Kasztner and the Hungarian Holocaust: Call for support a PhD. Project

Thanks to a generous donation, the Centre is currently hoping to offer a graduate student bursary for a doctoral research project to investigate the activities of Rudolf (Rezso) Kasztner in Hungary during the crucial years of the Nazi occupation and the mass deportation of Jewish citizens.

As an Austro-Hungarian born Zionist, journalist and lawyer, Kasztner is best known for facilitating the ‘Blood for goods’ proposal designed to help Jews escape from Nazi-occupied Hungary in 1944. This forms the subject of the prize-winning publication by our Sussex colleague and member of the Centre for German-Jewish Studies Ladislaus Löb, Dealing with Satan: Rezso Kasztner’s Daring Rescue Mission. Löb’s book has shown that Kasztner, with his instinct for survival, was certainly no saint; yet his cat-and-mouse games of bluff and prevarication with Adolf Eichmann enabled 1,670 Hungarian Jewish men, women and children to escape on the famous ‘Kasztner train’. As a child Professor Löb, accompanied by his father, was one of the lucky ones. For Kasztner himself the story had no such happy ending. He was killed in 1957 by a right-wing assassin after a sensational Israeli court case accusing him of having collaborated with the Nazis.
The applicant is required to hold a formal qualification required for taking up a PhD at Sussex University. The application must include a project proposal (max. 3 pages), a CV (max. 2 pages), and an academic reference. The application should be submitted electronically.

The Centre for German-Jewish Studies is a vibrant Centre for research and teaching at the University of Sussex and a stimulating intellectual environment for undertaking this research project. The successful applicant will become member of the Centre benefit from a close supervision from experts in the field. Given that the proposed project will require further funding as the funds currently available will cover tuition fees for three years only, the Centre will, therefore, assist the successful candidate in his applications to funding bodies in Britain and abroad.