A few years ago, a friend handed me a book titled Kasztner’s Train – The True Story of an Unknown Hero of the Holocaust. At first, the back cover made it sound like fiction—but the story drew me in. I kept digging, met his granddaughter, and eventually visited his grave at Nachalat Yitzhak Cemetery in Tel Aviv.

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Rudolf (Rezső) Kasztner stands as one of the most debated figures in Holocaust historiography. As a leading member of the Budapest-based Relief and Rescue Committee in 1944, Kasztner became involved in one of the most extraordinary and morally complex episodes of the Holocaust: direct negotiations with senior SS officers, including Adolf Eichmann, to secure the release of a group of Jews from Nazi-controlled Hungary in exchange for money, goods, and silence.

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The so-called "Kasztner Train" ultimately brought 1,684 Jews to safety in Switzerland. Yet, the broader implications of Kasztner’s negotiations sparked fierce controversy—during his lifetime and long after. Was he a pragmatic strategist who attempted the impossible in the face of genocide? Or did his decisions contribute, knowingly or not, to the Nazi regime’s ability to continue its machinery of destruction?

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In this session, we will examine the historical context of Kasztner’s actions, the ethical and political debates they provoked, and the long shadow they cast over postwar Israeli society, culminating in the 1950s libel trial that became one of the young state's most explosive public reckonings with the Holocaust.

Through critical analysis of archival material, survivor testimony, and historiographical interpretations, we will explore the core question: Can moral clarity exist in a time defined by moral collapse?