The ‘strange Mr Kastner’ – Leadership ethics in Holocaust-era Hungary, in the light of grey zones and dirty hands

Abstract

As the leader of a group of rescue activists in Holocaust-era Budapest, Rezső Kasztner saved the lives of large numbers of Jews through negotiations with Nazi officials. This activity coincided with the deportation of thousands of others, and after the war Kasztner was considered by some to have made a Faustian bargain: his silence in return for the lives of the few. The ethics of this case have been approached from a variety of theoretical vantage points, none of which have the analytical power and pertinence to render justice to an existential challenge of this magnitude. The article therefore draws upon dirty hands as an alternative. Sustaining a dirty hands argument in this case relies on retaining a measure of skepticism with regard to established narrative framing, acknowledging the incidence of grey zones and replacing the implicit norm of agency in studies on Holocaust-era leaders with context focus.