By Caitlin McNamara

The tale of Rezso Kasztner’s rescue of a concentration camp-bound train — a Schindler’s List-esque story of Jewish lives saved during the Holocaust — is one that has, oddly enough, been all but erased from history. Although he is credited with saving more lives than Schindler, Kasztner’s name, to those who do know it, is cloaked in rumor and controversy.

A Hungarian Jew, and a lawyer, Kasztner engaged in the risky business of negotiating with Adolf Eichmann, a senior SS officer, to allow 1,685 Jews to be diverted from Auschwitz to Switzerland in exchange for heavy “per-head� payment, on what would be known as “Kasztner’s train.� The total number of people saved by Kasztner is unknown.

After the war he moved to Israel, where he worked for the government, and was soon after, in a libel case, tried and convicted of collaborating with the Nazis. A broken man, he became a recluse, living, in what he told reporters, in a loneliness “blacker than night, darker than hell.�

Several years later, most of the verdict was reversed by the Supreme Court of Israel, deeming that the lower court had “erred seriously,� but Kasztner had already been assassinated.

When award-winning Brooklyn Heights filmmaker Gaylen Ross came across Kasztner’s story she was intrigued, and set out to find the truth in the story — despite many urging her to avoid this “tainted character.�

In Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt with Nazis, Ross sits down with Kasztner’s family members, including his only daughter, Zsuzsi — who was 11 at the time of her father’s assassination — with train survivors, and also with Kasztner’s killer, Jewish extremist Ze’ev Eckstein, who speaks for the first time about the event.

Weekend screenings of Killing Kasztner are currently selling out at Cinema Village.

As said in the Village Voice, “Ross is very good at teasing out the politics behind Kasztner’s shifting fortunes, not to mention his murky ambitions,� and from the Times, “The film leaves you with a sense that Kastner’s name is a casualty of rhetorical crossfire.�

And as former Mayor Ed Koch said, “All New Yorkers should see this film…�

The Eagle spoke with Ross about her motivation, the process and what she discovered.

How did you come to Kasztner as a topic for your work?

I first learned of Kasztner when I was producing a documentary on the Swiss banks and the Holocaust accounts for A&E television. A woman, a Holocaust survivor, told me she had been saved on the Kasztner train. And that is how she came to Switzerland.

I had no idea what she was talking about, nor had ever heard the name “Kasztner� before. I sort of filed it in the back of my mind thinking it would be an interesting pursuit for another film. This was about 1997, now 12 years ago.

Once I started to explore the Kasztner story — the man, the rescue and the controversy — I realized how difficult and complex this affair was, and more importantly, how it had been essentially erased from Holocaust teachings.

Here was a Jew who negotiated face to face with Eichmann, saved more lives than honored rescuers like Oskar Schindler, yet no one knew his name. And if they did, his legacy was clouded by rumor, half-truth and, in many cases, outright falsehood. It was so politicized and sensitive, I was told many times by many people that I shouldn’t pursue the subject, that no one would really understand what Kasztner did and he was a tainted character anyway. Of course it made me want to follow this story even more.

I didn’t begin by deciding that Kasztner was a hero or traitor, but [asking] why was he erased? Why weren’t people talking about him? It seemed incredible to me and it still does. This was one of the last great episodes of the Holocaust, and one of those larger than life stories — universal and timeless as a Greek tragedy or Shakespearean drama — except this took place, for the most part, in Israel.

I met Kasztner’s only daughter and three granddaughters at the first and only symposium on Kasztner held in 2001 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Once I started filming in Israel I met, of course, the rest of the family, nephews, cousins; and the many others in the film — the Kasztner train survivors, Joseph Tamir, the son of the lawyer opposing Kasztner in the trial, and the assassin Ze’ev Eckstein.

Kasztner was actually cleared from the terrible verdict in the libel trial issued by Judge Benjamin Halevi, where Kasztner was declared “The man who sold his soul to the devil� for negotiating with Nazis. The verdict was overturned several years later in a 1958 decision (4 to 1) by the Supreme Court in appeal. However, like all retractions, this one too was buried in the back pages of the newspaper. And of course it was came too late for Kasztner who was murdered a year earlier by right wing Jewish extremists.

For all the months of the trial, Kasztner and the allegations against him were front-page news; practically no one read nor cared about the reversal. And to this day all the attacks have stuck, however unjustified or politicized they may be.

Has Kasztner’s name been cleared?

I don’t think anyone can ever truly “clear� themselves of this kind of “swift-boating� and there will always remain a mystery about this man — what he did or didn’t do in his dealings with Eichmann and other Nazis. However, there is now an openness of discussion about Kasztner and his activities, and a fundamental acceptance that Kasztner saved thousands of lives.

In Israel, from where the worst of the attacks [on Kasztner] came, the film not only had a theatrical release to sold-out audiences, but also was shown on television for Holocaust Memorial Day and presented in a special screening by Yad Vashem in the Jerusalem Center for Performing Arts. This was unprecedented for the man once considered a traitor and collaborator. Further, Yad Vashem has accepted Kasztner’s archives, and there is description of his rescue activities now in their museum.

American institutions now have to reassess their evaluation of Kasztner and see what they can do to open this conversation about Kasztner and negotiation.

Can you say if his family found closure in their quest for answers?

I would not say anyone in the film has “closure.� It is not a comfortable word for me and certainly not used among those in the film. There is no closure over these kind of devastating events — not of the Holocaust, the trial, the murder. However, there is a coming to some understanding — for Kasztner’s family, the survivors (who felt they too were blamed and their lives saved at the expense of all those who perished in Hungary) and even for the assassin.

And I think, for everyone in the film, they have felt that the film and its consequences have resulted in this openness of conversation and discussion that was not really possible before.

What first brought you to filmmaking?

I started filmmaking when I was working years ago for Long Island University — about 25 years now — for their continuing education department. A small Polish community group wanted to make a film about their work with political refugees coming to New York following the lifting of martial law in Poland.

The university and I decided to turn this in to a larger film and it became After Solidarity: Three Polish Families in America, and was shown on PBS and the Learning Channel. We filmed this story for the most part in Greenpoint, and my cameraman Bob Richman lived in Park Slope then.

I loved finding these stories of real persons and continued my work in nonfiction filmmaking from there. I did the documentary on New York’s 47th Street, which I think became the definitive film about this amazing insular world, called Dealers Among Dealers. [This was] followed by films on Russian brides, Swiss Banks, bank fraud and now Kasztner.

How long have you called Brooklyn Heights home?

I’ve lived in Brooklyn Heights for almost 16 years and it has given me a great home from which to work. I enjoy its slight separation from Manhattan — being able to look at the city from the vantage of the bridge’s distance, and not being in the middle of the city’s fray.

There is calmness and small town feel to the Heights that has probably done much to keep me sane during some crazy times making films.

Show times and more information can be seen at www.KillingKasztner.com.

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