American writer Ben Hecht's book "Perfidy" explores one of the most neglected chapters of Holocaust history: the collaboration between the British ruling class, Jewish socialist leaders in Palestine, and the leadership of the Third Reich. The goal of this alliance was the extermination of Europe's Jewish population during World War II.
Hecht drew the facts about this criminal conspiracy from the materials of the trial in Jerusalem, which lasted from 1953 to 1955.
At the center of the trial is Hungarian Jew Malkiel Greenwald, who accused Rudolf Kastner, a prominent official of the ruling Socialist Mapai party (now the Israeli Labor Party), of collaborating with the Nazis. The Israeli Socialist government, led by David Ben-Gurion, filed a defamation lawsuit against the elderly Holocaust survivor.
THE MOTIVES OF THE BRITISH RULING CLASS
What reasons prompted the British ruling class to pursue policies whose consequences proved fatal for European Jews during World War II?
The answer to this question is known. The mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Europe would inevitably lead to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine - a prospect the British colonial administration sought to avoid at all costs.
The creation of a Jewish state meant that Britain would lose control of the strategic Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline, which carried Iraqi oil to the Mediterranean coast. Beginning in 1934, the port of Haifa became a key hub. Royal Navy ships and oil tankers bound for the British Isles refueled here. For London, it was the closest and most important source of "black gold". [1]
In an effort to preemptively close off any escape routes for future refugees, the British government published the infamous Sixth White Paper in May 1939 - three months before the outbreak of World War II. This document sharply limited Jewish immigration to Palestine, setting a quota of 15,000 people per year, and, beginning in 1944, completely closed the territory of Palestine to Jews. [2]
London may have hoped to resolve the Jewish refugee problem through the Nazis. Indirect evidence supporting this version comes from a public letter from Jewish Agency President Chaim Weizmann, sent to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain three days before the outbreak of World War II. This letter, in particular, stated:
"In this hour of supreme crisis the consciousness that Jews have a contribution to make to the defence of sacred values impels me to write this letter. I wish to confirm in the most explicit manner the declarations which I and my colleagues have made during the last month and especially in the last week: that the Jews stand by Great Britain and will fight on the side of the democracies." [3]
Weizmann's statement, made from London and addressed to the British government, effectively turned the Jewish population in German-controlled territories into a potential hostile force.
THE MOTIVES OF THE JEWISH SOCIALIST LEADERS OF PALESTINE
The next question concerns the motives of the Jewish socialist leaders of Palestine: Why did they enter into collaboration, the consequences of which turned out to be tragic for the Jews of Europe?
The answer to this question is not a secret.
During the British Mandate (1921-1948) the Jewish Agency, which managed the Jewish community in Palestine, effectively became part of the British colonial administration. The Agency's central office and its president were located in London [4], and the London-based Agency Executive Committee coordinated its activities with the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office. [5]
Key positions in the Jewish Agency were occupied by functionaries of the socialist Mapai Party, who essentially acted as the aboriginal administration. As a reward for their loyalty, London granted them privileged status, financial compensation, a share of power, and - most importantly - official authority to suppress their political opponents.
Ben Hecht called these men the "politicalized princes of Jerusalem". "They were hanging on through thick and thin to their own swivel chairs, mimeographs, flat-topped desks, lettered names and titles on their official doors... These were people with a mania chiefly for prestige. Since no prestige was possible without a British ribbon on it, you could wager - come what may - on their loyalty to the [Britich] Crown."
Thus, Jewish socialists, obsessed with maintaining their status and power in Mandatory Palestine, became obedient tools in the hands of the British colonialists.
The very model of using a loyal aboriginal administration is one of the principles of British colonial policy.
CRIME
In fulfilling the task set by the British authorities to prevent mass Jewish immigration to Palestine, the leaders of the Jewish Agency in 1944 entered into a conspiracy with the leadership of the Third Reich.
The purpose of this conspiracy was to facilitate the deportation of 800,000 Jews in Hungary to Nazi concentration camps. For the Nazis, this collaboration was advantageous, as it allowed them to avoid the resistance and public outcry that accompanied the deportation of Polish Jews to concentration camps in 1942-43.
As a result of this collaboration, during the summer of 1944, almost all Hungarian Jews were sent to death camps.
Rudolf Kasztner, a Mapai Party member and employee of the Hungarian branch of the Jewish Agency, became the executor of the Jewish leaders' will. The Nazis reached an agreement with him.
Kastner was to convince Hungarian Jews that they were not going to be killed, but merely resettled in comfortable settlements. They were to gather with their families and a small amount of luggage at designated locations, from where they would be transported by train. Under no circumstances were they to resist or attempt to escape. In exchange, the Nazis would allow Kastner to save several hundred people at his discretion.
Kastner fulfilled his part of the bargain, and the Nazis kept their promise. [6]
During the trial in Jerusalem, to the horror of Ben-Gurion's government, other shocking facts of collaboration emerged:
British intelligence agencies, together with Jewish leaders, organized the so-called "conspiracy of silence". They prohibited the publication of information about the genocide coming from European Jewish communities and Jewish Agency employees. Any information about the extermination of Jews was thoroughly suppressed, and those who tried to disseminate it were discredited. [7]
To secure an alibi against future accusations of inaction, the leaders of the Jewish Agency and the Mapai Party sent three rescuers, including Hannah Szenes, to Nazi-occupied Hungary. Upon arrival, they were ordered to contact Rudolf Kasztner.
At the same time, Agency leaders informed the Nazis of the rescuers' mission and instructed Kastner to hand them over to the enemy. As a result, Hannah Szenes was arrested immediately after crossing the Hungarian border, and Kastner handed over the other two rescuers to the Nazis.
Later, Golda Meir, one of the leaders of the Mapai party, shed crocodile tears in her memoirs about the tragic fate of Hannah Szenes. [8]
Furthermore, the British leadership and Jewish socialists thwarted a unique deal to save Hungary's Jews. In May 1944, Adolf Eichmann, the main organizer of the Holocaust, offered to exchange all Hungarian Jews for a thousand tons of tea, a thousand tons of coffee, and ten thousand trucks.
In response, the British arrested the emissary who had delivered Eichmann's proposal from Budapest and held him in custody for four months, during which time Hungary's Jews were sent to concentration camps. [9]
Ben Hecht also discovered that in February 1943, the Romanian government offered the British and American governments $50 per person to save 70,000 Jews from Transnistria. However, following British instructions, the Jewish Agency in London rejected the offer, and the American Jewish Congress declared that fundraising for this purpose was unjustified.
The State Department decided not to release the information after coming under pressure from Jewish groups, Under Secretary of State Adolf Berle said. [10]
After the war, Jewish leaders slandered the deceived and betrayed Jews of Europe, claiming that these people, like sheep, went to the slaughter.
Another step that raised serious moral questions was the signing of the "Reparations Agreement" between West Germany and Israel in 1952, which provided compensation for Nazi crimes not to individual survivors, but to the state of Israel. The particular cynicism of this agreement was that it was signed by Ben-Gurion's government, which consisted of Mapai party leaders who had helped the Nazis exterminate the Jews of Europe. German reparations saved the Mapai Party's inefficient socialist economy from collapse and helped extend its rule until 1977.
THE JERUSALEM COURT'S VERDICT
At the conclusion of the trial in Jerusalem, Presiding Judge Benjamin Halevi convicted Rudolf Kastner of collaborating with the Nazis. The Ben-Gurion government's appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court.
Judge Halevi's verdict necessitated a new trial, in which the defendants would be Rudolf Kastner himself and the Mapai party leaders, led by Ben-Gurion.
Kastner knew too much about the involvement of Mapai party leaders and the Jewish Agency in the extermination of Jews, and this sealed his fate. Mapai leaders ordered the Shin Bet counterintelligence to eliminate Kastner. [11]
The murder of Kastner saved Ben-Gurion and his clique from trial and punishment.