The difficulties of creating a Holocaust archive: Yad Vashem and Israel Kastner 1947-1948.

This paper tells two intertwining stories reflecting post-Holocaust power struggles between Jewish communities and organizations and their impact on Holocaust documentation: the efforts to create a Holocaust archive in Yad Vashem from the late 1940s and the hitherto unknown involvement of Israel Kastner in these efforts. Kastner, a controversial leader and activist in Hungary during the Holocaust, was at the apex of a stormy public debate in 1950s Israel (known as the 'Kastner trial') and was murdered in 1957. His role in the Holocaust of Hungarian Jews is still debated by historians and in the Israeli public sphere. Yet, his involvement with Yad Vashem, the venerable Zionist-Israeli institution, did not come to light in the trial or in historical research. It is unearthed and discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]