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Killing Kasztner

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Killing Kasztner is a feature-length theatrical documentary directed by Gaylen Ross. The film features the director and her search for the truth about Rezso Kasztner. The director first heard about Kasztner from a Hungarian woman while working on another documentary, Blood Money: Switzerland's Nazi Gold. Ross interviewed the woman who asserted that she had Kasztner to thank for her life . What Ross came to learn was that Kasztner was a Jew in Hungary whose negotiations with the Nazis during World War II resulted in the rescue of 1,700 Jews. And perhaps tens of thousands more Jews were saved from the gas chambers because of his negotiation. After Kasztner moved to Israel, in the 1950s, he was accused of being a collaborator and fought a vicious libel battle in a trial that condemned him as, "the man who sold his soul to the Devil." He was subsequently killed in 1957 in Tel Aviv.

Ross spent eight years researching and filming the documentary on Kasztner. She interviewed survivors who had been rescued by Kasztner, some of Kasztner's living relatives, the son of the opposing lawyer in Kasztner's case, historians, journalists, and Kasztner's assassin, Ze'ev Eckstein.

File:RudolfKastner1.gif
Rezso Kasztner‎

The film premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and has been critically acclaimed in Israel, Hungary, and the UK. Its U.S. premiere was October 23, 2009.[1]

Pre-production

In June 2001, Ross was invited to film the only conference on Kasztner to occur in the United States. It took place at the new Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. What was supposed to be an academic forum exploded in bitter outrage. Accusations of Kasztner's collaboration with the Nazis were met with outrage by Kasztner survivors.

Kasztner's granddaughter, a young human rights lawyer, stood and faced the crowd. She wanted to know why her grandfather was still being blamed for the deaths of Jews he could not save? Ross wondered the same thing.

Synopsis

Kasztner's daughter and three granddaughters seek redemption for their family name. Some survivors of his transport want the shame erased from their rescue. Their lives, they have been told, were delivered at the expense of others. On the other side, a young and ineffective lawyer, whose father was responsible for Kasztner's legal defeat, wants to fulfill his father's wish: to keep the Kasztner name from joining the legion of Holocaust heroes.[2]

Ross details Kasztner's rescue efforts as well as the accusations against Kasztner and the trial. She tracks down the legacy of that murderous night and the man convicted for Kasztner's death: Ze'ev Eckstein.

In another mysterious twist to this already strange tale, Eckstein with the other conspirators spent only 7 years of their life sentence in jail after their sentences were commuted on the recommendation of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion.

Eckstein reveals step by step his transformation into an assassin. He tells Ross how he was 20 years old when he was first employed by Israel's fledgling secret service. He then turned double agent by right wing extremists and saw his chance to make his name. In Eckstein's eyes he was avenging the hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews whose deaths were blamed on Kasztner. As the film unfolds, Eckstein and Ross eventually revisit the scene of the crime, the first time he had ever been back.[3] What he tells Ross, he says, he has told no one else.

The film brings its audience, survivors, and the Kasztner family to the doorsteps of those who shape history.[4] To Yad Vashem in Israel, the world's memorial for the Holocaust, to the museums in New York, and to the concentration camp of Bergen Belsen where Kasztner's group was held hostage.

Most predominantly, the film sets up an extraordinary meeting between Kasztner's daughter and her father's assassin.

Background information

Negotiations

Rezso Kasztner was a lawyer and journalist originally from Cluj, on the Transylvania border. He later became a leader of the small Zionist rescue group, Va'adat Ezrah Vehatzalah (Vaada), or Aid and Rescue Committee, in Budapest during World War II. Part of his involvement with the organization was to negotiate with senior SS officer, Adolf Eichmann, to arrange the release of Hungarian Jews to Switzerland. His trainload of 1,700 people was delivered out of Budapest. The group was held hostage for months in a concentration camp, Bergen Belsen, before finally being freed. Historian as well believe that partially because of Kasztner's negotiations tens of thousands of other Jews were sent to a labor camp of Strasshof and saved from death in Auschwitz.

During the last days of the war on the orders of Himmmler Kasztner rode with SS Standartenführer (colonel) Kurt Becher who was Commissar of all German concentration camps, and Chief of the Economic Department of the SS Command in Hungary during the German occupation in 1944, halting the liquidations in the death camps of Theresienstadt and Mauthausen.

The Trial

When Kasztner moved to Israel he was accused by a survivor, Malchiel Gruenwald, of making a secret deal with Eichmann in order to save his, "prominent train of Jews." Those who opposed Kasztner claimed that he had betrayed the Jews of Hungary by not warning them of the gas chambers in Auschwitz and made it easier for Eichmann to murder them without resistance. Kasztner, then a member of the Israeli government, was forced to sue for libel to protect his name. Kasztner thought he would be proclaimed a hero. Instead, the trial and the public turned against him.

The Kasztner Trial, as it became known, was the first time that the Holocaust was publicly discussed in Israel. As a new nation, Israel was making heroes of those who fought and resisted, not those who sat down with one's enemies. This was a generation whose oath was, "Never Again." The trial became politicized and those who opposed Prime Minister Ben-Gurion's Mapai party used the trial to undermine the government. They drew parallels of collaboration—Kasztner negotiating with the Germans for a train, Ben-Gurion negotiating with the British for a nation. Kasztner was also caught lying about an affidavit given on behalf of former Nazi SS Officer, Kurt Becher. He attested that the testimony was given on behalf of the Jewish Agency, but the court did not believe him. His negotiations with Nazis branded him a collaborator. The verdict of the trial went against Kasztner. The judge decreed that Kasztner had, "Sold his soul to the devil." Most of the verdict was later overturned by the Supreme Court, but not before Kasztner was killed in front of his Tel Aviv home in 1957.[5] Kasztner's death was considered the first political assassination of the newly formed state of Israel. Kasztner's only daughter Zsuzsi was just 12 years old when her father was murdered.

The filmmakers

  • Gaylen Ross is an American actress, writer, producer, and director. She has directed and written documentary films including Dealers Among Dealers, which debuted on the POV series on PBS as aminside look at the secretive world of New York's famous diamond row, 47th street. The film was selected for the Berlin Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, Haifa Film Festival, and more. In addition, it was awarded a Gold Plaque from the Chicago Film Festival and named, "Best of Fest," in the Edinburgh Film Festival. Ross also wrote and produced the Emmy award winning Blood Money: Switzerland's Nazi Gold. The feature-length documentary had its theatrical premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. As an actress she starred in Dawn of the Dead and Creepshow.
  • Tony Tabatznik served as executive producer for Killing Kasztner and founded DOCFACTORY, a UK based documentary consortium. DOCFACTORY's award-winning portfolio includes KZ and Black Gold, both of which were nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in Documentary World Cinema at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
  • Andy Cohen was a co-writer and producer of the movie. He also co-produced Dealers Among Dealers with Ross. Cohen wrote, produced, and directed Out of Ruins, which is currently in post-production. Out of Ruins is a rags to riches story about a colony of artists living in the former East Berlin after the wall was torn down. For his most recent project, Cohen is producing the Jackie Robinson Story in partnership with ESPN and Wildwood Productions.
  • Noam Shalev, one of the producers, has been a documentary filmmaker since 1992. Shalev directed the award-winning documentaries Primetime War, Shooting Conflicts, and The Last Stand. His company, Highlight Films, recently produced the television series about Israeli army officers for Channel 2 television.
  • Gus Samios a producer of Killing Kasztner, is an attorney based in New York City who represents clients in the entertainment and other industries. He has produced films including the documentary Struggles in Steel which was presented at the Sundance Film Festival.
  • Anne Feinsilber has produced films including Killing Kasztner, The Crossing, Brother, and Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. Her directorial debut, Requiem for Billy the Kid, was presented at the Cannes Film Festival.
  • Roni Kaldaron, director of photography, is an Israeli cinematographers with dozens of theatrical, documentary and television credits. His latest documentary is Magnificent Failure, the story of South Africa artist and jazz musician Harold Rubin.

Reviews

  • "Ten Best Films of the Year ... Gaylen Ross' Killing Kasztner, a fascinating look at a mostly forgotten page of Israeli history." —Hannah Brown, The Jerusalem Post
  • "... a highly personal, haunting account of a man whose name can still prompt tears of both gratitude and rage." —The Telegraph (UK)
  • "... A remarkable documentary.... It provides, for the first time in more than half a century, direct testimony from the convicted assassin, Ze'ev Eckstein." —Jenni Frazer, The Jewish Chronicle (UK)
  • "A comprehensive and profound film ... fascinating and humane treatment of one of the biggest disputes in the early days of the State of Israel" —Ruta Kupfer, Haaretz
  • "Gaylen Ross's excellent documentary speaks to those who Kasztner saved, and to his doubters. It also sets up an extraordinary meeting between Kasztner's daughter and the man who assassinated him." —Hannah Pool, The Guardian (UK)
  • "... fascinating documentary about the most inflammatory political murder of the 1950s, the murder of Dr. Israel Kastner, included a first, hair-raising interview with the murderer, Ze'ev Eckstein.... The time has come to ask Kastner's forgiveness. Perhaps this important film will carry out the historical task, in a place where Kastner has no monument and no memorial, except for his grave...." —Gideon Levy, Haaretz
  • "... A remarkable documentary.... Ross's film does three extraordinary things. It provides, for the first time in more than half a century, direct testimony from the convicted assassin, Ze'ev Eckstein"—Jenni Frazer, The Jewish Chronicle (UK)
  • “Even if you are familiar with the story of Israel Kasztner – even if you followed his trial and recall his shocking murder outside his Tel Aviv home in March 1957, as well as the trial of his assassins ... watching Ross's movie is still a fascinating experience, and that is, in many ways, one of the director's foremost accomplishments ... Ross does all this wisely and lucidly—a fact that carries special importance given the current surge of both Israeli and foreign movies about the memory of the Holocaust, many of which lack the necessary emotional and conceptual eloquence to confront this memory and implications for contemporary Israeli reality." —Uri Klein, Haaretz Guide
  • "As someone who knows the dramatic ability of the medium in which she works, Ross offers an emotional and loaded conflict.... Killing Kasztner is a lesson in documentary filmmaking. The film is strong, difficult, shocking, reaching far beyond the limited aims of an historical story. It is an emotional and fascinating film, one of those documentaries that turn history into a living lesson in civics." —Gidi Orsher, Galeil Tzahal
  • "Alongside the sirens, tears, memories and speeches, this year's Holocaust Day in Israel was also influenced by the screening of Killing Kastner, a groundbreaking two-hour documentary directed by Gaylen Ross about the murder in Tel Aviv of Yisrael Kastner by another Jew, Zeev Ekstein, in 1957." —Hillel Schenker, The Guardian (UK)
  • “Bargaining With the Devil: Documentary Focuses on Rudolf Kasztner, Shoa Traitor — Or Hero "... it deserves wide viewing simply for its compelling narration of Kasztner's experiences during and after the war. Perhaps most important, the film addresses the very contemporary question of whether the man should be regarded as a Jewish hero — and what constitutes a hero." —Shlomo Schwartzberg, The Forward
  • “... if we start from the point of view that a film's job is to arouse emotion and thought, then "Killing Kasztner" does this better than any film around. My screening partners and I were glued to the screen right up to the credits, and we continued to discuss what we had seen hours later. The Kasztner affair has just begun." —Avner Shavit, City Mouse
  • “The Kasztner case still inflames tempers in Israel. The killing of Yitzhak Rabin shows that right-wing murder can still certainly happen there, and not just to Palestinians. At two hours and ten minutes, and with extended detailed testimony from a largely unrepentant Ze'ev Eckstein, who gives a step-by-step account of the shooting, the film takes you through a mini-history of Israel's contentious early days, and into debates have not been resolved. Expect Killing Kasztner to fuel those fires on the festival circuit after Toronto." —David D'Arcy Green Cine Daily
  • "To an even greater degree than Oskar Schindler, Dr. Israel Kasztner played a key role in saving the lives of well over 1,000 Jews from the Holocaust ... Kasztner's tale thus speaks volumes about the complex loyalties, conflicting allegiances, and deep-seated confusion at the heart of World War II, and those are the gray areas explored by director Gaylen Ross in this penetrative documentary account of Kasztner's life. The film ultimately poses key questions about the extent to which collaboration with the enemy is morally acceptable in a time of war; it reveals the extent to which Kasztner touched innumerable lives, and features deeply moving interviews with Kasztner's family (who are still attempting to restore his legacy), even as it also features conversations with Kasztner's political opponents and detractors." —Nathan Southern, allmovie.com
  • "What we have is a clearly agenda-based film, focusing on the mundane details of the Kasztner family who have to detail with the lack of recognition from the Israeli people for their ancestor's efforts. ... [Killing Kasztner] is an incredibly partisan documentary that doesn't so much tell a story as shout at you until you bow in submission and offer, 'Sure, Gaylen, whatever you say.'" —Dave Bailey, Huddersfield Examiner' (UK)

Notes

  1. ^ "Killing Kasztner (2008) - Release dates". IMDb. Retrieved April 5, 2012.
  2. ^ Gaylen, R.: Synopsis, page 2. GRFilms Inc, 2009.
  3. ^ Maltlin, S: "YNET NEWS", article. YNET NEWS, 2009
  4. ^ Southern, N: "ALLMOVIE.COM", article. AllMovie, 2009
  5. ^ Klein, U: "Haaretz Guide", article. Haaretz Guide, 2009
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