Episode
Come on and Ride the Train: The Kastner Story Part III
- Podcast
- Jewish History Soundbites
- Published
- Dec 20, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 3595
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/jewish-history-soundbites-990199/episodes/come-on-and-ride-the-train-the-kastner-story-part-iii/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/jewish-history-soundbites-990199/come-on-and-ride-the-train-the-kastner-story-part-iii.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
On April 7, 1944 two Slovakian Jews named Rudolf Vrba & Alfred Wetzler made a daring escape from Auschwitz and made their way back to Slovakia. They submitted a detailed and accurate report of the horrifying truth of the Auschwitz extermination facilities, along with details regarding the transports arriving in the camp and the overall camp structure. The Slovakian Jewish leadership attempted to pass on the vital information to the outside world, and crucially to the Hungarian Jewish leadership as well. Although the Hungarian Jewish leadership received the information by the end of April, the truth about Auschwitz was not disseminated to the Hungarian Jewish masses by the time the deportations from Hungary to Auschwitz commenced on May 15. Till the end of his life, Rudolf Vrba bitterly accused both the Slovakian and Hungarian Jewish leadership of not spreading the truth about Auschwitz to the Hungarian Jewish masses. Rudolf Kastner was one of many Hungarian Jewish leaders who received the Vrba-Wetzler report. What did he do with the information he received? What could he have done? Was his actions different in any way from other leaders who had access to this information? Subscribe to Jewish History Soundbites Podcast on: PodBean: https://jsoundbites.podbean.com/ or your favorite podcast platform Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram at @Jsoundbites For sponsorship opportunities about your favorite topics of Jewish history or feedback contact Yehuda at: [email protected]