Kasztner's Train
Anna Porter
WINNER Canadian Jewish Book Awards 2008 WINNER of the prestigious Canadian Nereus Writers' Trust award for Non-Fiction 2007
'Kasztner's Train is Schindler's List-plus. Brilliant read. Brilliant history. Brilliant Porter.'
George Jonas, author of Vengeance'Anna Porter's Kasztner's Train takes us to the magnificently researched and re-constructed world of Hungary during the twin fascist terrors of the Arrow Cross and the SS, to a world in which everything is in flux except the determination of Kasztner. It will become a classic of the times it deals with.'
Thomas Keneally'Glowing chronicle of an unheralded, Schindler-esque figure who saved Hungarian-Jewish lives during World War II … A compelling narrative that does great justice to Kasztner’s memory.'
(Kirkus)In summer 1944, Rezso Kasztner met with Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust, in Budapest. With the Final Solution at its terrible apex, and tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews being sent to Auschwitz every month, the two men agreed to allow 1,684 Jews to leave for Switzerland by train. In other manoeuvrings, Kasztner also negotiated to keep 20,000 Hungarian Jews alive — Eichmann called them Kasztner’s Jews’ or ‘Jews on Ice’ — for a deposit of approximately $100 per head. These deals would haunt Kasztner to the end of his life.
In Israel after the war, Kasztner was vilified in an infamous libel trial for collaborating with the Nazis, and in 1957 he was murdered while awaiting the Supreme Court verdict that would vindicate him.
Part political thriller, part love story, and part legal drama, Porter gives a compelling account of Kasztner the hero, the cool politician, the proud Zionist, the romantic lover and the man who believed that promises, even to die-hard Nazis, had to be kept. The deals he made raise questions about moral choices that continue to haunt the world today.
WINNER of the prestigious Canadian Nereus Writers' Trust award for Non-Fiction 2007
Anna Porter
Born Anna Szigethy in World War II Budapest, Anna Porter and her mother left Hungary for New Zealand in 1956 to escape the increasing Soviet presence. Porter built a career in publishing that, by 1969, took her to Canada, where she joined McClelland & Stewart, rising to become president and publisher of Seal Books, a paperback publishing house co-owned by McClelland and Bantam Books. In1982, she left Seal Books to establish Key Porter Books where she continues to as the publisher and chief executive officer. In addition to publishing, Porter has authored three mystery novels. In recognition of her varied achievements, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1992.
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Extent: 560pp
Size: 198mm x 128mm
ISBN (13): 9781921372155
RRP: $32.95
Pub date: August 2008
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