Some court cases transcend the courtroom and shape the way nations remember their past. The Kastner trial was one of them.
In 1954–1955, the libel case The Attorney-General of the Government of Israel v. Malchiel Gruenwald forced the young State of Israel to confront painful questions about the Holocaust, rescue efforts, and the controversial issue of so-called “Jewish collaboration.” Judge Benjamin Halevi’s first-instance verdict famously declared that Hungarian Zionist leader Rezső (Rudolph, later Yisrael) Kasztner had “sold his soul to the devil”—a phrase that has echoed through decades of historical and political debate and continues to be misused by Holocaust deniers and distortionists.
But what really happened?
Did Kasztner collaborate with Adolf Eichmann? Was he responsible for the death of Hannah Szenes? Did he deliberately conceal the existence of the Auschwitz gas chambers from Hungarian Jews? Or is it possible that one of the greatest tragedies in history has been unfairly reduced to the alleged actions of a single Jewish man?
Judging Kasztner presents, for the first time in English, the complete text of Judge Halevi’s landmark verdict, accompanied by a critical analysis by Hungarian Holocaust historian László Bernát Veszprémy. Through careful historical examination, the volume exposes the judgment’s factual inaccuracies, errors, and distortions while placing it in its broader legal and historical context.
More than a sourcebook, this is an invitation to revisit one of the most controversial episodes in Holocaust history and to reflect on the complex moral dilemmas that continue to challenge historians, jurists, and readers alike.
The book can be downloaded here.