Collection of Hansi and Joel Brand, activists in the Relief and Rescue Committee in Budapest during World War II

Joel Brand was born in Naszód, Transylvania in 1906. In 1934, after a stay in Germany, he settled in Budapest, Hungary, where he joined the Poalei Zion Party. In 1935 he married Hansi Hartmann and together they set up a glove factory.

In 1942 Joel and Hansi were among the founders of the Relief and Rescue Committee, the Budapest-based underground organization, which worked on behalf of Jewish refugees in Hungary.

After the occupation of Hungary by the German Army on 19 March 1944, contacts were made between the Relief and Rescue Committee and SS officers, especially Adolf Eichmann, with the goal of rescuing Jews from deportation to the extermination camps. On 05 April 1955, Eichmann summoned Joel Brand and raised the possibility of a "Blood for Goods" exchange, i.e. the release of 1,000,000 Jews in exchange for goods, including 10,000 trucks.

In the middle of May, 1944, Brand went to Kushta (Istanbul) together with Andor Gross. Gross was apparently an SS agent and his goal was to meet British and US Intelligence officers in order to discuss the possibility of a separate peace between Britain and the United States and Nazi Germany. Gross and Brand met with people from the Jewish Agency office in Kushta, and thus the British and the Americans learned of Gross' assignment. Gross was arrested by the British at the border crossing between Turkey and Syria. Joel Brand, who was headed for Eretz Israel, was arrested in Haleb (Aleppo) in Syria. Afterwards he was transferred for detention in Cairo and interrogation by the British. He was released in October 1944 and arrived in Eretz Israel. Despite the insistent pleading of the heads of the Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel, the British turned down the arrangement with the Nazis.

For many years Brand lived with the feeling that an opportunity to save 1,000,000 Jews had been missed. Joel Brand testified at several trials after the war, including the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem in 1961. He also testified at the Hermann Krumey Trial in Frankfurt, in 1964. Joel Brand died in Germany in July 1964.

Hansi (Hajnalka Hartmann) Brand was born in Budapest in 1912. In the summer of 1941 Hansi's sister and her family were among those deported from Hungary to Galicia. Joel and Hansi Brand succeeded in bringing Hansi's family back to Hungary and from then on they looked for ways to help the refugees.

In the summer of 1944, after Joel had left on his mission, Hansi was one of the main activists on the Relief and Rescue Committee. Among other activities, she served on the committee that selected the passengers on the train that left Budapest for Bergen-Belsen, late June 1944 [the Kasztner train]. Hansi Brand also succeeded in obtaining the release of many children from the death marches which left Budapest for the Austrian-Hungarian border during the winter of 1944-1945.

When World War II came to an end, Hansi Brand and her two sons moved to Switzerland, and from there they made aliya to Eretz Israel in 1947.

Hansi testified at the Kasztner Trial in 1954, at the Eichmann Trial in 1961 and at additional trials. Together with her husband Joel, Hansi wrote the book, "The Devil and the Soul", which was published in Tel Aviv in 1960. The book mainly describes Hansi and Joel's participation in activities rescuing Jews during the war, as well as the Kasztner Trial.

Hansi Brand died in Tel Aviv in 1995.

The Brand family submitted the Hansi and Joel Brand Collection to the Yad Vashem Archives in 1995