Hansi Brand
Hajnalka "Hansi" Brand
Early life
Brand was born in Budapest (then Austria-Hungary) in 1912.[1][4] She was educated there and joined a Zionist youth movement when she was in high school.[4] Later on, she joined a pioneering village which taught young Jews "agricultural training prior to their immigration to Palestine."[4] In 1935 she married Joel Brand ("a prominent member of the World Union of Mapai") in Budapest in a fictitious marriage to allow them to immigrate to Palestine.[4] Later on the marriage became a "real" one.[4] They established a small glove factory and had two sons, one of whom died young.[4]
Rescue operations
Between 1938 and 1945, Brand and her husband were deeply involved in efforts to help Jewish refugees who had escaped to Hungary (which did not deport Jews to concentration camps before the
Hansi and Joel Brand were key associates in the Kasztner negotiations with the Nazis. The central part of the deal with Eichmann was the so-called "Goods for Blood" arrangement in which the Nazis tried to barter Jewish lives for money, arms and supplies in the dying months of the war.
Joel Brand was dispatched to Istanbul to persuade the Jewish Agency leadership to accept this plan, which came to nothing. The Zionist leaders told him that Moshe Sharett—then head of the Agency's political department, and later, Israel's second prime minister—could not obtain a visa for Istanbul and that a meeting could only take place in Aleppo. Within moments of leaving the train to Aleppo, Joel Brand was arrested by the British. Back in Budapest, Kasztner had begun an affair with Hansi Brand.[6]
Hansi Brand and the other committee members tried negotiating with
Later life
Part of a series of articles on the Holocaust |
Blood for goods |
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Brand moved from Budapest to Switzerland in 1946, and from there to Palestine in 1947.
In her final years, Brand worked at the Michlelet Tel Aviv college and on behalf of orphans and
Published works
- In 1960, Brand wrote Satan and the Soul about the couple's activities during the Holocaust and the Kastner trial.[4]
References
- ^ a b c Baruch, Hava (Fall 2000). "Profile of Hansi Brand" (PDF). Yad Vashem Magazine (Volume #20). Jerusalem: Yad Vashem. p. 15. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-09-05. Retrieved 2013-06-08.
- ^ "Hinolka (Hansi) Brand (nee Hartman)". geni_family_tree. 26 August 1912.
- ^ a b c "Hansi Brand, 89, Holocaust Heroine - Sun Sentinel". Los Angeles Times. 2000-04-20.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r "Hansi Brand (Hartmann) | Jewish Women's Archive". Jwa.org. Retrieved 2013-06-03.
- ^ "Israel News - The Jerusalem post". www.jpost.com.
- ^ Frazer, Jenni. "On quest to clear Kasztner, historian 'shocked' to prove Nazi collaboration". www.timesofisrael.com.
Further reading
- Sharon Geva, "Wife, Lover, Woman: The Image of Hansi Brand in Israeli Public Discourse", Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, No. 27, Fall 2014, pp. 97–119.