Information
- BFI identifier592792
- Date2000 (Copyright)
2000-08-24 (Television) - Production countryUnited Kingdom
- Production company
- SynopsisIn 1944, with the Red Army approaching the frontiers of Hungary, a Jewish lawyer called Rudolph Kastner entered into negotiations with Adolf Eichmann to secure an escape for doomed senior Nazis. Kastner's deal, and a meeting he arranged between Germany and America, meant 2000 Jews were spared death. Eichmann offered the release of up to one million Jews on the condition that the Allies provided him with ten thousand lorries for the transportation of the Nazis and their families. Kastner persuaded Eichmann that, in order to show that his proposal was serious, he must allow a token number of Jews to leave Budapest for Switzerland. Kastner then faced the harrowing task of deciding which of Hungary's Jewish population would be saved, and, by implication, which would not. As a result he made enemies which was to cost him his life. Following the war, by which time he had moved to Israel, he was accused of libel and in 1957 he was gunned down in the street. The film recounts Kastner's role as the saviour of the Hungarian Jews and the psychological chess game he played with Eichmann and with other leading Nazis. Survivors from the 2000 who left Hungary and from those who were sent to concentration camps are among those to recall their experiences, together with Kastner's daughter. (Shotlist)
- Subject
- CreditsDirector: Bill Treharne Jones
©: Channel Four Television Corporation
Production Company: 3BM Television
view all - Cast
Title
Last Train from Budapest (Original)
Category
Non Fiction- Secret History
Series Work - 779868
United Kingdom - TV - Non Fiction
- +Last Train from Budapest
Work - 592792 - 2000 (Copyright)
United Kingdom - TV - Non Fiction
- +Last Train from Budapest
Hierarchy Display