Malchiel Gruenwald
Encyclopedia
Malchiel Gruenwald (1881–1958) was an Israel
i hotelier, amateur journalist and stamp collector, who came to public attention in 1953, when he accused an Israeli government employee, Rudolf Kastner
, of having collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust
.
, and lived there and in Vienna
, working in a number of trades, including as a part-time journalist. In 1937, while in Vienna with his family, he was caught in a pogrom
in which his teeth were smashed out, tongue slashed, arms and legs broken, and he was beaten unconscious and left for dead.
In 1938, when he had recovered from his injuries, he emigrated to Palestine along with his wife, son Itzhak, and daughter Rina. There he settled in Jerusalem, where, with his life savings, he bought the "Hotel Austria", a ten room hotel on Zion Square which he ran with his wife.
The Gruenwalds as a family were committed Zionists
. After the White Paper of 1939
, Malchiel and his two brothers assisted illegal immigration
to Palestine, organizing immigrant runs, particularly of Jews trying to escape the Holocaust, although Gruenwald's own relatives were not so lucky: a third brother Philip, director of the Jewish Museum, was one of a number of Jews killed by Hungarian authorities in Budapest for publishing a leaflet, and fifty-two others were murdered in Auschwitz
. His son joined the Irgun
, and was killed in the battle for Mount Zion
during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
, after which Gruenwald renamed the hotel the "Mount Zion Hotel". His daughter meanwhile worked as a nurse in a Hadassah
hospital by day, and at night tended to the Irgun's wounded.
Shlomo Aronson
in his book Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews, claims that Gruenwald's personal file, released by Israeli Home Intelligence, provides a very different picture of Gruenwald's early activities. Gruenwald was a criminal in Hungary and Austria, he would inform on Labour Zionists, threaten Orthodox leaders and swindle refugees. The file also accuses Gruenwald of requesting British authorities to prevent a ship of refugees, the S.S. Patria from entering Palestine.
writes, no one was about to employ a 72-year-old man who wrote no Hebrew
. Gruenwald therefore began self-publishing a more-or-less weekly three-page mimeographed pamphlet, which he would have translated from German into Hebrew before distributing up to 1,000 copies himself, by mail or by hand in local cafés, all free of charge. Titled Michtavim el haveray be'Mizrahi ("Letters to my Friends in Mizrahi
"), the pamphlets consisted of attacks "on leaders who were corrupt, on religious officials who in his opinion were not worthy of their positions, on greedy public officials and on people in authority." Gruenwald's targets included various leaders of religious groups, including Mizrahi, and ministers and members of the Knesset
and other politicians from all parties, in particular those from the ruling Mapai
party. Occasionally one of the targets of his pamphlets would threaten to sue him for libel; in response Gruenwald would make a public apology, often in the "Café Vienna", which occupied the ground floor of his hotel.
In August 1952 he published the 51st such pamphlet. This one accused Rudolf Kastner
— the press spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Commerce and Industry, a senior member of Mapai, and the former de facto head of the Hungarian-Jewish Aid and Rescue Committee
during the Holocaust — of being a Nazi
collaborator. The pamphlet alleged that Kastner's collaboration had resulted in the deaths of 400,000 Jews in Hungary
, and that after the war, he had testified at the Nuremberg trials
on behalf of SS
Standartenführer (colonel) Kurt Becher
, thereby saving him from punishment for his war crime
s. According to Hecht, Gruenwald obtained his information from an anonymous letter and a conversation with a stranger at the "Café Vienna", though a 1955 Time Magazine article says he was attempting to discover who had betrayed his relatives in Hungary, and drew his conclusions "after poring through mountains of yellowed records."
The actual text of the pamphlet included the following:
Gruenwald answered his charges as follows:
The only Israeli newspaper to pay attention to Kastner's charges was Herut. In it, political columnist Yoel Marcus stated that for three years Hungarian Jews
had been claiming that "a man with an official position" had testified for Nazi war criminals, been involved in shady deals, and had made profits "at the expense of operations to rescue Jews". Marcus challenged Kastner to exonerate himself. Kastner's superior, the Minister of Commerce and Industry Dov Yoseph, felt that whether Kastner wanted to take action regarding these accusations was purely a personal matter. However, Attorney General
Haim Cohen felt that the charges were serious enough that Kastner would either have to resign or attempt to clear his name. In Cohen's words "in our new, pure, ideal State ... a man cannot officiate in a senior position ... when there is a stain on him, or even only a grave suspicion of collaboration with the Nazis." Feeling he had no choice, Kastner allowed the Israeli government to file a lawsuit on his behalf against Gruenwald.
In 1953 Cohen, who also held the position of Minister of Justice, filed criminal defamation charges against Gruenwald; according to Asher Moaz, this was "against the wishes of many public figures, including the person who later reoccupied the post of minister of justice, Pinhas Rosen, and the minister in charge of Kastner, Dov Yoseph." Gruenwald engaged as his lawyer Shmuel Tamir
, a 31 year-old lawyer who had been born in Jerusalem as Shmuel Katzenelson. Tamir was the son of Reuven Katzenelson, a member of the Jewish Legion
and Joseph Trumpeldor
's sergeant and companion in the Battle of Gallipoli
, and the nephew of Joseph Katzenelson, a companion of Zeev Jabotinsky, and one of the Irgun
's two Chiefs of Illegal Immigration. Shmuel Katzenelson joined the Irgun at the age of 15, and was nicknamed Tamir ("tall and straight" in Hebrew), a name he later adopted legally. Tamir had been the Irgun's Chief of Intelligence in Jerusalem, and Gruenwald's daughter Rina had been under his command as a nurse.
The trial, which government lawyers expected to last four days, lasted for two years, and resulted in 1955 in an acquittal of Gruenwald and a statement from the judge that Kastner had "sold his soul to the devil." The basis of the allegation and the judge's statement was that Kastner had collaborated with SS officer Hermann Krumey, and later Adolf Eichmann
, by betraying the Hungarian Jewish masses in return for the rescue of a few hundred Jewish VIPs. The judge also condemned Kastner because after the war, he had given a positive affidavit on behalf of another SS officer, Kurt Becher
, which convinced the Nuremberg authorities
not to prosecute Becher for war crimes. Although the Supreme Court of Israel
overturned the collaboration finding in the verdict in 1958, Kastner had already been assassinated.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i hotelier, amateur journalist and stamp collector, who came to public attention in 1953, when he accused an Israeli government employee, Rudolf Kastner
Rudolf Kastner
Rudolf Israel Kastner was a Jewish-Hungarian journalist and lawyer who became known for facilitating the departure of Jews out of Nazi-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust...
, of having collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.
Biography
Gruenwald was born in HungaryHungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, and lived there and in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, working in a number of trades, including as a part-time journalist. In 1937, while in Vienna with his family, he was caught in a pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
in which his teeth were smashed out, tongue slashed, arms and legs broken, and he was beaten unconscious and left for dead.
In 1938, when he had recovered from his injuries, he emigrated to Palestine along with his wife, son Itzhak, and daughter Rina. There he settled in Jerusalem, where, with his life savings, he bought the "Hotel Austria", a ten room hotel on Zion Square which he ran with his wife.
The Gruenwalds as a family were committed Zionists
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
. After the White Paper of 1939
White Paper of 1939
The White Paper of 1939, also known as the MacDonald White Paper after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary who presided over it, was a policy paper issued by the British government under Neville Chamberlain in which the idea of partitioning the Mandate for Palestine, as recommended in...
, Malchiel and his two brothers assisted illegal immigration
Ha'apala
Aliyah Bet |bet]] being the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet) was the code name given to illegal immigration by Jews to the British Mandate for Palestine in violation of British White Paper of 1939 restrictions, in the years 1934-1948. In modern day Israel it has also been called by the Hebrew...
to Palestine, organizing immigrant runs, particularly of Jews trying to escape the Holocaust, although Gruenwald's own relatives were not so lucky: a third brother Philip, director of the Jewish Museum, was one of a number of Jews killed by Hungarian authorities in Budapest for publishing a leaflet, and fifty-two others were murdered in Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
. His son joined the Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
, and was killed in the battle for Mount Zion
Mount Zion
Mount Zion is a place name for a site in Jerusalem, the location of which has shifted several times in history. According to the Hebrew Bible's Book of Samuel, it was the site of the Jebusite fortress called the "stronghold of Zion" that was conquered by King David, becoming his palace in the City...
during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
, after which Gruenwald renamed the hotel the "Mount Zion Hotel". His daughter meanwhile worked as a nurse in a Hadassah
Hadassah
Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America is an American Jewish volunteer women's organization. Founded in 1912 by Henrietta Szold, it is one of the largest international Jewish organizations, with around...
hospital by day, and at night tended to the Irgun's wounded.
Shlomo Aronson
Shlomo Aronson
Shlomo Aronson is an Israeli landscape architect. His works range from master plans for reforestation, archaeological parks and freeway planting schemes to urban plazas.-Biography:...
in his book Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews, claims that Gruenwald's personal file, released by Israeli Home Intelligence, provides a very different picture of Gruenwald's early activities. Gruenwald was a criminal in Hungary and Austria, he would inform on Labour Zionists, threaten Orthodox leaders and swindle refugees. The file also accuses Gruenwald of requesting British authorities to prevent a ship of refugees, the S.S. Patria from entering Palestine.
Political pamphlets
In the early 1950s Gruenwald decided to devote his remaining years to journalism, but as Ben HechtBen Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
writes, no one was about to employ a 72-year-old man who wrote no Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. Gruenwald therefore began self-publishing a more-or-less weekly three-page mimeographed pamphlet, which he would have translated from German into Hebrew before distributing up to 1,000 copies himself, by mail or by hand in local cafés, all free of charge. Titled Michtavim el haveray be'Mizrahi ("Letters to my Friends in Mizrahi
Mizrachi (Religious Zionism)
The Mizrachi is the name of the religious Zionist organization founded in 1902 in Vilnius at a world conference of religious Zionists called by Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines. Bnei Akiva, which was founded in 1929, is the youth movement associated with Mizrachi...
"), the pamphlets consisted of attacks "on leaders who were corrupt, on religious officials who in his opinion were not worthy of their positions, on greedy public officials and on people in authority." Gruenwald's targets included various leaders of religious groups, including Mizrahi, and ministers and members of the Knesset
Knesset
The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...
and other politicians from all parties, in particular those from the ruling Mapai
Labor (Israel)
The Israeli Labor Party , commonly known as HaAvoda , is a social-democratic and labour Zionist political party in Israel. The party is an observer member of both Socialist International and the Party of European Socialists. The Israeli Labor Party was established in 1968 by a merger of Mapai,...
party. Occasionally one of the targets of his pamphlets would threaten to sue him for libel; in response Gruenwald would make a public apology, often in the "Café Vienna", which occupied the ground floor of his hotel.
In August 1952 he published the 51st such pamphlet. This one accused Rudolf Kastner
Rudolf Kastner
Rudolf Israel Kastner was a Jewish-Hungarian journalist and lawyer who became known for facilitating the departure of Jews out of Nazi-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust...
— the press spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Commerce and Industry, a senior member of Mapai, and the former de facto head of the Hungarian-Jewish Aid and Rescue Committee
Aid and Rescue Committee
The Aid and Rescue Committee, or Va'adat Ha-Ezrah ve-ha-Hatzalah be-Budapesht was a small committee of Zionists based in Budapest in 1944-5, who were dedicated to helping Jews escape the Holocaust during the German occupation of Hungary.The main personalities of the Vaada were Dr...
during the Holocaust — of being a Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
collaborator. The pamphlet alleged that Kastner's collaboration had resulted in the deaths of 400,000 Jews in Hungary
History of the Jews in Hungary
Hungarian Jews have existed since at least the 11th century. After struggling against discrimination throughout the Middle Ages, by the early 20th century the community grew to be 5% of Hungary's population , and were prominent in science, the arts and business...
, and that after the war, he had testified at the Nuremberg trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
on behalf of SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
Standartenführer (colonel) Kurt Becher
Kurt Becher
Kurt Andreas Ernst Becher was an SS Untersturmführer and later a Standartenführer who was Commissar of all German concentration camps, and Chief of the Economic Department of the SS Command in Hungary during the German occupation in 1944.- SS Background :Becher was born to a wealthy family...
, thereby saving him from punishment for his war crime
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
s. According to Hecht, Gruenwald obtained his information from an anonymous letter and a conversation with a stranger at the "Café Vienna", though a 1955 Time Magazine article says he was attempting to discover who had betrayed his relatives in Hungary, and drew his conclusions "after poring through mountains of yellowed records."
The actual text of the pamphlet included the following:
I have waited a long time to expose this careerist whom I consider, because of his collaboration with the Nazis, an indirect murderer of my dear people.
Who is this spokesman for the Ministry of Trade and Industry; who is this big shot leader of the Hungarian Jews; who is this fellow who has been put high on the list of candidates for Israel's parliament by the government party Mapai?
This character is Dr. Rudolf Kastner, political adventurer, driven by sickly megalomania.
For whom, on whose account, Dr. Kastner, did you go like a thief in the night to Nuremberg to become a witness for the defense of S.S. Colonel Kurt Becher, the murderer of Jews, the man who wallowed in the blood of our brothers in Hungary? Kurt Becher - Economic Administrator of the Gestapo!
Why did you save him from the death penalty which he had so richly earned?
You flew to Nuremberg to save a mass murderer of Jews. What induced you to do that?
What kind of gentleman's agreement was there between this murderer Becher and this man who I accuse as a collaborator with the Nazis?
And it is this same Kastner that Mapai has taken to its bosom and place high on its list of officials.
My God! Kastner's deeds in Budapest cost us the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jews!
We demand an impartial public committee of investigation.
Kastner must be removed from the politics and from the society of this land.
We shall keep this on our agenda until the evil is ended.
Gruenwald answered his charges as follows:
He wanted to save himself, so that Becher would not reveal to international court their deals and their joint acts of robbery...
Where now is the money of the Jews of Hungary, millions for which no accounting is given...
He saved no fewer than fifty-two of his relatives, and hundreds of other Jews—most of whom had converted to Christianity—bought their rescue from Kastner by paying millions! That's how Kastner saved the members of Mapai...
He saved people with connections, made a fortune in the process. But thousands of senior Zionists, members of the Mizrahi and ultrareligious parties—these, Kastner left in the valley of the shadow of death.
The only Israeli newspaper to pay attention to Kastner's charges was Herut. In it, political columnist Yoel Marcus stated that for three years Hungarian Jews
History of the Jews in Hungary
Hungarian Jews have existed since at least the 11th century. After struggling against discrimination throughout the Middle Ages, by the early 20th century the community grew to be 5% of Hungary's population , and were prominent in science, the arts and business...
had been claiming that "a man with an official position" had testified for Nazi war criminals, been involved in shady deals, and had made profits "at the expense of operations to rescue Jews". Marcus challenged Kastner to exonerate himself. Kastner's superior, the Minister of Commerce and Industry Dov Yoseph, felt that whether Kastner wanted to take action regarding these accusations was purely a personal matter. However, Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
Haim Cohen felt that the charges were serious enough that Kastner would either have to resign or attempt to clear his name. In Cohen's words "in our new, pure, ideal State ... a man cannot officiate in a senior position ... when there is a stain on him, or even only a grave suspicion of collaboration with the Nazis." Feeling he had no choice, Kastner allowed the Israeli government to file a lawsuit on his behalf against Gruenwald.
Kastner trial
Shmuel Tamir
Shmuel M. Tamir was a prominent Israeli independence fighter, lawyer, Knesset member from 1965 to 1980, and Minister of Justice in the government of Menachem Begin from 1977 until 1980-Irgun:...
, a 31 year-old lawyer who had been born in Jerusalem as Shmuel Katzenelson. Tamir was the son of Reuven Katzenelson, a member of the Jewish Legion
Jewish Legion
The Jewish Legion was the name for five battalions of Jewish volunteers established as the British Army's 38th through 42nd Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers...
and Joseph Trumpeldor
Joseph Trumpeldor
Joseph Trumpeldor , was an early Zionist activist. He helped organize the Zion Mule Corps and bring Jewish immigrants to the Land of Israel. Trumpeldor died defending the settlement of Tel Hai in 1920 and subsequently became a Zionist national hero...
's sergeant and companion in the Battle of Gallipoli
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
, and the nephew of Joseph Katzenelson, a companion of Zeev Jabotinsky, and one of the Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
's two Chiefs of Illegal Immigration. Shmuel Katzenelson joined the Irgun at the age of 15, and was nicknamed Tamir ("tall and straight" in Hebrew), a name he later adopted legally. Tamir had been the Irgun's Chief of Intelligence in Jerusalem, and Gruenwald's daughter Rina had been under his command as a nurse.
The trial, which government lawyers expected to last four days, lasted for two years, and resulted in 1955 in an acquittal of Gruenwald and a statement from the judge that Kastner had "sold his soul to the devil." The basis of the allegation and the judge's statement was that Kastner had collaborated with SS officer Hermann Krumey, and later Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
, by betraying the Hungarian Jewish masses in return for the rescue of a few hundred Jewish VIPs. The judge also condemned Kastner because after the war, he had given a positive affidavit on behalf of another SS officer, Kurt Becher
Kurt Becher
Kurt Andreas Ernst Becher was an SS Untersturmführer and later a Standartenführer who was Commissar of all German concentration camps, and Chief of the Economic Department of the SS Command in Hungary during the German occupation in 1944.- SS Background :Becher was born to a wealthy family...
, which convinced the Nuremberg authorities
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
not to prosecute Becher for war crimes. Although the Supreme Court of Israel
Supreme Court of Israel
The Supreme Court is at the head of the court system and highest judicial instance in Israel. The Supreme Court sits in Jerusalem.The area of its jurisdiction is all of Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. A ruling of the Supreme Court is binding upon every court, other than the Supreme...
overturned the collaboration finding in the verdict in 1958, Kastner had already been assassinated.
Further reading
- Bilsky, Leora. Judging Evil in the Trial of Kastner, Law and History Review, University of Illinois Press, Vol 19, No. 1, Spring 2001.
- Hilberg, RaulRaul HilbergRaul Hilberg was an Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the world's preeminent scholar of the Holocaust, and his three-volume, 1,273-page magnum opus, The Destruction of the European Jews, is regarded as a seminal study of the Nazi Final...
. The Destruction of the European Jews, first published in 1961, this edition Yale University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-300-09557-0