Train Car Monument, Vad Vashem, in Jerusalem

“The Jewish councils wanted to save whomever they could, mainly themselves. That’s the nature of man, and the Nazis knew that very well.” – Rudolf Vrba

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When Jewish leaders in Europe, particularly in Hungary, failed, by and large, to effectively inform their fellow Jews of the undeniable truths supplied within the Vrba and Wetzler Report—revealing that Auschwitz was mankind’s foremost factory for mass murder—their dereliction of responsibility had deadly consequences for the majority of Hungary’s Jews.

Vrba was among a minority of Jews was not only willing, but also eager, to openly engage in debate on this divisive subject. Simply put, he believed that if someone encouraged Jews to obey orders to go to the train stations when they themselves were aware that most of those transported would be murdered, that individual should be judged to be complicit. By taking this position, he was, in effect, accusing secretive members of Jewish councils, as well as behind-the scenes fixers and bribery artists such as Rudolf Kasztner, of being collaborators with the Nazi agenda,

No doubt six million Jews (at the very least) would agree him. But they had no voice.

Vrba laid out his own position on this important subject as early as 1961 in one of his five articles published in the Daily Herald:

“I accuse certain Jewish leaders of one of the most ghastly deeds of the war. This small group of quislings knew what was happening to their brethren in Hitler’s gas chambers and bought their own lives with the price of silence. Among them was Dr. Kasztner, leader of the council which spoke for all Jews in Hungary. While I was prisoner number 44070 at Auschwitz – the number is still on my arm – I compiled careful statistics of the exterminations . . . 

“I took these terrible statistics with me when I escaped in 1944 and I was able to give Hungarian Zionist leaders three weeks notice that Eichmann planned to send a million of their Jews to his gas chambers. . . Kasztner went to Eichmann and told him, ‘I know of your plans; save some Jews of my choice and I shall keep quiet.’ Eichmann not only agreed, but dressed Kasztner up in SS uniform and took him to Belsen to trace some of his friends. 

“Nor did the sordid bargaining end there. Kasztner paid Eichmann several thousand dollars. With this little fortune, Eichmann was able to buy his way to freedom when Germany collapsed, to set himself up in the Argentine .”

It is important to note that a duo of Czech historians, Ota Kraus and Erich Kulka (Auschwitz prisoners #73046 and #73043 respectively), agreed with the contention that it was mainly well-connected and wealthy Jews who benefited from insider knowledge about the Holocaust, thus validating Vrba’s assertions in their 1966 study The Death Factory: Document of Auschwitz (translated from the Czech by Stephen Jolly). Their viewpoint also applies specifically to Jews in Slovakia, not Hungary:

Under the fascist regime installed in Slovakia in 1939, some 66,000 men, women and children were deported to Auschwitz between 1942 and 1944. Forty-seven thousand were deported between the end of March and August, 1942. After this there was a considerable gap until September, 1944, when the deportations were resumed following the Slovak National Revolt; a further 14,000 were sent to Auschwitz. In addition to these, a number of persons were sent to other extermination camps.

“The irregular course of the deportations was due in part to the activities of [Dieter] Wisliceny, Hitler’s adviser with the Slovak Fascist Government, who conducted a system of organized blackmail: “money or your life!” On the victim’s side, it was only the rich who could play this game at all. Moreover, Wisliceny was not alone in the field but had to compete with a group of Slovak fascists in high government circles who could only be prevailed upon not to issue tickets for Auschwitz if they were paid high compensation. These machinations were similar to those that went on in Hungary in 1944.”

Gergely Kunt, Hungarian historian

Recent Hungarian historians, such as Gergely Kunt, have researched this thoroughly, and agree with Kraus and Kulka . They confirm that Vrba was correct in asserting that Jewish leadership in Budapest knew a great deal about the Holocaust and should have advised their fellow Jews not to get on the trains.  Here is his essay on the subject, “An Open Secret?” 

In this paper, Kunt analysed diaries from 1944 to explore the extent to which ordinary Hungarian civilians were informed of the genocide of the Jewish population. His research is particularly important because he pinpoints instances in which Jewish children were fearfully referencing the dreaded train transports in their diaries. If Jewish children were aware, one can assume that the contents of the Vrba-Wetzler had permeated the consciousness of elite Jews who could have, and should have, informed the Jewish populace at large.

Concealing the extent and methodology of the Holocaust—and choosing not to inform Jews where the railway cars were headed—haunted Vrba for the rest of his days. His refusal to render obsequious silence to Jewish institutions and authorities explains why Vrba and Wetzler have only recently been recognized as heroes by Yad Vashem.

Simply put, it remains preferable for the Jewish elite to keep Vrba out of their history books. This helps to explain why efforts have been made by historians under the influence of Yehuda Bauer, eager for Bauer’s approval, to assert that Wetzler was more important than Vrba. The ongoing Bauer agenda to limit awareness of Vrba, and respect for him, will likely only abate when Bauer finally dies.

Vrba is not the first whistleblower in history to suffer this fate of castigation from powers-that-be. Julian Assange. Edward Snowden. Chelsea Manning. The list is endless if one looks at the histories of every country on the planet. The so-called Deep Throat of the Third Reich, Herbert von Bose, a press secretary for Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, passed along news of secret atrocities committed in Nazi Germany to the foreign press, particularly the London-based journal The Week, until he was murdered by an SS hit squad who shot him in the back of the head at the behest of Heinrich Himmler.

More recently, Israeli Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, 11 of these in solitary confinement, for spilling the beans on Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons program. He still is not permitted to leave Israel or speak to foreigners.

Here follow just a few examples of Vrba’s outspokenness.

1. A letter to the Auschwitz Museum, dated November 24, 1989
2. “A Footnote to the Auschwitz Report,” dated 1966
3. A letter to President Carter, dated September 6, 1977

In this letter to the Auschwitz Museum, Rudolf Vrba refutes the version of the escape as proposed by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council who do not appear to respect him. He is angered by the fact that in a certain report, he was referred to by his birth name, Walter Rosenberg, rather than his legal name, Rudolf Vrba. He goes on to accuse the Jewish Councils in Hungary of suppressing the Vrba Wetzler Report and of complicity in the deaths of some 400,000 people. He vehemently denies being “smuggled out of camp” by a Jewish resistance group and of carrying anything other than themselves away from the Auschwitz.

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Next: CONWAY ON THE REPORT