Chapter 23

What to do if you really cannot trust them at all

And, finally, what if you are negotiating with someone who you absolutely know you cannot trust?

Joel Brand and Rudolf Kasztner were two Hungarian Jews who found themselves negotiating with Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS colonel in charge of the Final Solution, the murder of all Jews in German territories.

This was 1944 and the Germans were in total military control of the region. Knowledge of the millions already deported and murdered was widespread. Why would you negotiate with such a monster? Answer: utter desperation. A tougher question: how do you negotiate with such a monster? How could you trust a single word he said?

Working from the premise that even a single life is worth saving ...

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