70 years ago: The death of Saly Mayer, who may have saved tens of thousands of Jews from death

From the JTA Archives, August 1, 1950:

Saly Mayer, Swiss Jewish leader whose skilled negotiations during World War II saved the lives of 200,000 Hungarian Jews about to be deported by the Nazis to extermination camps in occupied Poland, died today at St. Moritz of a heart attack. He was 67 years old.

In addition to being one of the most prominent Jewish leaders in Switzerland, Mr. Mayer was also director of Joint Distribution Committee operations in Switzerland for a period of 10 years, which included the war years. His activities in rescuing Jews from Nazi Germany were praised in a report issued by the U.S. War Refugee Board in 1945.

(Edward M.M. Warburg, chairman of the J.D.C., in learning of Mr. Mayer’s death, said today in New York: “Jews everywhere have lost arare and inspiring figure with the death of Saly Mayer. He gave his fullest devotion to the cause and welfare of his fellow Jews, and was responsible for helping to save literally hundreds of thousands. He believed implicitly in the tenet that it was the duty of all to be their ‘brother’s keeper,’ and he fulfilled that belief in a manner equalled by few men in his time.”)

The War Refugee Board report told how the Nazis in the spring and summer of 1944, striving to shave off defeat, sought to negotiate a vast ransom of 10,000 trucks and supplies in return for sparing the lives of the 200,000 remaining Jews of Hungary. Mr. Mayer, as J.D.C. representative, was approached in the matter by a Gestapo representative for Hungary. There followed a protracted series of meetings between Saly Mayer and the German representatives, with the full knowledge of the U.S. Government. Through the ingenuity and perseverance of Mr. Mayer, every imaginable dilatory tactic was employed and the talks continued for month after month.

When the war ended, the 200,000 Jews of Hungary were still alive, thanks to Mr. Mayer’s efforts and to the efforts of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish non-Jew who, working inside Budapest, fed the Jews, using funds provided by the J.D.C. through the War Refugee Board.

The New York Times echoes this story of Mayer delaying the negotiations with the Nazis until the war ended, saving 200,000 Hungarian Jews:

 

For some reason, though, Mayer is no longer credited with saving that many Hungarian Jews. His biography at the Jewish Virtual Library credits him with directly saving some 18,000 Jews, but doesn’t mention that his delay tactics may have saved the remainder of Hungarian Jewry:

With the knowledge of Himmler, Mayer negotiated with an S.S. delegation headed by Kurt Becher for the ransom of Jews from Hungary. His hands were tied by the American and Swiss governments, which would not permit the transfer of money and the Joint dissociated itself from these negotiations. Still Mayer arranged for a meeting between Becher and the representative of the *War Refugee Board, the arm of the American government committed to rescue and the only arm of the American government with the freedom to negotiate with the enemy. He could not provide substantive funds and he provided some equipment to buy some time. He was able to achieve a significant – albeit meager – result. Two transports numbering 1,391 – mostly Hungarian Jews – arrived in Switzerland from Bergen-Belsen, while 17,000 others were brought to Vienna.

Yad Vashem is also equivocal:

In 1944 Rezso Kasztner, the Hungarian Jewish negotiator, asked Mayer to join his negotiations with the SS regarding the rescue of Hungarian Jews. Despite the JDC's refusal to participate, Mayer went ahead as the supposed representative of the US and Swiss authorities. From August 1944 to February 1945 Mayer conducted deft negotiations with SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Kurt Becher, during which Heinrich Himmler apparently agreed to stop the deportation of the Jews of Budapest. However, many accused Mayer of not demanding enough for the Jews during these negotiations or involving other Jewish organizations in the talks.

It sounds like the critics of Mayer have blunted his history and even today it is unclear how successful he really was. Mayer also seems to have been tarred by association with the Kastner Affair, where Rudolf Kastner was accused of withholding information about the fate of Hungarian Jewry from them.

Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer wrote about Mayer, and while he doesn’t say that Mayer saved 200,000 Jews, he does talk about Mayer’s delaying tactics and his probably being instrumental in saving 16,000.

 

 

 

 

There was apparently some jealousy and accusations against Mayer by other negotiators and Jewish organizations. However, a January 17, 1945 State Department memo discusses Mayers’ negotiations with the Nazis since August 1944 in detail, and it supports Bauer’s sympathetic view of Mayer. Note how it emphasizes how the intent of the negotiations from the start was to buy time for the Jews of Hungary, since he had little actual leverage to negotiate with:

 

Even if Mayer “only” saved 16,000 or 18,000  Jews, that is far more than Schindler.

It is curious how Mayer’s efforts, that by all accounts were quixotic and yet managed to save so many, are downplayed by history and people judging him that he should have done more.

Based on this memo, Mayer was wildly successful in buying time for Hungarian Jews until the war was over. If that is true, perhaps he can indeed be credited with saving an astounding  200,000 Jews.