from the secretariat meeting,” January 8, 1948, YVA, AM1/76. Not everyone was enthusiastic about Kastner’s mission. Dr Haim Hoffman (later Yahil), head of the Jewish Agency mission to Europe, thought that the mission was ‘totally worthless.’ “Minutes of a meeting between Dr Hoffman and Warhaftig, Shenhabi and Unger,” January 14, 1948, YVA AM1/178.

43. ”Memo from the professional committee [of Yad Vashem] meeting,” February 15, 1948, YVA AM1/292.

44. ”Memo from a meeting with Dr Kastner,” February 13, 1948, YVA, AM1/196.

45. Ibid.

46. Sarah Friedlander, “From talks with Dr Kastner,” February 16–17, 1948, YVA, AM1/290.

47. Tartakower and Warhaftig to General Taylor, February 23, 1948. YVA, MA1/178.

48. Office of the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes to Yad Vashem, September 28, 1948, YVA, AM1/175.

49. Yad Vashem to Kastner, March 19, 1948, YVA, AM1/175.

50. Yad Vashem to Kastner, February 23, 1948, YVA MA1/601.

51. Barri (Ishoni) 139–66.

52. Meeting of Yad Vashem Directorate on October 18, 1955, YVA, AM2.

53. Meeting of Yad Vashem Directorate on January 6, 1955, YVA, AM2.

54. On the library and the negotiations see Ben Barkow, Alfred Wiener and the Making of the Holocaust Library (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1997). In 1980 the library was transferred to Tel Aviv University, where it retains its name, while the Wiener Library still operates in London as a Holocaust research and commemoration center.

55. Meeting of Yad Vashem Directorate, January 25, 1955, YVA, AM2.

56. Daniel Cohen, Yad Vashem to Joseph Dinai, Israeli Delegation in Budapest, December 2, 1955. Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP), P127/48.