Emissary of the Doomed: Bargaining for Lives in the Holocaust

The official little known WWII story of a desperate attempt to save Hungary's Jewish population

When Nazi troops invaded in March 1944, Hungary contained the largest intact Jewish population in Europe. Until then, stories of Auschwitz and other "resettlement camps" were still treated as unconfirmed rumors inside Hungary and among the Allied powers. With the arrival of Adolf Eichmann-and reports from the first escapees from Auschwitz confirming the most horrifying rumors about the camps-the 850,000 Jews of Hungary faced annihilation.

Emissary of the Doomed is the riveting and heartbreaking account of the heroic attempt to save Hungary's Jewish population. Learning that Eichmann and Himmler were willing to bargain for the lives of as many as one million Jews, Joel Brand and the Jewish rescue committee in Budapest took up the German offer and embarked on a desperate race across Europe and the Middle East to persuade the reluctant Allies to trade funds and material for Jewish lives. Against the backdrop of the Normandy invasion, the Soviet advance across Eastern Europe, and the American advances up the Italian peninsula, Brand and his colleagues tried to stop the final push of the Nazis to destroy the Jews of Europe. This untold chapter will appeal to all readers of World War II literature.

Selected Praise:

"Emissary of the Doomed grabs the reader from the early pages and makes compelling reading from beginning to end. The story is at once fascinating and horrifying, dramatic but remarkably little known to the public. It offers an important addition to our understanding of how the Nazi murderous campaign against the Jews unfolded, through revealing portraits of Nazis, collaborators, opportunists, and occasional good Samaritans on the one hand, and Jews forced to choose among a series of horrendous choices on the other." —David I Kertzer, author of The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara and The Popes Against the Jews.

“Significantly, Florence is both an historian (“Blood Libel”) and a novelist (“The Last Season”), and he describes the exploits of Joel Brand in colorful and compelling detail, thus reminding us that history is made and experienced by flesh-and-blood human beings.” --The Jewish Journal

"… a riveting and intense work … a fine examination of one of the saddest episodes of the Holocaust."—Booklist, American Library Association

"Engrossing account of Joel Brand's desperate attempts to save the Hungarian Jews from Nazi extermination…. The whole sordid tale would not emerge fully until the postwar trials of Kasztner and Eichmann, and Florence does a fine, thorough job bringing the period to life." —Kirkus Reviews

"In a taut, detailed narrative, historian Florence (Blood Libel) relates Joel Brand's efforts to save Hungary's Jews from the Holocaust. … Florence (Lawrence and Aaronsohn) paints a colorful but dispiriting tale of mankind's gross inhumanity." —Publishers Weekly

"This is a deeply absorbing account, meticulously researched; a compelling, vivid portrait of Joel Brand and his urgency to make the world understand the enormity of the relentless campaign of the Nazis to eradicate the Jews of Hungary. The narrative unfolds with immmediacy and despite, of course, knowing the end of the story, I was thrust into the midst of these terrible events, and could not put this book down." —Ronald S. Lauder, President, the World Jewish Congress

"In the past decades, scholars have learned of the many strategies used to save Jews from the Nazi’s…. Ronald Florence provides another important example with his focus on the work of Joel Brand and the Jewish Rescue Committee in Hungary…. The beautifully written narrative and careful research behind Emissary of the Doomed make it critical research for all interested in those at the forefront, and behind the scenes, in modern history." —Jeffrey Lesser, Director, Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, Emory University