Gruenwald-Kastner Trial 1954

The protocols and auxiliary files regarding the lawsuit submitted by the Attorney General of Israel against Malkiel Gruenwald and the protocols and auxiliary files from the Supreme Court, on the matter of the criminal appeal submitted by the Attorney General of Israel against Malkiel Gruenwald are accessible to the public in the State Archives in the series "Trial of Kasztner vs. Gruenwald", identified as State Archives series 30.0.50. In 1954, the Attorney General of Israel, Haim Cohen, filed a lawsuit against Malkiel Gruenwald, the Jerusalem journalist of Hungarian origin, on the charge of publishing a pamphlet which claimed that Dr. Rudolf Kastner, who was serving then in a public position, had collaborated with the German occupation forces in Hungary. Kastner had been a Jewish public leader in Hungary and a member of the Vaad Hatzala in Budapest at the time of the war. At the end of the war, Kastner had emigrated to Israel, become integrated as an active member of the Mapai Party (Workers Party of Eretz Israel) and served in public office. Judge Benyamin Halevi ruled in his verdict that Kastner had indeed collaborated with the German authorities and he found Gruenwald innocent of the charges of libel in most of the paragraphs of which he was charged. The verdict raised a storm within the Israeli public and even led to a parliamentary crisis. On 04 March 1957 Kastner was murdered by three young Israelis. After Kastner's death, the appeal regarding Judge Halevi's verdict which had been entered by the Attorney General of Israel was accepted. The Record Group contains protocols, defense and prosecution documents from the two trials - the Attorney General of Israel versus Malkiel Gruenwald on the charge of libel, known as the Kasztner Trial, and the lawsuit submitted by Malkiel Gruenwald against Rudolf Kasztner on the charge of false testimony which Kasztner had testified as it were in the framework of the Kasztner Trial. The documentation includes documents related to the work of the Vaadat Hatzala: correspondence, documents, certificates, and reports.