Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

Joel Brand was born in Transylvania, and in 1910, his family moved to Germany.

Joel Brand became a Communist, and was arrested and then released in 1934 when he settled in Budapest.
He later became a Zionist.

In 1941, Hansi Hartmann’s brother was deported, and her husband gave Josezf Krem, a Hungarian espionage agent, money to save his wife’s relatives.
From then on, Joel Brand was involved in smuggling and aiding refugees from Poland and Slovakia to the relative safety of Hungary.

After the invasion and the start of the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz and the labor camps, Joel Brand became involved in negotiating with the Nazis to rescue Jews in return, for money, and later, for goods.

Between 1929-1931, Rezső Kasztner served as Secretary-General, Parliamentary Group of the Jewish party, in Romania.

Rezső Kasztner worked in Bucureşti, as member of the Executive of the Palestine Office, of the Jewish Agency.

Between 1943 and 1945, Rezső Kasztner served as Associate President, of the Hungarian Zionist Organization.

After March, 1944, Adolf Eichmann, under orders from Himmler, summoned Joel Brand and offered him “trucks for blood”: 10,000 trucks and consumer staples, tea, coffee, sugar, and soap, for one million Jews.
Joel Brand was sent to Istanbul to contact Allied intelligence, to rescue the Jews of Hungary. , along with Bandi Grosz, a Jewish espionage agent; they were to negotiate a deal for the Sicherheitsdienst SD for a separate peace with the Americans or British.
From Istanbul, the two went to Syria, where they were arrested and taken to Cairo for interrogation by the Allies, who refused to negotiate with the SS.
Joel Brand was released, and he was sent to Palestine.