Joel Brand Eugen Band. He cabled the Jewish Agency in Istanbul to say he was on his way, and arrived by German diplomatic plane on 19 May. Paul Rose writes that Brand had no idea at this point that the deportations to Auschwitz had already begun. Brand had been told by the Jewish Agency by return cable that "Chaim" would meet him in Istanbul. Convinced of the importance of his mission, he believed this was Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, later the first president of Israel. In fact the man who had arranged to meet him was Chaim Barlas,
Chaim Weizmann with a chemist who arranged for a quantity of poison to be procured. According to the story, Kovner did not tell Weizmann of his intention to poison millions of Germans via their water supply, but only of the backup plan to poison SS members who were in allied POW camps. The lesser plan was put into operation in April 1946 at Stalag 13. Kovner's story was repeated in 1998 by another Nakam leader Yulik Harmatz. There is no independent evidence for the meeting and some historians doubt it. Kovner's biographer Dina Porat wrote that Weizmann was not in Palestine on