Footnotes:
13. The conviction was overturned on Appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court. Kasztner was murdered in 1957 before his Appeal was heard. Two of his three persons arrested following the assassination and subsequently convicted were former employees of the Israeli Secret Service.
14. Note, for instance the following report in the Israeli Hebrew daily evening newspaper Maariv by Ariyeh Bandar:
'We will hand to the State Archives any material on rescue operations during the Holocaust', said the General Secretary of the Histadrut, Israel Qesar, in response to charges by the Director of the (State) Archives that the Labour Archives and the Lavon Institute hide material on the activity of the Hechalutz emissary in the Second World War.
'The Histadrut will hand over to the State Archives and the public all the material and the documents in its possession regarding the rescue and aid activities of European Jewry during the Second World War', the General Secretary of the Histadrut, Israel Qesar, told Maariv yesterday in response to the charges by the Director of the State Archives, Professor Alsberg, that the Labour Archives and the Lavon Institute deliberately covered up historical material regarding the activity of Nathan Dror-Schwalb, the Hechalutz emissary in Geneva during the Holocaust.
'For over six years we have attempted to transfer to our possession this archival material which is important for research on the history of the Holocaust, so far in vain', says Professor Alsberg. 'Nathan Dror emphatically objects and obstructs the transfer of the material. The way the Histadrut has dealt with the matter raises suspicion that the backing they give Dror is rooted in their interest in hiding the failures of their emissaries in Europe during the Holocaust. I assume that the resistance to the transfer of material is caused by the fear that researchers will discover that Dror acted upon the instructions of the Histadrut to rescue Jews according to party-political criteria. So long as we are not given access to the material, it is not possible to remove the suspicions '.
Professor Alsberg says that the Histadrut is backing the objections by Dror to the transfer of the material 'because until today he is active in fund-raising for the Histadrut in Germany'. (Maariv, 2 June 1986).
One possible interpretation of this is that such material could be used as blackmail to extract donations from persons who might be compromised by its publications. In this connection it may be relevant to recall that the only one of the four charges in the Kasztner libel trial which was not fully proven was the accusation of sharing plunder with a Nazi war criminal.
15. Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazin), AI-Wujh al-Akhar: Al-'Ulaqat al-Siriyya bayn al-Naziyya wa-al-Sahyuniyya (The Other Face: The Secret Relations between Nazism and Zionism), Ibn Rushd Press and Distribution, Amman 1984.
16. Short extracts of Perdition were shown on Channel 4 TV in its 'Diverse Reports' series, Wednesday 18 March 1987 featuring a panel discussion on Perdition chaired by Robert Kee with Martin Gilbert, Stephen Roth and Rabbi Hugo Gryn against Perdition and Marion Wolfson, Lenni Brenner and Jim Allen in its defence.
17. The Company at the first public reading of extracts from Perdition, A Play in Two Acts by Jim Allen at the Royal Lyceum studio, Edinburgh, Monday, 17 August 1987, 7.00 p.m.:
Scott David Calder
Lawson lan Flintoff*
Miklos Yaron Ralph Nossek*
Ruth Kaplan Caroline Gruber*
Stanley Karpin John Gabriel*
Miriam Moser Ania Marson*
Director Ken Loach
* From the original cast who would have performed Perdition at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs on 22 January 1987.
18. First public performance of Perdition, A Play in Two Acts by Jim Allen, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WCI 4-7 & 12-14 May 1988.
The Company
Lawson Chris Tranchell
Miklos Yaron Alan Suttees
Scott Paul Mofiarty
Karpin Gary Hope
Ruth Kaplan Brid Brennan
Orzech Patrick Waldron
Moser Ania Marson
Director Para Brighton
Stage Management Jane Appleyard
Lighting Andy Phillips
Costumes Lorraine Windus
Press & Publicity Stella Wilson
Production Ron Rose (DAC Theatre Company)
Licence Jerusalem & Peace Service
Among the people without whom this production would not have been possible are Jane Suffling, Liz Ainley, Ken Loach, Christopher Shutt, Douglas Mayhew, Peter Morris, Judy Friel, Lindy Hemming, Neil Cooper, Laura Suffling, Hilary Lyons and the Staff of the Conway Hall.
19. By that date Ithaca Press has ceased trading, and the remaining stocks of Perdition was purchased by Pluto Press, 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA.