Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- PART I THE MAKING OF THE MULTIPLE TRAP
- PART II THE RESCUE DEBATE, THE MACRO PICTURE, AND THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
- PART III THE SELF-DEFEATING MECHANISM OF THE RESCUE EFFORTS
- 18 Istanbul, Geneva, and Jerusalem
- 19 How the Holocaust in Slovakia Was Suspended: The “Europa Plan”
- 20 The Significance of the British Decrypts
- 21 The “Small Season”: Begin's Rebellion
- 22 The Origins of the Budapest “Rescue Committee”
- 23 The War Refugee Board and the Extension of the Trap: The “Dogwood” Chain
- 24 The Double Hungarian Debacle
- PART IV THE BRAND–GROSZ MISSIONS WITHIN THE LARGER PICTURE OF THE WAR AND THEIR RAMIFICATIONS
- PART V THE END OF THE FINAL SOLUTION: BACK TO HOSTAGE-TAKING TACTICS
- Epilogue: Self-Traps: The OSS and Kasztner at Nuremberg
- Notes on Sources
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
19 - How the Holocaust in Slovakia Was Suspended: The “Europa Plan”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- PART I THE MAKING OF THE MULTIPLE TRAP
- PART II THE RESCUE DEBATE, THE MACRO PICTURE, AND THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
- PART III THE SELF-DEFEATING MECHANISM OF THE RESCUE EFFORTS
- 18 Istanbul, Geneva, and Jerusalem
- 19 How the Holocaust in Slovakia Was Suspended: The “Europa Plan”
- 20 The Significance of the British Decrypts
- 21 The “Small Season”: Begin's Rebellion
- 22 The Origins of the Budapest “Rescue Committee”
- 23 The War Refugee Board and the Extension of the Trap: The “Dogwood” Chain
- 24 The Double Hungarian Debacle
- PART IV THE BRAND–GROSZ MISSIONS WITHIN THE LARGER PICTURE OF THE WAR AND THEIR RAMIFICATIONS
- PART V THE END OF THE FINAL SOLUTION: BACK TO HOSTAGE-TAKING TACTICS
- Epilogue: Self-Traps: The OSS and Kasztner at Nuremberg
- Notes on Sources
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
We have here several issues: Was the Slovak “deal” a deal at all? Who initiated it? The Germans? Jews? Were bribes offered by the Jews effective then and later? This was the political and practical side of the matter, whose answer is to be sought in German documentation, when possible, because whether the Jewish side had initiated the bribes or not, the success of such deals depended on the German side and on their autonomous allies. The moral and political issue, however, seems to be detached from the practical one. One should have paid the Germans; even for nothing, if this would have finally proved to be the result, as long as one was not entirely sure about it, and even for the sake of rescuing one's image or reputation in the eyes of future generations. Yet “not finally sure” may be an indefinite, self-defeating procedure in which the other side may always be given the opportunity to maintain that your side could have done more, a strategy adopted by Eichmann himself regarding his alleged Hungarian ransom offer, to be discussed as the “Gestapo Deal,” in his trial in Jerusalem. Thus, he sought to transform the victim and third parties, who were supposed to deliver the goods, into collaborators in the victim's own doom. But for what actual purpose? Eichmann certainly did not prepare for his trial in Jerusalem in the early 1940s during the Hungarian Holocaust, and hence other reasons for his apparent willingness to negotiate the Gestapo Deal must be explored such as propaganda gains and political goals aimed at splitting the Allies.
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- Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews , pp. 170 - 180Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004