The deeds of the diplomatic rescuers during the Holocaust can be used as an outstanding educational tool. Their category of “extreme cases” makes them a unique source of learning.

Hundreds of men and women who worked in foreign services careers helped the victims of Nazi persecution, while putting their own lives and the lives of their families in great danger. Most of the time, they were also disobeying the orders of their superiors.

March 30 is the anniversary of the birth of Carl Lutz (1895-1975), a member of a devout Christian family and the first neutral diplomat in Budapest to rescue Jews condemned to death by the Nazis. He was vice consul of the Swiss diplomatic mission from 1942 to 1945 and the creator of the “Schutzbrief” or “Letter of Protection” for Jewish refugees. The same strategy was later used by Raoul Wallenberg between July 1944 and January 1945.

In tough negotiations with the Nazis, Lutz got permission to issue protective letters to 8,000 Hungarian Jews allowing them to immigrate to Palestine. Using deception, he and his staff issued thousands of additional protective letters.

By 1943, in collaboration with the Jewish Agency in Palestine, Lutz had helped 10,000 children and young Jews to immigrate to the land that in 1948 would become the State of Israel. He also established 76 protective houses for Jews and continued rescuing them from deportation centers and death marches.

After the WWII he was doomed to oblivion for disobeying exact instructions from the Foreign Ministry not to engage in the “Jewish problem.” In fact the Swiss government prevented progress in Lutz’s diplomatic career. According to his daughter, Agnes Hirschi, Lutz was declared persona non grata after the war.

“Over twenty years after his death the Swiss government acknowledged the actions of my father by issuing a stamp in his honor,” said Hirschi, for whom the recognition, besides being small, came too late.

The third monument to Lutz in the Hungarian capital, the plaque is mounted on the Glass House, which the diplomat helped set up to handle Jews emigrating to Palestine.

Lutz, who was the consul in charge of foreign interests and visas at the Swiss Embassy between 1942 and 1945, issued tens of thousands of protective letters for Hungarian Jews, which were reluctantly recognised by the Nazis.

He also established 76 Swiss safe houses throughout Budapest and, with the help of his wife Gertrud, liberated Jews from deportation centres and death marches.

The issue of protective letters was subsequently adopted by representatives of other neutral governments in Budapest such as Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden.

”I am very proud of my father and wish he was here today,” said Lutz’s stepdaughter, Agnes Hirschi, who attended Wednesday’s ceremony.

”He always wanted to come back to Hungary because the Glass House had been the centre of his work,” she said.

”I’m alive”

Also present was a 75-year-old woman saved by Lutz. ”I have mixed feelings about being here today,” Zsofia Zoltan said, adding she had one good memory to hold on to, ”and that’s that I’m alive.”

A rabbi said during the ceremony that the plaque was not only to remember Lutz, who died in 1975, but also ”to remember that we have to take action and speak out”.

Around 550,000 of Hungary’s 800,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

Lutz’ heroic efforts have been recognised by the Swiss government and he has been honoured by Israel, where he was given the title, ”Righteous Among the Nations” at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

A street has been named after him in the Israeli town of Haifa, and in his Swiss home town of Walzenhausen.

Since 1991, there has been a Lutz memorial at the entrance to the old Budapest ghetto. Another sculpture dedicated to the diplomat stands close to the synagogue in the same area.

CONTEXT

In the last months of the war, the Nazi regime tried to eliminate the whole Jewish community of German-occupied Hungary.

Lutz negotiated permission to issue protective letters to 8,000 Hungarian Jews for emigration to Palestine. He later interpreted the 8,000 not as individuals but as families, and then issued tens of thousands of additional protective letters.

Thanks to diplomats like Lutz and Raoul Wallenberg, nearly 124,000 Hungarian Jews survived.

Prior to his Budapest posting, Lutz served as Swiss consul in Palestine between 1935-1940, where he intervened on behalf of Germans in prison or threatened with deportation.

It is believed the Nazi authorities in Budapest were aware of his actions in Palestine, affording him greater leeway with Hungary’s Jewish population.

New York May 12, 2005,. The life and deeds of Swiss Righteous Carl Lutz, a diplomat saved 62,000 Jews in Budapest in 1944 were celebrated at Park East Synagogue, with over 200 diplomats, survivors and other guests.

Mrs. Agnes Hirschi, Lutz’s daughter, who came from Switzerland especially for the occasion. Jewish leaders and Diplomatic Representatives of Switzerland, Hungary, Belgium, Sweden, Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil and Ecuador, among many others, were among the guests. Several Holocaust Survivors saved by Carl Lutz were present, including Mr. Michael Vertes who shared his memories of Budapest with the audience. Andrew Simon and Michael Furst, who used to live in the same Swiss protected house reunited during the commemoration after years of not knowing anything about each other.

Rabbi Uri Goldstein, of Park East Synagogue, opened the celebration with a reading from the book ”Time for heroes”. Raymond Loretan, Consul General of Switzerland, gave a historical overview of Carl Lutz’s deeds and of the role of Switzerland. Official Switzerland did not acknowledge Lutz’s valor for many years. Carl Lutz was accused to having exceeded his competence, and he even had problems in continuing his diplomatic career. ”But today the Swiss have done their homework” the consul said. He continued encouraging people to be brave and think the way Carl Lutz did: ”keep our mind open looking for new solutions” and he named Lutz as an idol for the future.

During the Music Intermezzo, Liszt Funerals played by pianist Sebastian Forster, the guests had time to ponder upon the harrowing words from Mrs. Agnes Hirschi who has given some personal insights of her memories to her father and the horror of WWII. Abigail Tenembaum, Vice President of the international Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, announced a new educational program to teach Carl Lutz’s legacy in schools him to be implemented by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation and a campaign to name schools, streets and public spaces after.

Mr. Michael Vertes seemed to speak for all the others attending survivors and their children and grandchildren. He was telling how it is to live a life that has been affected forever by such a heroic deed.

An exhibition on Carl Lutz provided by Pro Helvetia, Arts Council of Switzerland, was on display during the ceremony. Carl Lutz helped 62,000 Jews to survive. In his function as chief of the Swiss Legation’s Department of Foreign Interests in Budapest, he issued tens of thousands of ”protection letters” and offered many Jewish refugees a shelter in houses under Swiss Protection. As an engaged Christian, Carl Lutz felt he had to protect these people. Between May 15 and July 9 1944, Hungarian Jews from the countryside were deported, of them 437,402 people died in Auschwitz. For more information on Carl Lutz’s heroic deeds, please visit our Carl Lutz section.

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation is a non-profit organization, aimed at promoting peace among nations and people, as well as developing educational projects based on concepts of solidarity, dialogue and understanding while rendering homage, promoting the message and remembering the actions of all those Heroes of the Holocaust, who like Raoul Wallenberg, risked their lives to save persecuted people during World War II.

Carl Lutz’s 30th Anniversary of Death Commemoration
Park East Synagogue
May 11, 2005

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Carl Lutz was the first Swiss national elevated to the rank of Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem. So, we are privileged to honour him on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his death.

Let me first welcome and thank Mrs Agnes Hirschi, both his daughter, and the guardian of Carl Lutz’s legacy of courage and heroism. I also thank the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation and the Park East Synagogue for organizing this commemoration, together with my Consulate General.

Federal Councillor, and former President of Switzerland Joseph Deiss, who is also member of the Wallenberg Foundation Honorary Board, ask me to convey to you his endorsement for today’s ceremony and to empress on his behalf his feelings of deep gratitude and admiration for the great deeds of Carl Lutz.

Let me make three points:

1. Carl Lutz was a hero!

He started his diplomatic career in 1923, at age 28, in Washington. From what I have read and heard about him, he was hardly a typical civil servant. Rather, Lutz was an unusually gifted, quite religious and sensitive man who often was at loggerheads with the Swiss federal administration.

In 1935, he strongly fought the Foreign Ministry’s intention to transfer him to the Swiss Consulate in Jaffa, Palestine, but he was without success.

Yet in the end, that posting to a politically tense region prepared Carl Lutz well for the difficult and crucial work that, many years later, would make him a Righteous diplomat.

Late in 1941, the Swiss Foreign Ministry reassigned him from the Near East to the Legation (or Embassy, as we now call it) in Budapest, where he was put in charge of the Foreign Interest Section. Because only a few countries still maintained diplomatic relations with Hungary, Lutz had an important diplomatic task. In 1942, the Swiss Legation represented the interests of no fewer than 12 other countries, including USA, the UK and Egypt.

Having served in the British-administered Palestine, Carl Lutz was of course well acquainted with the controversy of Jewish immigration into that part of the world. As long as the Hungarian government was still in control of state affairs (i.e., until mid-March 1944), the country’s Jews were able to obtain emigration certificates to Palestine. Vice-Consul Lutz, in his capacity as protector of British Interests, cooperated with the Hungarian authorities on an ”orderly departure program,” as we call it today.

For two years, his efforts were so successful, that, week after week, 50 to 100 individuals, mostly young people and children, obtained exit permits to leave for Palestine. According to the records of the Swiss Federal Archives, Lutz helped around 10′000 people leave Hungary prior to March 1944.

When the Germans occupied Hungary in mid-March 1944, the Hungarian Jewry faced a dramatically worsened situation. At that time, Adolf Eichmann began to implement Hitler’s ”Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” meaning immediate suspension of all emigration, and massive and barbarous relocations to concentration camps, particularly to the extermination camp at Auschwitz, Poland.

In this extreme situation, Carl Lutz showed his real metal. At his urging, the Swiss Legation protested strongly against the one-sided cancellation of the Jews’ right to emigrate, which had, after all, been based on international agreements signed by Hungary. Reacting to this protestation, the German authorities agreed to allow a final 8000 Jews, who were registered with the Swiss Legation, to leave the country. Without telling anybody, Lutz also issued tens of thousands of letters of protection, ensuring that many more than the original 8,000 remained alive and were not deported. Acting without a mandate from the Swiss government, he clearly realized that in challenging Nazi power so directly, he was taking enormous risks, both personally and for his country.

Tragically, Lutz and the other diplomats from other neutral states in Budapest were ultimately powerless against the deportation of about 350,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz between mid-May and early July 1944.

These deportations were stopped temporarily by the order of Admiral Horthy, the Hungarian Regent, who briefly yielded to international pressure. Consul Lutz wisely used this short, quiet interval in mid-1944 to increase his protection of Jews, placing some 30,000 holders of letters of protection in 76 protective houses, for which he obtained diplomatic immunity. This unprecedented initiative was to be copied by other diplomats, including Raul Wallenberg.

But notwithstanding these efforts, the tragedy of Hungarian Jewry entered its final stage when the Red Army crossed the country’s eastern frontier, at which point the German occupation authorities installed a new puppet government.

Undaunted by these events, Carl Lutz continued to physically free kidnapped holders of protection letters from the hands of the police and to defend protective houses. Engaging in these activities, he and his wife were in danger of being put to death more than once. Fortunately, during this dangerous final period of Nazi rule in Budapest, Lutz was no longer alone. He was now able to count on the cooperation of, among others, Angelo Rotta from the Apostolic Nuncio, Friedrich Born, a fellow Swiss, from the ICRC, and Raul Wallenberg from Sweden, who had arrived in July 1944 to invigorate the Swedish rescue efforts.

Simon Wiesenthal, who had met Carl Lutz in the early 1960s, said about these diplomats: ”This was a remarkable and mutually supportive team which attracted Hungarians who were ashamed of what their country was doing to the Jews. Together, they saved several thousand Jews who had been deported on foot along the Vienna Road in November 1944. They also saved the inmates of the large Ghetto of Pest in January 1945. This dedicated group, of which Consul Lutz was the leading figure, saved no less than 100,000 Hungarian Jews.”

2. Visiting the past for a better future

After his return to Switzerland in May 1945, Carl Lutz did not receive a hero’s welcome. Rather, to counter sensationalistic newspaper articles accusing the Swiss Legation in Budapest of unprofessional behaviour and because of the capture of two Swiss diplomats by the Red Army, the Foreign Ministry launched an administrative investigation concerning the Legation’s work. Consul Lutz was accused of having exceeded his authority, which, viewed from the perspective of a narrow-minded bureaucrat who had spent the war years in Berne, he certainly had! What we would label today as an ”independent and heroic humanitarian spirit” was qualified in Berne as ”high-handed disobedience”.

The judge heading the investigation ultimately concluded that the Swiss Legation had conducted the affairs of the nation honourably under extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances. He also criticized the government for launching the investigation in the first place, considering it an insult to the persons involved. Although the government did not apologize, Carl Lutz was promoted and given new diplomatic assignments until his mandatory retirement in 1961.

Understandably, the attitude of the Swiss authorities deeply hurt Consul- General Lutz. And in 1995 only, twenty years after his death, the Federal Government officially apologized for its long neglect, declaring Carl Lutz to be one of the outstanding citizens in the nation’s history.

His case shows how difficult it can be for nations to revisit their past. Today, we can affirm that the Swiss have done their homework, and so we have a clearer picture of what happened, both good and bad, during World War II. On December 10, 1999, a team of nine international historians (1) ppointed by the Swiss Government (2), headed by Switzerland’s Jean- Francois Bergier, issued a 10′000-page report (3) that included an analysis of Swiss refugee policy during the Nazi years. Bergier and his colleagues concluded that Switzerland, like many other countries, had its shortcomings in responding to the Nazi threat (4).

This quite unique national process of introspection was painful. Even for the post-war generations, it was difficult to face the facts (5). But this process was necessary and ultimately salutary. Today, in addition to participating in the ”devoir de mémoire” (duty or responsibility of memory), we want to actively contribute to the fight against racism and anti-Semitism. Besides establishing ten years ago its own Federal Commission against Racism (6), Switzerland has been actively supporting all effective means to fight intolerance, discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism (7) in conjunction with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In this context, the Swiss government recently gained full membership in the Task Force for Cooperation on Holocaust Education,Remembrance and Research.

The fight against anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia is a central duty of a democratic state and so, Switzerland is committed to pursuing its efforts on Holocaust education.

By decree8 of the Swiss Government in June 2001, CHF 15 million (around $15 million) was allocated to support teaching and other projects aimed at fighting anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia. Each year, from 2001 to 2005, institutions and individuals have been invited to submit projects related to these topics, while a special administrative unit within the Department of Home Affairs was created to coordinate these efforts9. A few months ago, the government has decided that these efforts should be pursued for the next five years In addition, the Swiss people voted in favor of a special provision in our criminal law to forbid anti-Semitic texts or speeches, and to allow for suing their authors. Finally, Swiss schools are starting to celebrate Holocaust Memorial Day each year on January 27, the anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation, with special teachings about these terrible days.

All of these efforts are lights of hope combating the darkness of evil and destruction. As we saw during the last worldwide conflict, many lights, of hope – true acts of bravery and heroism – are often anonymous. Carl Lutz was one of these lights, and one of the brightest.

3. Carl Lutz as Role model for the Future

What does the life of man like Carl Lutz teach us for the future? We can learn much.

One lesson is never to be fatalistic about, or resigned to, even the most terrible situation. Even in a dangerous wartime context, it was possible for courageous men like Lutz to struggle against evil. His story reminds us that there is always something humanitarian you can do and that there is no reason to accept any situation as fatalistic, even when you have quite limited means at your disposal against an overwhelming power. His life teaches us that we should always keep our minds open and alert, joking for new tools and solutions to confront unexpected or dramatic situations.

Carl Lutz used his cleverness to transform his limited resources into an arsenal of measures to save many innocent lives. He was always reaching, and sometimes surpassing, the limits of what he ”could” do, and he brilliantly exploited the weaknesses of the German authorities.

Switzerland has old mythic heroes like Wilhelm Tell or Winkelried. It also has modern heroes, such as Carl Lutz, who provide us with compelling examples of courage, pugnacity and creative thinking. He is model of humane behaviour from recent history whose life-saving acts could and should be replicated in many parts of the world torn apart by conflicts.

Great men like Carl Lutz provide us with benchmarks to face the future.

May he, whose unique deeds have become part of world history, inspire all those today and in the future who struggle for racial justice and fight for peace.

1. Son président était Jean-François Bergier. Elle comptait 8 historiens (4 Suisses et 4 étrangers) et un juriste.
2. Si la CIE a été mise sur pied par le Parlement (13.12.1996, vote unanime), ses neuf membres ont été, quant à eux, nommés par le CF (19.12.1996)
3. Le rapport sur les réfugiés contient, outre le rapport proprement dit, 5 annexes, dont une (Sinti, Roma) n’a été publiée qu’en 2000. Au total, il compte plus de 1′000 pages.
4. ”Declined to help people in mortal danger” and that ”by creating additional barriers for them to overcome, Swiss officials helped the Nazi regime achieve its goals, whether intentionally or not.”
5. Other findings included:
• In the summer and fall of 1938, Switzerland urged Germany to stamp the passports of Jews with a blood-red J, making their migration to other countries practically impossible. At an international refugee conference earlier that year, many countries had registered their reluctance to take in Jews for fear of importing anti-Semitism.
• Many Jewish refugees were robbed of their possessions after crossing the border, tortured, beaten and delivered back to German soldiers at the frontier by Swiss police or army personnel.
• In 1941, when Germany deprived its Jews of citizenship, Switzerland followed suit, lifting the Swiss citizenship of German Jews, some of whom had lived in the country for a generation. In doing so, they turned them into stateless refugees.
• In the summer of 1942, when Nazi troops occupied the southern part of Vichy France, sending Jews scrambling for refuge, Switzerland closed its borders and declared Jews non-political refugees who could not be admitted, despite their knowledge of the fate that awaited the Jews. (The panel found evidence that the Swiss knew by 1942 what was happening in concentration camps.)
• The historians found no evidence to back up Swiss claims that Germany had threatened invasion in retribution for their taking in 21,000 refugees or that refugees had been turned away because admitting them would have caused food shortages. Switzerland, they said, could easily have taken in more refugees. The panel found deeply-rooted anti-Semitic attitudes dating back to the turn of the century, and the Swiss naturalization authority’s classification of Jews as ”elements who are difficult to assimilate.”
6. the in order to implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, ratified by Switzerland in 1994. This The Commission deals with racial discrimination, promotes better understanding between persons of different racial backgrounds, colour, national or ethnic origins and religions, combats all forms of direct or indirect racial discrimination and pays particular attention to effective prevention.
7. Highly significant was the holding this year of the OSCE Conference on Anti-Semitism in Berlin, the OSCE Special Meeting on the relationship between racist, xenophobic and Anti-Semitic propaganda on the internet and hate crimes in Paris, and the OSCE Conference on Tolerance and the fight against racism, xenophobia and discrimination in Brussels.

Carl Lutz’s 30th Anniversary of Death Commemoration
Park East Synagogue
May 11, 2005

My name is Michael Vertes. In 1944 in Budapest I was 8 years old and known as Miklos Weisz. I did not personally meet Carl Lutz but I was a beneficiary of his rescue effort and I am forever grateful to him.

I remember that grey day on October 23rd, 1944. Word came around the apartment building that Jews could obtain Swiss protective papers at the so called Glass House which, we learned, was used as Swiss consular offices. My mother quickly dressed me and we walked (no public transport available to Jews) to this building. By the time we arrived the narrow street in front of the building was jam-packed with Jews, all desperately clamoring for protective papers.

This is when we got lucky. A man working for the office stepped out of the building. His name was Mihaly Salamon, a cousin to my father. My mother recognized him and asked him to help us get the protective passes, which he did.

This rescue effort went on with the personal encouragement of Carl Lutz. He documented the scene with his camera, so we know he was nearby. Many years later Mrs. Hirschi, Carl Lutz daughter who is here in this audience, allowed us to look through her personal collection of photographs. In one of the crowd pictures my mother is clearly identifiable and the little 8 year old next to her is now speaking to you.

Our family kept the protective passes after the war. I found them among my mother’s documents when she passed away in 2000. I still have them and I brought along some copies.

Diplomats are not expected to be heroes taking risks. Carl Lutz was compelled by his conscience to use his office beyond its authorized limits at great risk to his career and even at some risk to his personal safety to save total strangers who were subject to persecution. For this he will forever be my hero.

Gertrud Lutz, Wife of Consul Carl Lutz, Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45

Swiss Vice-Consul Carl Lutz was the first neutral diplomat in Budapest to rescue Jews. He is credited with inventing the Schutzbrief (protective letter) for Jewish refugees in Budapest. After March 19th., 1944, the Germans occupied Hungary and the new government of Done Sztojay closed the Hungarian borders to Jewish emigration. In tough negotiations with the Nazis and the Hungarian government Lutz got the permission to issue protective letters to 8,000 Hungarian Jews for emigration to Palestine. Using a ruse and interpreting the 8,000 ”units” not as persons but as families, he and his staff issued tens of thousands of added ”protective letters”, totally about 62,000. Lutz established 76 Swiss safe houses throughout Budapest and liberated Jews from deportation centers and death marches. Already in 1942/43, in co-operation with the Jewish Agency for Palestine, he had helped 10,000 Jewish children and young people to emigrate to Palestine. He is credited with saving 62,000 Jews from the Nazi Holocaust.

When the Germans occupied Hungary on 19 March 1944, persecution of the Jews grew more and more flagrant.

Thousands seeking Lutz’s protection besieged his offices every day. As an engaged Christian, Carl Lutz felt he had to protect these people. At that time he had already helped 10,000 Jewish children and young people to emigrate to Palestine. He cared for refugee Jews who had come to Hungary from many nations and for Hungarian Jews who were within British and Palestine interests.

When deportations to Auschwitz began on 15 May, Lutz decided to place the staff of the Jewish council for Palestine under his diplomatic protection and to rename it the ”Department of Emigration of the Swiss Legation”. A special relief organization had to be created for this stupendous task. With the aid of volunteers, Lutz increased his staff from 15 to 150.

Taking advantage of the fact that neither Hitler’s proconsul in Hungary, Edmund Veesenmayer, nor the Sztojay government had formally challenged the right of 8,000 to emigrate to Palestine, Lutz kept ”negotiating” with the German and Hungarian authorities. In the process he changed his objective. He wanted to save as many Jewish lives as possible.

As a ruse, he and his staff started to issue tens of thousands of added ”protective letters”, even though these were no longer backed by any Palestine certificates. In Order to hide the new approach, Lutz was always careful to repeat numbers one to 8,000 and never to surpass them. Each 1,000 names were grouped together into one Swiss collective passport. This meant that the applicants stood under formal Swiss protection.

As the Hungarian authorities insisted on concentrating all Budapest Jews into one large ghetto, Lutz placed part of the Jews protected by Switzerland – about 30,000 people – in 76 protected houses. The inhabitants of these houses were precariously fed and helped out by the Consul meager financial and material resources. Meanwhile, the young Jewish Chalutzim (pioneers) provided communications within the entire Jewish community and the underground.

In 1941 about 742,800 Jews lived in Hungary. In Budapest, some 124,000 survived the war. Between 15 May and 9 July, 437,402 people died in Auschwitz. Carl Lutz helped 62,000 Jews to survive.

Life Milestones

• (1895) – March 30 Born in Walzenhausen, Canton Appenzell
• (1910-1913) – Apprenticeship and commercial training with a textile company in St. Margrethen, Switzerland.
• (1913) – Emigration to the United States
• (1913-1918) – Worker in Granite City, Illinois, USA
• (1918-1920) – Study at the Central Wesleyan College, Warrenton, Missouri, USA
• (1920) – (June-September):Summer-job as correspondent at Swiss Legation inWashington
• (1920-1926) – Chancellor at Swiss Legation, Washington. Enrolment at George Washington University (law and history)
• (1924) – Bachelor of Arts, Washington University, Washington D.C.
• (1926-1934) – Chancellor, Swiss Consulate, Philadelphia and St. Louis
• (1935-1941) – Vice – Consul at Swiss General Consulate, Jaffa, also responsible for the German interest and the Swiss Consulate, Tel Aviv
• (1942) – (January-April) 1945 Vice- Consul in Budapest, chief of the Department of Foreign Interests of Swiss Legation. During this time he was responsible for saving the lives of more than 62,000 Jews.
• (1945-1954) – Berne and Zurich, section for Foreign Interests if the Federal Political Department
• (1951) – Special Mission for the Lutheran World Federation in Israel in connection with German missions.
• (1961) – C.L. retires from the Consular Service
• (1975) – February 13, 1975, deceased in Bern

My name is Agnes Rosner Grossinger, and I am an 80 year old survivor from Budapest, thanks to the effort of Raoul Wallenberg and in my case of Dr. Charles Lutz, whose ”Shutzpass” saved not only my own life but my parents too; My father Rosner Izidor and my mother Rosner Szerenke.

After Oct. 15 / 1944 I was drafted in an all female mandatory Labour Camp and sent to SzigetMonostor and SzentEndre from where I was able to escape and returned home to Budapest.

In my absence some friends stationed in Labour Camps in Budapest, visited my parents home finding only my desperate mother, because my father was also sent to a labour camp to Gonyu, not far from Budapest.

They offerred help to my mother and bought her 3 Swiss Schutzpasses, because their whole battalion was under a blanket Shutzpass, and they had access to some more.

My mother and I lived in different Swiss Safe houses, until end of Nov. 1944, when we were able to get refuge to the so called ”Glass House” on Vadasz utca 29, wich was considered like an annex to the Swiss Embassy located on the Dunnapart, wich by that time housed all the other foreign Embassies.

The Glass House gave refuge to about 2000 Jews, mostly young Zionist, who constantly risked their lives, delivering passports, letters news to the people hiding in different safe houses, and living in the ghetto. Through this couriers dressed in ”nyillas” arrowhead uniforms, we found out that my father was brought back from the Austrian border to the ghetto, because of his Schutzpass.

On end of Dec. 1944 the Arrowhead band and the Germans attacked our safe house on Vadasz utca, over powering the guards and got into the building taking out all the people, linening them up on the street facing the Danube. The owner of the building Mr. Arthur Weiss, on his belly got to the telephone and called the Embassy. Dr. Lutz himself with the help of the hungarian army, cut the way out from the street and made the Nyillas and Germans return the people to the building saving them for sure death to be shot directly to the Danube, wich was by this time the method to kill the Jews, not having enough trains for deportation.

I have to thank Dr. Lutz for saving not only my direct family, but most of the Jews of Budapest. I paid tribute to Raoul Wallenberg and Dr. Lutz in my speach last year, when I was an invited guest speaker to the Santa Clara County Supervisors Shoa Memorial Celebration; but mostly I pay tribute in my heart to this men and all the others who had the courage to stand up for us, giving me hope and the will to believe in humanity. May Dr. Lutz memory live for ever.

Agnes Grossinger

I may well be a beneficiary of Carl Lutz’s efforts in Budapest. In 1944, when I was 6 years old, we lived at 32 Wahrmann utca (now Viktor Hugo utca). It was part of the so called International Ghetto, and I believe it was under Swiss protection.

My father had earlier been taken to forced labour camp. Around Christmas, as conditions became worse and the Arrow Cross began to ignore the building’s diplomatic immunity, my mother and I went into a safe house located in a glass factory at 26 Vadàsz utca (no longer there), which had been purchased by the Swiss Embassy, thus Swiss territory. In there were some 1,200 Jews in highly cramped conditions.

My father miraculously escaped from the train which was transporting his forced labour group to concentration camp before it left Hungary. He somehow made his way back to Budapest and joined us at the glass factory. One afternoon, I believe in January, the Arrow Cross violated our diplomatic immunity and entered. They lined us all up, three abreast, on the sidewalk, ordering us to keep our hands up. We (I mean the adults) were convinced they were preparing to march us to the nearby edge of the Danube River where, at this late point in the war, they just lined people up and and shot them into the river. We stood on the sidewalk on Vadàsz utca for some three hours, during which a couple of people were shot for letting their arms drop.

Then two miracles occurred: the first was a silent marchpast of some 20 senior officers of the Budapest city police, expressing their disapproval of what the Arrow Cross were doing; and the second miracle was an air raid which sent the Arrow Cross guys running off in all directions in mortal fear. We all just went back inside.

We were in the glass factory for some 7 weeks, until the early morning of January 18, 1945, when my father happened to be near the main gate shaving and heard unmistakebly Russian conversation. Indeed it came from Soviet soldiers, who had just liberated us. Two hours later, with our bundles packed, we walked, through the eerily quiet streets of a city in ruins, back to our apartment.

Carl Lutz was no doubt responsible for securing both 32 Wahrmann utca and the glass factory.

Andrew Simon

I turned 8 in May 1944 and remember very well the events of that fateful year that began exactly 61 years ago on a Sunday, March 19, 1944, when the Germans invaded Hungary. I was the only child of Tibor and Erzsebet Tarjan, who both perished in the Holocaust.

I don’t know the exact date when my parents began to obtain Swiss schutzpasse, but I clearly remember that my parents had three different versions. As a curious boy, I asked whether I could look at those mysterious papers and found it fascinating that each one was different from the other two in its header and other details. Whether any or all three were forgeries, I’ll never know.

These, I believe, came into the possession of my parents before October 15, 1944, the day Admiral Horthy announced his government’s withdrawal from the war. Of course, all hell broke loose a few hours later when the Arrowcross Party took power and the open season began on Jews in Budapest.

My father was in ”munkaszolgalat” (forced labor for Jews and many left-wing opponents of the regime) at that time, but he was home, perhaps for a short leave, on October 15. We lived in the VII. district at Kiraly utca 31, an apartment building that during the summer of 1944 became one of the Star Houses where Jews, often complete strangers to one another, were crowded into apartments and shared kitchen and bathroom facilities. My parents’ apartment became the home of about a dozen or more people.

During the month of November my mother and one of her friends, Mrs. Jolan Deutsch, who lived in the same apartment building, hired a regular soldier; I think he was an acquaintance of Jolan. This soldier accompanied the four of us, my mother, Jolan, her daughter Trudi, who was about two, and me, to a Swiss protected house at Szent Istvan Park 25, by the Danube, near the Margit Bridge. With the Swiss Schutzpasse, we were assigned to an apartment – I think it was on the 6th floor of that modern building. We had taken some minimal clothing and food with us. The living conditions were awful. I think there were 72 people in the apartment with three rooms and one bathroom, wall-to-wall people during the night. But it seemed to be a safe haven and everyone tried to get along as possible.

As there was no room for the children to play, we were horsing around in the stairway. The only evidence of the Swiss protection I recall was a Swiss flag over the entrance to the building.

At the end of November – I don’t know the exact date — Arrowcrossmen entered the building and ordered all the women who had no children under two years of age to report with their packs behind the building in the courtyard. My mother was among those, whom I last saw from the rear window of that apartment in that ”protected” house. My mother had a brief exchange with Jolan, who eventually arranged for me to leave the building with a gentile military tailor. She and Trudi went into hiding with false papers and survived. My mother was a participant and victim of Eichmann’s death match toward Austria.

After the war, Jolan remarried. Laszlo Farago and his family immigrated to France, where Jolan, Mme. Lucien Farago, died around 2000. Trudi, Mme. Nguyen, died of cancer in 2003. Her younger brother, Andre Farago and Trudi’s daughter, Mme. Nathalie (Nguyen) Bihan, live in France.

While the Swiss papers did not provide much protection for us, I am thankful to Mr. Lutz, the Swiss Consul for my own survival.

The military tailor spent several days trying to place me in an orphanage until he finally was able to leave me at an orphanage operated under the auspices of the Swedish Red Cross at Szent Istvan korut (Boulevard) 29. A few days later my mother’s friend, Anna ”Panni” Kertesz somehow had heard that I was at this orphanage and came to see me. She told me that she and her mother, along with cousins, uncles, aunts and others were all living in a Swiss protected apartment at Tatra utca 4, near the Danube. This was also part of the International Ghetto in Budapest. She told me that if worse came to worst, I should come to her place, but otherwise the orphanage was a better place for a child. becauseone of her cousins was suffering from dysentery in that room she was sharing already with 20 people.

A few more days passed and our director called us into his office one by one and asked whether we had any place to go. I told him about Panni and that evening, after dark, the superintendent let the children out one by one through the front entrance into the boulevard. I was lost and disoriented. A complete stranger stopped me and she began to ask me questions. As I remember, the yellow star had been taken off my coat, but I was carrying all my earthly belongings in a small black suitcase. Eventually she managed to get the address from me and she led me there. It was not very far, perhaps 15 minutes of a walk. The building was closed for the night, but she rang the bell. The building’s superintendent refused to let me in. The lady convinced him to fetch Panni, who then managed to get permission from the superintendent to let me stay for the night. From there on, until our liberation in January 1945 I was hidden in that Swiss protected apartment. The rest of the building was under the protection of the Swedes. Mr. Wallenberg spent time in the next building, although I did not learn that until 40 years later. He left on his fatal visit to the Soviet Army Headquarters from Tatra utca 6.

Panni’s papers were in proper order as far as the Swiss schutzpasse were concerned as her brother, Georg Kertesz, had been residing in Zurich since the early 1930s where he was a violinist and violist in the Tonnehalle Orchestra where he became concert master. He was able to secure valid protective papers for his mother and sister, Panni. After the war, Panni and her mother were able to leave Hungary for Switzerland where Mrs. Kertesz lived with her son until her death in the 1960s. Georg died in Zurich in 2001 at the age of 97. Panni was not given permission to settle in Switzerland and she moved on to England and ran a hotel in the Bayswater area in London for many years. She is now a resident of Frognal House, a retirement community in Sidcup, SE of London, where my wife and I visited her this past week. She is 94 and considering her age, she is well and alert.

Although there are no direct connections to Mr. Lutz in this note, we all owe a tremendous debt to him for his active role in creating the International Ghetto in Budapest where so many of us found temporary or permanent shelter from the Nazis and their Hungarian henchmen.

You may also wish to refer to ”Castles Burning” by the late Magda Denes, who described in that biography the time she had spent in the Uveghaz or Glass House during that period. Her book was published about 10 years ago and received excellent reviews.

Sincerely,

Peter Tarjan