Collect Jews For Sale?: Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945 Interpreted By Yehuda Bauer Shown As Softcover
most of the material in the
book was familiar to me, and therefore felt repetitious, I gave it astar rating, since it is well researched and interesting.
what i loved most was the ending:
The Jewish heroes were no knights in shining armor.
Weissmandel was a fanatic, ultraorthodox opponent of Zionism Brand was an adventurer, a drinker, and a person whose devotion to the truth was not the most prominent mark of his character Kasztner was an ambitious, overweening, and authoritarian personality, guilty of rescuing Nazis from postwar justice to satisfy his sense of honor and power Biss was engaged on that same, pathetic mission to save the reputation of a Nazi humanitarian extortioner, Kurt Becher Mayer was a pedantic philanthropistand so on.
Yet heroes they all are, Their attempts to save Jews involved tremendous selfsacrifice, courage and devotion, The Jewish people did not erect statues or name squares for them or include them as role models in the history books for their young.
Gizi Fleischmann, Michael Dov Weissmandel, Andrej Steiner, Oskar Neumann, Otto Komoly, Reszoe Kasztner, Andreas Biss, Joel Brand, and Hansi Brand inside the Reich and Saly Mayer, Isaac and Rachel Recha Sternbuch, Menachem Bader, Wenja Pomeranz, Joseph Schwartz, and that fascinating character Alfred Schwartz “Dogwood” outside the Reich all deserve such recognition.
So do the Zionist youth movement leaders in Slovakia and Hungary: Rafi Friedel BenShalom, Moshe Pil Alpan, Efra Teichman Agmon, Zvi and Neska Goldfarb, Peretz Revesz, and the others.
They did not like each other at all, Kasztner despised Mayer, Mayer thought Kasztner was a thief, Biss hated Brand, and Weismmandel distrusted all Zionists, But those are human foibles, They remind us that our heroes were ordinary humans, perhaps more gifted with insight and courage than the rest of us they did the correct thing at the right time.
Given the circumstances, they could not fully succeed, That they did in part is a wonderment, In any case, they should be judged, not by their success or failure, but by the answer to a basic moral question: Did they try And try they did.
Detailed and interesting account of several negotiations between Jewish organisations and the Nazis, Bauer's style has struck me, I am planning on reading more of his work! An examination of the many unknown attempts by some people to negotiate with the Nazis for the release of Jews in exchange for money, goods or political benefits.
Characters are described, both Jews and Nazis, and the moral issues raised by their negotiations, .