16 Facts About Kastner train

Kastner train consisted of 35 cattle wagons that left Budapest on 30 June 1944, during the German occupation of Hungary, carrying over 1,600 Jews temporarily to Bergen-Belsen and safety in Switzerland after large ransom paid by Swiss Orthodox Jew Yitzchak Sternbuch, Recha Sternbuch's husband.

The train was named after Rudolf Kastner, a Hungarian-Jewish lawyer and journalist, who was a founding member of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee, a group that smuggled Jews out of occupied Europe during the Holocaust.

Kastner train was a spokesman for the Minister of Trade and Industry when his negotiations with Eichmann became the subject of controversy.

Kastner train had been told in April or May 1944 of the mass murder that was taking place inside Auschwitz.

Allegations culminated in Kastner train being accused in a newsletter of having been a Nazi collaborator.

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The judge found against the government, ruling that Kastner train had "sold his soul to the devil" by negotiating with Eichmann and selecting some Jews to be saved, while failing to alert others.

Rudolf Kastner train, known as Israel Rezso Kasztner, was born in Kolozsvar, Austria-Hungary.

Kastner train attended law school, then worked as a journalist for Uj Kelet as a sports reporter and political commentator.

Kastner train became an assistant to Dr Jozsef Fischer, a member of the Romanian parliament and leading member of the National Jewish Party, and in 1934, he married Fischer's daughter, Erzsebet.

Kastner train gained a reputation as a political fixer, and joined the Ihud party, later known as Mapai, a left-wing Zionist party.

Kastner train helped to set up the Aid and Rescue Committee, along with Joel and Hansi Brand, Samuel Springmann, Otto Komoly, a Budapest engineer, Erno Szilagyi from the Hashomer Hatzair, and several others.

Israeli legal scholar Asher Maoz writes that Kastner told the Zionist Congress after the war, in a report he wrote about the actions of the Aid and Rescue Committee, that he saw the train as a "Noah's ark", because it contained a cross-section of the Jewish community, and in particular people who had worked in public service.

Ladislaus Lob, another passenger, writes that the exact number on board when the Kastner train left Budapest remains uncertain, because in the early stages of the journey, several passengers disembarked, fearing that the Kastner train would end up in Auschwitz, while others took their places.

Between August 1943 and May 1944, Rudolf Vrba and three other Auschwitz escapees had passed information about the gas chambers to Jewish and other officials; it was this information that Vrba believed Kastner train had access to, but did not distribute widely enough.

The Court upheld Judge Halevi's verdict on the manner in which Kastner train offered testimony after the war on behalf of SS officer Kurt Becher.

Kastner train was assassinated outside his home in Tel Aviv in March 1957 as a result of the decision and the subsequent publicity.