Escape on the Kasztner Train

Escape on the Kasztner Train

After the Germans invaded Hungary on March 19, 1944, the Zionist Relief and Rescue Committee of Budapest (Va’ada) began secret negotiations with the SS to permit the escape of Jews in exchange for money and needed goods. As a result, on June 30, 1,687 select Jews — including 14 members of Gabor Munk’s immediate family — fled Budapest on the Kasztner Train.

It was thanks to Gabor’s son-in-law Niszon Kahan, a leading official in the Hungarian Zionist Alliance, that the Munks escaped the Nazis. This photo of Gábor (center) and his wife, Irma Gruber (right), was taken in February 1945 in Klosters, Switzerland, where they lived in a refugee home.