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Die Geschichte von Joel Brand (The Story of Joel Brand), by Alex Weissberg
- Abstract
This book, as yet untranslated from the German, is the story of the former Hungarian Zionist leader, Joel Brand, “as told to” Alex Weissberg (who will be remembered for an earlier work, The Accused, about his experiences as a prisoner of the Soviet secret police). Joel Brand’s story began in the following circumstances:
On April 25, 1944, I was taken to the Hotel Majestic, headquarters of the SS in Budapest. SS Colonel Eichmann received me standing. ‘You know who I am? I carried out the actions in the Reich, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia. Now it is Hungary’s turn. My reason for asking you to come in is to propose a deal. . . . I am . . . ready to sell you one million Jews. I won’t sell you all the Jews [in Europe]. You couldn’t lay hands on enough money and merchandise for that. But one million, that is possible. Goods for blood—blood for goods. You can pick the million from every country in which Jews are still left. You can take them from Hungary, from Poland, from Austria, from Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, from wherever you want to. Whom do you wish saved? Men who can beget children? Women who can bear them? Old people? Children? Sit down and talk.’
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