ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews Rezso Kasztner's various claims about his rescue efforts. These efforts allegedly involved preventing renewed mass deportations from Budapest to Auschwitz; intervening to liberate the three imprisoned Zionist paratroopers; stopping the Death March from Budapest to the Reich; halting the use of gas chambers in Auschwitz; and preventing the destruction of the Budapest Ghetto. In each case, Kasztner masked his obedience to the Nazis by advancing bogus assertions about saving or trying to save Jewish lives. Adolf Eichmann was not prepared to tolerate the escape of even the few thousand Jews covered by Miklós Horthy's offer. He announced his intention to execute the operation against the Jews of Budapest so quickly that the victims would be loaded onto deportation trains before any of the Jews with permission to emigrate could obtain a travel document or foreign visa.
