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 subject in 1910 with the help of "haham" Moses Gaster, who asked for papers from Herbert Samuel, the minister. He revered Britain but relentlessly pursued Jewish freedom. Weizmann was head of the Democratic Fraction of Zionism, whose radical aims alienated the London politicals. He was "pre-eminently what the Jewish people call folks-mensch...a man of the people, of the masses, not of a elite, a leader in whose breast beat the common heart of a man". Typically a sturdy yeoman, with a dome-shaped forehead, a short dark beard covering cheeks and jawline. This Belarus man from Motol had attended all but