Wife, Lover, Woman: The Image of Hansi Brand in Israeli Public Discourse

This gender-oriented historical study analyzes the image of Hansi Brand (Budapest, 1912—Tel Aviv, 2000), a member of the Jewish Relief and Rescue Committee in Budapest during World War II. After the Nazi occupation of Hungary, Brand—together with Rezsö Kasztner and Joel Brand—took part in the negotiations with Adolf Eichmann and other Nazi officials for halting the deportation of Hungarian Jews. In the 1950s, these negotiations were at the center of a major public controversy that became known as the Kasztner Affair. Despite the central role she played in these events, Hansi Brand was marginalized in the Israeli public discourse. She was described as depending on men—her husband, Joel Brand, and her so-called lover, Kasztner. I explore the reasons for this dissonance and demonstrate that Hansi Brand’s public image corresponded to and engaged with the gender roles prevailing in Israeli society and with its memory of the Holocaust.