Holocaust bargainer: Rudolph (Reszö) Kasztner, also known as Israel Kasztner at one point in his life.
(Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum/Associated Press)

While the names Oskar Schindler, Carl Lutz and Raoul Wallenberg evoke images of heroism and feelings of gratitude, Rezsö Kasztner enjoys no such approval.

Author Anna Porter (Armina Ligaya/CBC)

The first are generally regarded as men who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save countless Jews from a despicable fate. But while Kasztner looks to have spared upwards of 20,000 of his fellow Jews from being herded into gas chambers, according to some accounts at least, history has generally not been kind.

In fact, though Kasztner may have saved more Jews than any other individual during the Holocaust, his critics rebuke him for negotiating with the Nazi SS — making "deals with the devil" — and he was vilified in the years after the Second World War and ultimately assassinated in 1957.

Today, few people know his name, and Kasztner's legacy is still vehemently debated, particularly within the Hungarian community. It's that polarization that drew Anna Porter, the former book publisher and award-winning writer, to tell his tale.

"I was haunted by this," she says, sitting in a coffee shop near her home in downtown Toronto. "It's an extraordinary story.

"This person who saved thousands of people, yet, instead of being revered as Wallenberg was, he was not only reviled, but ultimately murdered by his fellow Jews," she said.

Porter, herself Hungarian, fled her homeland during the revolution in 1956, first to New Zealand, then to England and eventually Canada.

She has spent almost six years exhaustively researching Kasztner's story and, in the end, quit her job two years ago as head of her successful publishing company, Key Porter Books, in order to write Kasztner's Train: The True Story of Reszö Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust.

"When I started writing the book, I didn't have an opinion one way or another," Porter said. By the end, she says, "I became convinced" he was a more heroic man than history has given him credit for.

Munk's tale

Peter Munk at Barrick's annual meeting. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

One person who is decidedly certain of Kasztner's heroism is Peter Munk, the gold baron, best known as the president and founder of Barrick Gold, the world's largest producer and a prominent Canadian philanthropist. Munk owes his life to Kasztner.

In June 1944, Munk was just a teenager, part of an affluent Jewish family in Budapest and was on a train bound for neutral Switzerland. It was a journey that Kasztner had brokered with Nazi officials, dubbed "Kasztner's Train."

"He saved me, my family, and 1,628 others," Munk told CBC News' Susan Ormiston in a rare personal interview. "On top of that, there's much evidence that he saved another 20,000 to 30,000," Munk says.

It was through a conversation with Munk in 1999 or 2000 that Porter's interest in the Kasztner story was piqued, she says. Porter had been at Munk's house to discuss a possible biography on the fabled businessman when Munk mentioned how much he was indebted to Kasztner.

Despite her Hungarian background, Porter had never heard of him before, but the name stuck.

A few months later, she was in Budapest on publishing business, when she met a man named Erwin Schaeffer. It turned out he, too, was on Kasztner's train, and was a good friend of Munk's.

But Schaeffer, now a successful businessman, was seething with the opposite sentiment. Schaeffer's parents were booted off the train and only his mother survived. Kasztner had oversold the train, Porter was told, and the SS threw people off to make room.

"His last words to me about Kasztner were, 'I wish I had killed him myself'," Porter said. She knew then she had a story of unusual complexity.

'Dealings with the devil'

In the 1940s, Kasztner, a Zionist leader and head of Budapest's Jewish Rescue Committee, brokered a "blood for goods" deal with the SS, Hitler's notorious paramilitary arm. In fact, he negotiated directly with Adolf Eichmann, whom Hitler had chosen to exterminate the Jews of Europe.

Eichmann made a proposal to the Zionists: he would sell exit visas to Jews who could afford the hefty price and Kasztner took him up on it.

While there is some debate about who was able to board that train, Porter concludes it was a misconception that it was only the wealthy and that Kasztner was the one who made the final call.

A group would pay the price for themselves and subsidize others, Porter says. One of the criteria would be people who were in grave danger, such as the young Zionists.

In June 1944, the Kasztner Train left Budapest, taking Munk and other passengers to neutral Switzerland, sparing them from execution. Kasztner also convinced the Nazis to put another 20,000 Jews "on ice," meaning to put off their extermination for possible trade later.

In the last days of the war, Kasztner travelled to several concentration camps with SS Lieutenant Colonel Kurt Becher to try and save thousands of inmates from being gassed. According to some accounts, Becher drove Kasztner from one camp to another to convince the SS guards that their commander, Heinrich Himmler, had countermanded the order to kill every Jew.

"The lowest possible number who survived as a result of that journey he took with Becher would be 100,000 people," Porter estimates.

Kasztner's bargaining chip was a promise to try to help Becher, who feared he would face execution for his war crimes. By that point in the war, it had been announced that there would be trials for war criminals and Kasztner promised to testify about Becher's help during those last days.

"Becher, by this time, being smarter than most, could see that the Germans were going to lose the war," said Porter. "And Kasztner said, 'Look. If you do this, I will save your life when the time comes.' Becher took the bait."

Critics didn't like this kind of deal-making, especially when Kasztner did go out of his way to help Becher later. "Becher was an SS officer," notes Porter. "He was a war criminal and he owed his life to Kasztner. So, if you make a deal with the devil, do you have to keep your word? That's the question, to which I don't know the answer."

After the war

When Kasztner moved to Israel after the war, rather than a warm welcome, he was labelled a Nazi collaborator. He charged one of his accusers, Malkiel Grunwald, with libel. But the focus of the high-profile court case shifted and the judge ruled that Kasztner did indeed sell his soul to the devil.

The ruling was overturned years later, and Kasztner's reputation exonerated, but that wasn't until after Kasztner was gunned down in Israel by Jewish extremists in 1957.

"Kasztner felt honour bound" to help Becher, says Munk. "And you know what? I think you would have, too, because the situation was so dramatic. Becher's actions were so unbelievably uncharacteristic in light of the unparalleled murdering and mayhem those SS people caused for five years."

In his view, Munk says he believes Kasztner did the right thing, but understands the logic behind the disdain. "If your whole family had been murdered and machine-gunned, including your daughter and your children, and there is somebody who actually testified on behalf of an SS officer and is a Jew? I am not in a position to pass moral judgment."

In her research, interviewing hundreds and travelling to several countries, Porter stumbled upon a taped interview with Hansi Brand, a woman whom Kasztner had an affair with.

"She said, 'If he had 100 souls, in order to save 1,000 people, he would have sold them all," Porter recounts.

However, morals are relative. Brand was the wife of his friend and co-worker. And the facts are still murky, even Porter acknowledges, with several conflicting witness accounts. Porter says she had to be subjective and choose the stories that were the most convincing.

"This is not a simple guy," she says. "And this is not a simple story."

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