Like many Americans today, Gaylen Ross wasn’t familiar with Rezso Kasztner or his life story.

But ask those of an older generation in Israel, and they’re liable to have strong lingering opinions of a man who was considered both a hero and a traitor during World War II before his assassination more than 50 years ago.

Ross hopes that sense of discovery lends an even-handed perspective to Killing Kasztner, her documentary about what remains a hot-button topic with older Israelis — the legacy of a man who negotiated with the Nazis for the rescue and release of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, yet later was branded a traitor and collaborator during a post-war trial.

Courtesy photo/Kasztner family

Rezso Kasztner records in a radio studio in Israel. A documentary titled Killing Kasztner, which opened Friday at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas, chronicles Kasztner’s efforts to advocate for Jewish refugees during World War II.

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“It was so amazing, both the story and that I had never heard of this rescue or Kasztner. I thought it was quite incredible,” Ross said by phone from New York. “Some people who were historians knew about it, but it was not in any popular conversation at all.”

Kasztner was an advocate for Jewish refugee groups during the war who negotiated with Adolf Eichmann during the Nazi relocation of 800,000 Jews from Hungary to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. The negotiations managed to spare almost 2,000 Jews via train, in exchange for a ransom, and sent countless others to labor camps instead of death camps.

After the war, however, a government libel trial brought about by Kasztner against a critic of his political leanings turned into an indictment of Kasztner himself, and accused him of harboring Nazi secrets and betraying Jewish prisoners. The Israeli Supreme Court didn’t step in to exonerate Kasztner until after his death.

Ross — a documentary filmmaker who formerly acted in horror films including Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Creepshow (1982) — was introduced to Kasztner’s story back in 1997, when she was promoting a documentary she wrote and produced about Swiss banks during the Holocaust.

A couple of years later, Ross decided to pursue the idea further, and while exploring the topic as a feature, Ross came up with several theories as to why Kasztner’s name is not more well-known today, from a generation gap to the controversial nature of his story.

“In Israel, it was probably the most important trial, next to Eichmann,” Ross said. “It made headlines. People remember it like the McCarthy era. It had that kind of national impact, with this man who became so infamous and later was assassinated. But nobody knew Schindler until Spielberg made the film.”

Ross, 59, saw many classic elements of drama in the true-life story of Kasztner, a man who was not famous yet was given the chance to rescue thousands of Jewish lives through top-secret negotiations, then faced a downfall in public life that ended in tragedy.

Ross spent more than eight years making the film, including research on the topic and developing a structure, which she realized would be the process of uncovering the truth behind the subject and the reasons for such varied feelings that still exist regarding Kasztner’s legacy.

“I wanted it to be not just an historical piece, where I was telling people what they were to think,” she said. “I felt that this was still a journey, and the story still very much is in present tense. It was a constant unraveling and finding new information and new history. One piece of information would lead to another.”

Among the interview subjects in the film is Kasztner’s assassin, Ze’ev Eckstein, and Kaszter’s daughter, Zsuzsi, now an Israeli journalist. Eckstein — who was convicted and spent seven years in prison for the murder before being released — was candid in his description of the killing, yet more evasive on other topics.

“He still had areas where he felt that he couldn’t reveal, and I think he points to things that are still questions about the murder and about who was behind the murder,” Ross said. “But he’s very candid, especially about how he became the one who ended up committing the murder. He says in an extremely articulate way what a stupid young person he was, and the awareness the he was just a player on a much larger board.”

Ross found that when talking to people who lived through the Holocaust and who already were familiar with Kasztner’s story, there were still strong divisions about how he should be remembered. But many feelings were firmly entrenched, one way or the other.

As for the filmmaker, Ross said the process of researching and making the film was eye-opening in several ways.

“The revelation that I came away with is what a horrible tragedy this story is for everyone,” Ross said. “It was a tragedy for Kasztner. Everybody shaped in this story ended up under the shadow of what happened in Israel after the Holocaust, and the bitterness and the guilt and the blame. Yes, lives were saved, and that’s not a tragedy, but what was under this cloud for 50 years certainly was.”

Killing Kasztner is now playing at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas.

TODD JORGENSON can be reached at 940-566-6871. His e-mail address is tjorgenson@dentonrc.com.