Jewish girl escaped the gas chamber at Theresienstadt by lying about her age

The location of the alleged gas chamber at Theresienstadt

According to 84-year-old Holocaust survivor Ruth Kluger, there was a gas chamber at Theresienstadt, but she survived by lying about her age, claiming that she was 15 years old when she was only 12.  http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/01/27/germanys-jews-mark-holocaust-as-new-threat-rises.html

Of course, as we all know, the Germans were so stupid that they could not tell the difference between a child of 12 and a girl of 15.  Thank God for this, as otherwise there would be no Holocaust survivors alive today.

I have previously written about the alleged gas chamber at Theresienstadt on this blog post:  https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/gas-chamber-at-theresienstadt/

and on this previous blog post:  https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/the-plan-to-gas-all-the-jews-at-theresienstadt-or-if-that-wasnt-enough-to-drown-them/

and this previous blog post: https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/theresienstadt-survivor-says-invasion-by-russian-army-prevented-the-completion-of-the-gas-chambers-there/

So was there a gas chamber at Theresienstadt or not?  According to Wolf Murmelstein, who was a prisoner there when he was a child, there was a indeed a gas chamber at Theresienstadt.

I have written about the alleged gas chamber at Theresienstadt on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/CzechRepublic/Theresienstadt/TheresienstadtGhetto/History/GhettoHistory.html

In my humble opinion, the alleged gas chamber at Theresienstadt was a place where the clothing of the prisoners was disinfected to prevent disease.

The alleged homicidal gas chamber at Theresienstadt was directly across from the Jäger (Hunter) barracks, an identical building on the opposite side of the town, which was used as a disinfection station where the prisoners and their clothing were deloused.

The prisoners were disinfected by being completely submerged in a tub containing a chemical which would kill the lice on their bodies. At the same time, their clothing was disinfected by hot steam, and they would have to put their clothes back on while they were still wet and then return to their barracks.

The oldest inmates of the Theresienstadt ghetto were housed in the Jäger barracks so that they wouldn’t get chilled by walking through the cold in wet clothes. Behind the Jäger barracks was the Südberg or South Hill where a a soccer field had been built for the inmates.

The little boy with his hands up is back in the news…

This famous photo is being used to illustrate a recent news article about the Jews killed in the Holocaust

I wrote about the photo above in this previous blog post: https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/photo-of-the-little-boy-with-his-hands-up-the-rest-of-the-story/

The following quote is from a news article, which uses the photo above:

Begin quote

The soldiers in the First World War knew they might die and were encouraged to write letters to their loved ones, which were only delivered in the event of their death.

Such closure was denied the Jews, cruelly separated on arrival at Auschwitz and sent to the gas chambers thinking they were merely having a shower.

Thousands, like my grandfather Armin Klein, were picked up away from their loved ones with no opportunity to express their feelings or say goodbye – their families were left wondering what had happened.
I want people to understand what the Holocaust was really like and I hope I have achieved that. The ripples created by the Holocaust pebble in the world’s pond still undulate. They probably always will, while Yad Vashem receives 4,000 books on the Holocaust each year.

The betrayal of the Jews by the Nazis was so severe that a whole raft of international law came into force after 1945. However, the occurrence of the Holocaust does not mean that appropriate international law did not exist.

The pre-1945 international laws were perfectly adequate to protect everyone from the horrors of the Holocaust – the Nazis just chose to ignore them, as subsequent genocides have ignored the new legislation.

The Jews were told complete and deliberate lies about their future and destinations, what they could take with them, what would happen to them and their families.

End quote

But it gets worse.  The article continues with the story of what happened at Treblinka:

Begin quote

Even at the very end, when they were told they were going for a shower – in Treblinka, the gas chambers were disguised as traditional Jewish bathhouses with roof tiles made by a manufacturer whose trademark was identical to the Star of David, apparently called a ‘Molette d’eperon’.

The forensic archaeologist who worked at Treblinka told me: “I did find multiple tiles like this at Treblinka, some still cemented to foundations.” The star is not actually the star of David, as it turns out, but rather an emblem of a Polish tile manufacturer. Without a doubt, though, the Nazis modelled the gas chamber on a Jewish bathhouse and these same tiles can be found in other Jewish bathhouses throughout Poland.

I consider the lies that were told to Jews throughout their persecution to be an overwhelming betrayal.

The failure to tell people they were about to be killed is unforgiveable because the Jews were entitled to know their lives were about to be ended so they could prepare themselves and, where possible, say their goodbyes.

End quote

It is hard to believe how cruel the Nazis were, not even allowing the Jews to write a final letter before they were killed.  I wrote about Treblinka on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Treblinka/introduction.html

 

The difference between a gas chamber and a shower room

The photo above shows a shower room at Dachau. This is NOT a gas chamber, as claimed by several people who have put this photo on Pinterest.

My photo of the alleged gas chamber at Dachau

Every morning, I check the statistics for my blog, in order to see how people are being directed here. Many people are being directed to my blog from Pinterest, especially from the photo of a shower room at Dachau.

The gas chamber at Dachau was in a shower room, but NOT the shower room that is shown in the first photo. I have a section on my website which explains the gas chamber in one of the shower rooms at Dachau: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/GasChamber/Index.html

You can read more, about the gas chamber at Dachau, on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/GasChamber/history01.html

Edith Eger is still out telling her sad Holocaust story to American students

Holocaust Survivor who is still out speaking to American students

I previously blogged about Edith Eger on these two blog posts:

Holocaust survivor turned cartwheels at Auschwitz

The “Ballerina of Auschwitz” is still alive and still kicking

Now Edith Eger is back in the news:

http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-0128-holocaust-survivor-20160127-story.html

The following quote is from the news article, cited above:

Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet forces on Jan. 27, 1945. Having survived disease and slave labor in the camp, [Edith] Eger immigrated to the United States in 1949.

She became a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. She now lives in La Jolla [California].

Eger also is a great-grandmother to three boys whom she calls her greatest pride and joy.

“I was always told [in Auschwitz] that the only way I was going to get out was as a corpse,” Eger said. “I knew that on any day I could be beaten or sent to the gas chamber. But I knew no matter what, they could never murder my spirit.”

Another date, known as Yom Hashoah at the beginning of May, also is dedicated within the Jewish community to remembering the Holocaust, Keller said.
Copyright © 2016, Daily Pilot

End quote
I marvel at how Holocaust Survivors are able to carry on, visiting colleges to educate young people about the greatest crime in the world — the Holocaust.  I often wonder why these people are so healthy and hearty in their old age.

 

More misuse of Holocaust photos

My photo of the gate into the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany

 

People are reflected in a puddle as they walk through the gate of the Sachsenhausen Nazi death camp with the phrase ‘Arbeit macht frei’ (work sets you free) at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Oranienburg, about 18 miles north of Berlin, on Jan. 27, 2016. (Markus Schreiber / AP)

Sachsenhausen was NOT a “Nazi death camp” This slogan was never put on the so-called “death camps”.

The following quote is from the news article:

This year’s commemorations come as a resurgence of anti-Semitism casts a shadow over a new generation of European Jews, something that is driving thousands of them each year to leave the continent.

“We must be honest enough to admit that more than 70 years after the Shoah, anti-Semitism is still alive in our ‘civilized’ European Union,” Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s top foreign affairs representative, said in a statement.

Jewish immigration to Israel from Western Europe grew last year due to a rise in anti-Semitic attacks. Most — nearly 8,000 — were from France, where Islamic extremist attacks have destroyed the sense of security previously felt by Europe’s largest Jewish population.

Why is it that no country wants the Jews? The Jews have never done anyone any harm, yet they have been driven out of almost every country in the world, except the USA.

This quote is also from the same news article:

In Berlin, the German Parliament gathered to remember the victims of the Holocaust and heard Ruth Klueger, an Austrian-born writer who survived Auschwitz and other camps, tell of her experience as a camp inmate and slave laborer.

Klueger, now 84, also recalled the initial denial of Nazi crimes in post-war Germany and contrasted that with the country now.

“Two or even three generations have grown up here since then and this country, which was responsible 80 years ago for the worst crimes of the century, has today won the applause of the world thanks to its open borders and the generosity with which it has taken in Syrian and other refugees, and still is,” Klueger said.

So now the Jews approve of Germany, since the country has been ruined by Syrian refugees.  Germany is not Germany any more. Hitler would be turning over in his grave — if he had a grave.

Can a person get Schizophrenia from being in a concentration camp as a child?

Today I read a news article at http://www.timesofisrael.com/holocaust-toddlers-nearly-twice-as-likely-to-develop-schizophrenia/

The news article, cited above, claims the following:

“Holocaust toddlers nearly twice as likely to develop schizophrenia”

This quote is from the start of the article:

While Holocaust survivors in general are 27% more likely to develop the disability than their non-survivor peers, those who were in their mothers’ wombs during World War ll and experienced Holocaust horrors after the age of two were 41% more likely to exhibit the disorder.

I looked up this subject and found this information online:

Heredity and the Genetics of Schizophrenia

Family statistics As can be seen from the graph below schizophrenia definitely has a very significant genetic component. Those who have a third degree relative with schizophrenia are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia as those in the general population. Those with a second degree relative have a several-fold higher incidence of schizophrenia than the general population, and first degree relatives have an incidence of schizophrenia an order of magnitude higher than the general populace. Following are two images that summarize the average risks for developing schizophrenia for different groups of people. (The statistics in the two images vary slightly due to inclusion of different study data).

So it seems that Jews have a high risk of inheriting mental diseases. Who knew?

 

Just what we need …. another book about the liberation of Dachau

The photo above shows the cover of a new book about Dachau. In the photo, American soldiers are examining dead bodies that they had found on a train that was parked on a railroad track just outside the Dachau concentration camp.  These American soldiers assumed that the bodies were the bodies of Jews that had been shot by the evil Nazis.

Actually, these bodies were the bodies of Jews that had been killed when American planes had strafed this train just before it reached the Dachau camp. The prisoners were being taken to Dachau in order to turn them over to the American liberators, who were on their way. You can read all about the “death train” on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberation/DeathTrain.html

In my humble opinion, I don’t think that this is a suitable photo to use on the cover of a book about Dachau. I would have used the photo below for a cover of a book about the American liberation of Dachau; the photo shows an SS man surrendering the Dachau camp to the Americans.

SS 2nd Lt. Heinrich Wicker surrenders Dachau camp to Brig. Gen. Henning Linden

The photo below would also be appropriate for a book about the liberation of Dachau. This photo shows Dachau prisoners celebrating after killing some of the guards in the camp. The American liberators allowed, and even even encouraged this, by joining in the killing.

Dachau priosoners celebrate after killing SS men at Dachau

The main Dachau camp was surrendered, on April 29, 1945, to Brigadier General Henning Linden of the 42nd Rainbow Division, by SS 2nd Lt. Heinrich Wicker, who is the second man from the right in the first photo above. Wicker was accompanied by Red Cross representative Victor Maurer who had just arrived the day before with five trucks loaded with food packages. In the first photo above, the arrow points to Marguerite Higgins, one of the reporters, who was covering the war.

The surrender of the Dachau camp took place near a gate into the SS garrison that was right next to the prison enclosure.

The following quote is at the very end of the news article:

Anyone found guilty of denying the Holocaust should be locked up for a year with nothing to read but this book.

Actually, the news article, which you can read in full here starts with the following quote:

Begin quote

“Hell Before Their Very Eyes” is John McManus‘ third book about World War II. The Curators’ Professor of History at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, Mr. McManus writes that he chose this topic because, having written often about combat, he was “struck by the frequency with which combat veterans ventured the opinion that the most unforgettable, and sometimes traumatic, aspect of their wartime service was the experience of liberating or witnessing a concentration camp.”

Historians estimate that there were as many as 20,000 camps of several different types, but Mr. McManus has chosen to focus on the liberation of just three camps — Ohrdruf, Buchenwald and Dachau, which were liberated in that order in April, 1945. Although the American troops knew of the camps’ existence, none of them were prepared for what they found. “These men discovered,” Mr. McManus writes, ” the very depths of human-imposed cruelty and depravity . For the Americans who witnessed such powerful evidence of Nazi crimes, the experience was life altering. Most reacted with anger, revulsion and abject disgust … . Almost all were haunted for the rest of their lives by what they had seen.”

[…]

Obviously, this is not a book for the squeamish, so it’s important to note that the author presents the gruesome material, of which there is a great deal, with both care and compassion. For example, he spends several pages on the discovery of the “Dachau death train,” 39 boxcars filled with prisoners’ corpses. Of all the horrific sights seen by the G.I.s who liberated the various camps, this one in particular would haunt many of them for life.

[…]

Eisenhower also encouraged journalists to visit the camps. One reporter who quickly accepted Ike’s invitation was Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald-Tribune. Mr. McManus writes that, initially, when questioning survivors, “Her tone was distrustful and brusque” but after having been shown around the camp, and seeing “the ovens and the stacks of bodies, she softened considerably. (Later in life she would feel great shame at her initial insensitivity.)”

End quote

Marguerite Higgins did not “accept Eisenhower’s invitation to visit the camps.”  She was a reporter who was a war correspondent; she was following the troops. She was at Dachau on the day when the camp was surrendered to the American troops.

After Dachau was surrendered, the American liberators proceeded to kill SS men in the camp, who had surredered. You can read about the “Dachau massacre” on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberation/SoldiersKilled.html

 

German soldiers were treated as war criminals by the Allies after World War II

I am answering a comment, made by one of the readers of my blog, with a new blog post.

The following quote is from the comment directed at a Jew who had made a comment:

“…you get on the sins of other people; yet you forget the sins of the Jews. For instance, you say nothing about the Sonderkommando [Jews] who supposedly worked in the gas chambers, inviting their own people into those gas chambers. So their sins are forgiven: Jews can kill Jews to save their own lives, but that’s okay.  They were only following orders because they would be killed [if they didn’t].  Right? But its a different story when the German soldiers get hung, after the Nuremberg trials, for following their orders too.”

German soldiers were treated quite differently after they had surrendered in World War II.

The U.S. Third Army and the U.S. Seventh Army remained in Germany after World War II ended on May 8, 1945, and their War Crimes Detachments immediately began arresting suspected German war criminals; 400 to 700 persons were arrested each day until well over 100,000 Germans had been incarcerated by December 1945, according to Harold Marcuse who wrote a book entitled “Legacies of Dachau.”

The former Dachau concentration camp already held 1,000 German soldiers, accused of war crimes, by the end of June 1945. They were put to work cleaning up the barracks.

In July 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first military governor of the American Zone of Occupation in Germany. The accused Germans could expect no mercy from Eisenhower who had written in a letter to his wife, Mamie: “God, I hate the Germans.”

The authority for charging the defeated Germans with war crimes came from the London Agreement, signed after the war on August 8, 1945 by the four winning countries: Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the USA.

The basis for the charges against the accused German war criminals was Law Order No. 10, issued by the Allied Control Council, the governing body for Germany after World War II ended.

Law Order No. 10 defined Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity. A fourth crime category was membership in any organization, such as the Nazi party or the SS, that was declared to be criminal by the Allies. The war crimes contained in Law Order No. 10 were new crimes, created specifically for the defeated Germans, not crimes against existing international laws. Any acts committed by the winning Allies which were covered under Law Order No. 10 were not considered war crimes.

The German prisoners at Dachau were not treated as Prisoners of War under the Geneva convention because they had become “war criminals” at the moment that they committed their alleged war crimes. Every member of the elite SS volunteer Army was automatically a war criminal because the SS was designated by the Allies as a criminal organization even before anyone was put on trial. Any member of the Nazi political party, who had any official job within the party, was likewise automatically a war criminal regardless of what they had personally done.

Under the Allied concept of participating in a “common plan” to commit war crimes, it was not necessary for a Nazi or a member of the SS to have committed an atrocity themselves; all were automatically guilty under the concept of co-responsibility for any atrocity that might have occurred.

The only good German was a traitor to his country; the German SS soldiers imprisoned at Dachau had volunteered to fight for their country; therefore they were war criminals and did not deserve to be treated as POWs under the Geneva Convention of 1929.

The basis for the “common plan” theory of guilt was Article II, paragraph 2 of Law Order No. 10 which stated as follows:

2. Any person without regard to nationality or the capacity in which he acted, is deemed to have committed a crime as defined in paragraph 1 of this Article, if he was (a) a principal or (b) was an accessory to the commission of any such crime or ordered or abetted the same or (c) took a consenting part therein or (d) was connected with plans or enterprises involving its commission or (e) was a member of any organization or group connected with the commission of any such crime or (f) with reference to paragraph 1 (a), if he held a high political, civil or military (including General Staff) position in Germany or in one of its Allies, co-belligerents or satellites or held high position in the financial, industrial or economic life of any such country.

Waffen-SS soldiers in the prestigious Liebstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler Division, known as the LAH, were separated from the other Waffen-SS POWs and brought to the War Crimes Enclosure at Dachau where they were interrogated by a special team that was investigating the “Malmedy Massacre.” This resulted in a scandal that was investigated by the U.S. Congress after accusations by the LAH soldiers that they had been tortured at Dachau by the Jewish interrogators to make them confess to crimes which they claimed they didn’t commit.

The Soviet Union set up 10 Special Camps for German soldiers.

The former Buchenwald concentration camp became Special Camp No. 2 while the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp became Special Camp No. 7. Both of these camps were in the Soviet Zone of Occupation, behind the “Iron Curtain” and were run by the Soviet secret service, the NKVD.

The British also set up a number of camps: the former Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg became No. 6 Civil Internment Camp and KZ Esterwagen became No. 9 Civil Internment Camp. The British camp at Bad Nenndorf was a particularly brutal place where former German soldiers were tortured between 1945 and 1947.

News commentator Bill O’Reilly commented on the brutality of the Bad Nenndorf camp on his show a couple of years ago.

German soldiers, that were rounded up by the War Crimes Detachment of the U.S. Seventh Army, were put into Civilian Internment Enclosure No. 78 in Ludwigsburg, Germany. In March 1946, the U.S. Seventh Army left Germany and their German prisoners were transferred to Dachau.

You can read what an American soldier wrote about Eisenhower’s German POW camps, which were set up after World War II at http://www.rense.com/general19/camps.htm

95-year-old former medic at Auschwitz will go on trial soon in Germany

The road to the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau

The man shown in the photo above is Herbert Z. who will soon go on trial in Germany.

Update 01/18/1016:

The following quote is from another news article which you can read at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3405412/Former-Auschwitz-medic-95-dementia-stand-trial-deaths-3-600-people-Nazi-extermination-camp.html

Begin quote:

Although classed as a medic, such personnel at Auschwitz were not concerned with the health of inmates, but often poured in the Zyklon-B pesticide crystals into the gas chamber to murder them.

End quote

I can’t wait to learn how this will be proved in court in Germany.

Continue reading my original blog post.

A 95-year-old German man will soon be put on trial as “an accessory to murder” in Germany, the country formerly knows as Das Land der Dichter und Denker. He will be tried for his actions at the Auschwitz-Birkenau “death camp” during the 30 days that he worked there as a “medical orderly”.  You can read about it at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35342821

Germany is now trying to make amends for murdering 6 million Jews during World War II, but they will soon be running out of old men to bring into court on a stretcher and charge with “being an accessory.”

The following quote is from another news article which you can read at http://www.dw.com/en/german-court-to-try-former-auschwitz-medic/a-18986981:

Begin quote

Prosecutors say the man – identified only as Hubert Z. under German privacy laws – was a medical orderly at the camp from August 15, 1944 to September 14, 1944.

During this time, 14 trains carrying prisoners arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where many would eventually be murdered in the gas chambers.

“Given his awareness, the accused lent support to the organization of the camp and was thereby both involved in and advanced the extermination,” said prosecutors in an earlier statement.

The trial in the northeastern German town of Neubrandenburg comes after an appeals court overturned an earlier ruling that the elderly man – who reportedly suffers from dementia – was unfit to stand trial.

The trial is due to begin on February 29 and to run through March, although the sessions would be determined by Z.’s health condition.

End quote

The mile-long train tracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau end at the International Monument

The International Monument in honor of the Jews killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau

The steps of the International Monument lead down to the ruins of a gas chamber

The International Monument is at the end of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp

My photos above, taken in 2005, show that there was a big difference between the thinking of the Jews and the thinking of the Germans.  The Germans would have called this monument an example of “degenerate art.”

Will this 95-year-old man be put into prison after he is automatically convicted?  No, of course not.  He will be sent to a nursing home where he can be with other criminals who formerly worked at a concentration camp, if any of them are still alive.

I predict that America will soon become the 20ieth country to have a Holocaust denial law. When that happens, I could be arrested, tried and automatically convicted because there is no defense against Holocaust denial.  If that happens, I plan to request to be sent to a nursing home in Germany.

Hannah Arendt is the subject of a new book

Hannah Arendt is famous for coining the expression “Banality of Evil.”

I previously blogged about Hannah Arendt at https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2015/09/15/hannah-arendt-and-her-opinion-about-the-role-of-the-jewish-leaders-in-the-holocaust/

and on this previous blog post:  https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/anton-schmidt-two-minutes-of-silence-in-his-honor-at-eichmanns-trial/

Hannah Arendt is back in the news in a news article headlined:

Hannah Arendt’s angst was born in the US, says author

Don’t ever tell anyone that you have never heard of Hannah Arendt or that you don’t know the meaning of the expression that she invented: “Banality of Evil.” This will immediately mark you as a person who has never been to college, at least not in America, where the writing of Hannah Arendt is taught in many different classrooms.

The German word “angst” has a different meaning in America.  In Germany, one might say “Ich habe Angst gegen der Hundt.” In America, the word “angst” is used to show that you are sophisticated and educated, not that you are afraid. It is hard to define the word, as it is used in America.

The following quote is from the article, cited above:

Begin quote
In his latest book, “Arendt And America,” King argues that living in the United States allowed the German philosopher [Hanna Arendt] to think far beyond the simple dichotomies of political divisions — such as left and right — that led to the endless slaughter and complete break down of the European social order, before and during World War II.

In Arendt’s interpretation of Nazi history, Adolf Eichmann did not display any original thoughts of his own. It was this sheer banality of existence, she claimed, that allowed him to become the chief orchestrator and faceless bureaucrat of the Final Solution, one of the most horrific systematic mass murders ever known to mankind.

But what perhaps caused the most controversy among Jews was Arendt’s criticism of the Nazi-appointed “Jewish Councils” (Judenräte ). She contended that they became a sinister Nazi method to eliminate a maximum number of Jews with a minimum amount of administrative effort and cost. Or, to put it more bluntly: a system that ensured certain Jews would be made responsible for the organization of transport to their fellow Jews, as they made their way to the gas chambers.

End quote

At his trial Eichmann was put into a cage made with bullet proof glass

Why was Eichmann put into a glass cage at his trial? Supposedly, it was because he was so evil that someone might shoot him before his trial was over.

I wrote the following about Eichmann on my scrapbookpages.com website:  http://www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/History/Articles/HungarianJews2.html

The following information is from the book “Auschwitz, a New History” by Laurence Reese:

On April 25, 1944, in his office at the Hotel Majestic in Budapest, Eichmann met with Joel Brand, another leading member of the Jewish Relief and Rescue Committee. Brand had already attended previous meetings with Eichmann and other SS officers in an attempt to bribe them to allow a number of Jews out of Hungary. Now Eichmann said to Brand, “I am prepared to sell one million Jews to you.”

Eichmann proposed an exchange of “Blood for Goods,” in which the British and the Americans would give the Nazis one new truck for every one hundred Jews. Eichmann promised that the trucks would only be used on the Eastern front where the Germans were fighting against the Communist Soviet Union. Brand was asked to go to Istanbul in Turkey to negotiate the deal. Eichmann hoped to obtain 10,000 trucks in exchange for one million Jews. But even before Brand reached Turkey on May 19, 1944, Eichmann had already ordered the deportation of the Hungarian Jews, which began on April 29, 1944.

According to Laurence Rees, SS officer Kurt Becher, who was a Lt. Col., equal in rank to Eichmann, was trying to blackmail the Weiss family, owners of the biggest industrial conglomerate in Hungary, into giving its shares to the SS in return for safe passage out of the country.

Rees wrote:

By the time of his meeting with Brand, Eichmann knew that his rival Becher had successfully arranged for shares of the Manfred-Weiss works to be transferred to the Nazis; in return, about fifty members of the Weiss family were allowed to leave and head for neutral countries.

Brand was accompanied to Istanbul by another man named Bandi Grosz, a former agent of the Abwehr, the German intelligence agency, whose operations in Hungary had been taken over by an SS officer, Lt. Col. Gerhard Clages. At the last meeting with Brand, SS officers Clages, Becher and several other Nazis had been present.