About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
A quick tip: When reviewing the "Browse by Category" listings, please note that these are based on standardized BISAC Subject Codes supplied by the books' publishers. You will find additional selections, grouped by theme or region, in our "BC Reading Lists."
Description
The true, heart-wrenching tale of Hungary's own Oskar Schindler, a lawyer and journalist named Rezso Kasztner who rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews during the last chaotic days of World War II -- and the ultimate price he paid.
In summer 1944, Rezso Kasztner met with Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust, in Budapest. With the Final Solution at its terrible apex and tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews being sent to Auschwitz every month, the two men agreed to allow 1,684 Jews to leave for Switzerland by train. In other manoeuvrings, Kastzner may have saved another 40,000 Jews already in the camps. Kasztner was later judged for having "sold his soul to the devil." Prior to being exonerated, he was murdered in Israel in 1957.
Part political thriller, part love story and part legal drama, Porter's account explores the nature of Kasztner -- the hero, the cool politician, the proud Zionist, the romantic lover, the man who believed that promises, even to diehard Nazis, had to be kept. The deals he made raise questions about moral choices that continue to haunt the world today.
Awards
- Winner, Canadian Jewish Book Award for History
- , Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction
- Winner, Nereus Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize
Editorial Reviews
"Kasztner's Train is an extraordinarily affecting book that deserves to be read both for its masterful storytelling and for the timeless moral interrogatives at its heart."
— Edmonton Journal
"[A] fascinating and painstakingly researched biography."
— Toronto Star
"Every once in a long while a book comes along that makes history so real that it trumps fiction. Kasztner's Train easily falls into that category, and it is Anna Porter's consummate art as a storyteller that makes this true tale so compelling."
— Hill Times Ottawa
"Anna Porter's intention in her new book, Kasztner's Train, is clear from the start: to restore the reputation of her subject, Rezso Kasztner...Porter describes Kasztner's Train as popular history, but she has brought an impressive amount of scholarship to bear on the telling of this complex and controversial tale."
— Montreal Gazette
"It's a fascinating story about a Hungarian Jew who had the chutzpah to bargain with the Nazis. As Porter sees it, 'If you're in hell, who do you negotiate with but the Devil?'"
— Globe & Mail
"Porter's book makes clear that Kasztner ultimately became a casualty in the search for reasons why more Jews did not violently resist their oppressors...It is obviously time that the reality of his accomplishments, as well as the price he and his family paid, are finally discussed."
— Quill & Quire
"Perhaps the most important question Porter's book asks is, what is the value of a human life?"
— Daily News Halifax
