Then an amazing story emerged about
how Eichmann had called Kastner and told him,
'We are ready to stop the Holocaust,
the expulsion of Jews from Hungary
to the death camps at Auschwitz, Treblinka
in exchange for 100,000 trucks that the English will give us.
And to prove that we are serious,
the moment we receive a response,
we will send an emissary to Istanbul,
the emissary will make contact with the Zionist institutions,
the Zionist institutions will make contact with the British,
and as soon as the emissary returns
confirming that in principle the English are ready,
we will stop the transports.
I will not let you go, but choose someone that you trust and send him'.
They took another member of the committee, a fellow named Joel Brand.
A small fellow, a red-haired Jew.
He travelled to Istanbul.
And despite the explicit condition that he should not leave Istanbul,
which was neutral – Turkey was neutral
he was enticed into crossing the border into Syria, which was under British rule.
They took him, arrested him, brought him to Cairo.
He apparently was brought before Lord Moyne,
who was the senior British official in the Middle East –
in fact the High Commissioner for the entire Middle East –
arrested him and would not release him.
He also met with Zionist leaders, with Sharett.
In short, he did not return.
He didn't come back. The transports continued,
10,000 Jews a day.
And as part of this they gave Kastner
his train of 415 dignitaries,
I think, who travelled to Germany and were detained in Bergen-Belsen,
but eventually reached Switzerland.
We did not know all of this.
Once this was disclosed during Kastner's testimony,
it was simple for Tamir.
First one had to see Tamir.
Tamir was in a difficult situation, let's say,
which even he didn't understand.
The situation was this: Eichmann's proposal
might have been serious but might not have been.
It couldn't be both.
If it was serious, those who arrested Brand and didn't return him,
they were the real criminals.
If it was not serious, then Kastner was the criminal
for helping to subdue the Jews of Hungary
and perhaps in this way prevented
many of them from escaping to Romania.
It was possible to escape from Hungary to Romania,
where the situation was better.
So either Kastner was guilty or Moshe Sharett and the Zionist leadership.
But Tamir had a problem: he hated the Zionist leadership.
In order to convict Kastner,
he had to admit that the Zionist leadership acted properly
and the proposal had been deceitful.
But he couldn't do that because he hated the Zionists more.
So he hated both parties and,
in fact, didn't make a ruling.
He concluded that both parties were guilty.