Steven Tyas posted excerpts from these two depositions:
Fn 1: deposition, Dieter Wisliceny, 26.7.1946, Yad Vashem Archives, TR 3/129
Fn 2: affidavit, Endre Steiner, 6.2.1946, Yad Vashem Archives, TR 3/281
The problem is that at present we have no background to the two depositions. What we need to know, for the purpose of assessing the historical value of thew depositions, is the circumstances under which they were made. For example, who were the depositions made to? Who was interrogating Wisliceny, and who was interrogating Steiner? Were they being interrogated by the same person or authority, or by entirely different authorities?
I find it noteworthy that Endre Steiner gave his deposition before Wisliceny; his was given in February 1946, Wisliceny's not until six months later, in July 1946. That raises the possibility that Wisliceny's deposition was linked somehow to Steiner's previous deposition, ie he was interrogated on the basis of Steiner's deposition and asked to confirm it.
Unfortunately, we have no information on who Steiner was, all that is stated is that he was the Jewish representative in negotiations held with Wisliceny at the end of 1942 on the possible release of Jewish children from Slovakia, Hungary and Poland and their transport to Palestine. The material quoted by Tyas suggests that Steiner was the representative in Pressburg ( = Bratislava, then and now the capital of Slovakia) of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
As a representative of the Joint, was Steiner under the protection of the United States? What happened to him after the 1942 negotiations with Wisliceny? Did he go to the United States? Did he go to Palestine? The answers to those questions are crucial for the circumstances in which he made his deposition in February 1946.
It needs to be borne in mind that Steiner appears to have had no personal knowledge of Haj Amin al-Husayni, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, in 1942 a refugee in Germany under the protection of the German Government. In his deposition, Steiner merely makes statements about Al-Husayni that he claims Wisliceny made to him. That deposition therefore has very little value as a historical source, since it is hearsay.
The most important claim made in Steiner's deposition is that Wisliceny had told him that (my translation from the German quoted by Tyas):
"The Mufti was an implacable arch-enemy of the Jews and was also from time immemorial the protagonist of the idea of exterminating the Jews".
Quite a serious accusation! Steiner is implying that Al-Husayni was one of the main instigators of the million-fold massacre of East European Jewry that had been perpetrated only a couple of years previously.
The political circumstances in which Steiner made his deposition are crucial. At that time, in February 1946, the Zionists were preparing for the forthcoming conflict with the Palestinian Arabs over control of the territory of Palestine; they were already in conflict with the British Mandatory Power, for the purpose of forcing it to give up its control over the country.
Accordingly, it was very much in the interest of the Zionist leadership to portray Al-Husayni, who before the war had been the leader of the Palestinian Arabs in their struggle agains both the British and the Zionists, as bearing guilt for the massacre of the Jews of Europe. Steiner's statement about what Wisliceny allegedly told him might then be interpreted as propaganda in support of Zionist objectives.
It is for that reason that the circumstances surrounding Steiner's deposition are crucial to its evaluation. Did he make the deposition to Zionist authorities, or to authorities sympathetic to the Zionist cause?
Steiner's deposition of February 1946 appears to receive support from Wisliceny's deposition of July of that same year, in which it is stated that Himmler's cancellation of the deal for the release of the Jewish children was due to pressure from Al-Husayni. But it may well be that Wisliceny was questioned on the basis of Steiner's earlier deposition, and his interrogators wanted him to endorse Steiner's claim about Al-Husayni.
It is noteworthy that Wisliceny does not claim to have direct knowledge of the alleged intervention by Al-Husayni; he merely cdlaims that he was told about it by Eichmann. So Steiner claims Wisliceny told him something about Al-Husayni, and Wisliceny then says that that something was something he was told by Eichmann. It is all hearsay.
It is for the above reasons that we need to know the precise circumstances of the depositions by Steiner and Wisliceny. In the absence of such knowledge, not much value can be assigned to the two depositions in regard to Al-Husayni.