A shiver ran down my spine when I first heard about Rezsö Kasztner. I recognised this shiver: it meant that this incredible story in the footnotes of history had captured my imagination and I had to write it. I already knew it would be a novel.
I had never heard of this man nor the feat he had achieved against all odds in Budapest in 1944, during the Holocaust in Hungary. The proliferation of memoirs, history books and novels that deal with some aspect of the Holocaust has continued unabated, probably because they shine a light on our human condition in extreme situations.
But this was different from any story I’d ever come across. The first time I heard it was from a Hungarian Holocaust survivor I knew who mentioned a rescue train organised by a Jew in Budapest in 1944. It seemed that Kasztner had somehow managed to save over a thousand Jews from the death camps. But what intrigued me even more than Kasztner’s astonishing feat was this survivor’s ambivalent attitude towards him. Kasztner was clearly a controversial character, and this alerted me to the possibility that this could be more than a heroic rescue story with a happy ending. From that moment, I sensed that this might be a story spiced with moral ambiguity, but I had no idea at that stage just how extraordinary this story really was.
Surprising coincidences have occurred with every one of my books, and this was no exception. When I told my friend David that I had become interested in the story of a man called Rezsö Kasztner, he was astonished. ‘That’s the man who rescued my sister-in-law’s parents. They were on that train,’ he said. He lent me a non-fiction book about the rescue, a vivid piece of historical research by Anna Porter called Kasztner’s Train. By the time I’d finished reading it, I was thoroughly hooked. Kasztner had had the audacity to confront Adolf Eichmann, the most dreaded Nazi in Hungary, and, risking his life, negotiated with him for the release of a trainload of Jews at a time when Eichmann had arrived in Budapest to send the last surviving Jewish community in Europe to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
As I proceeded to research the story, I became increasingly intrigued by the contradictory assessments made about him by historians and survivors. There was Kasztner’s own account of his activities and those of the Rescue Committee, naturally written from his point of view. Some writers deified him as a hero, while others vilified him as a collaborator. I have always been fascinated by the behaviour of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations, and the story of Rezsö Kasztner was an outstanding illustration of this.
The questions implicit in his story challenged me throughout my research. Was he a hero or a collaborator? Was it possible to be both? Was it a case of the proverb that no good deed goes unpunished? Can the end justify the means? Were human actions able to be judged in absolutes? Should a promise always be kept regardless of the circumstances in which it was made? What would I have done in his situation? Would I have remained a passive onlooker, or, trusting that even one person can make a difference, would I have found the courage to take action?
As I continued to read about Kasztner, I was shocked to discover that the rescue had consequences that no-one could have foreseen. This wasn’t just a story about a daring rescue: it was a tale of vengeance and injustice ending in tragedy. And although it took place so long ago, to this day, Kasztner remains a controversial figure in Israel.
Absorbed as I was by the story of this extraordinary individual and his audacious feat, I discovered that the Kasztner affair had an unexpected historical background which blew me away with its revelations of behind-the-scenes machinations by top Nazi figures and the western powers. It seems that history, like personal relationships, is a complex tapestry interweaving infinite threads. Uncovering one leads to the discovery of unsuspected layers that lie beneath.
The Collaborator is based on true events. The Altalena incident took place in 1948, in the early days of Israel’s independence. Eichmann did arrive in Budapest in 1944 to exterminate the last Jewish community in Europe, and Kurt Becher was a prominent Nazi. Rezsö Kasztner did confront Eichmann at the Majestic Hotel, and later negotiated with Kurt Becher, for whom he wrote an incriminating affidavit after the war. After migrating to Israel, Kasztner was groomed for a role in the government when he was accused of collaboration by a pamphleteer. The trial scenes and their aftermath are also based on proceedings in the Jerusalem courts, as is their tragic outcome. The historical bombshell that was dropped during the testimony of some characters actually took place and is based on fact.
Writing a novel that is based on real people and historical events poses considerable challenges for a novelist. Although my protagonist, Miklós Nagy, is based on Rezsö Kasztner, I have fictionalised many aspects of the story. I have invented conversations and characters, and I have ascribed thoughts and motives to real people that owe more to my imagination than to reality, although I have tried to be psychologically consistent. For instance, although I know why Kasztner met Eichmann and Becher, I have fictionalised their conversations. And although the pamphleteer’s attorney did have a secret agenda, I have fictionalised him and his backstory.
While the character of Miklós Nagy is based on Rezsö Kasztner, I’d like to emphasise that the people in Miklós’s life and his relationships with them are entirely fictional. I have invented the characters of Judit, Ilonka, Ben, Gil and Eitan.
All the characters in the Australian strand of the plot — Annika, her mother and grandmother — are fictional, as is that part of the plot.
In the course of researching this novel, I visited Budapest, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and read historical accounts of the history and politics of Israel and Hungary. I also read about the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles which proved relevant in my exploration of what in many ways resembles a Greek tragedy.