On Dob-utca, near the great Dohany Synagogue of Budapest, stands the monument in honor of Consul Carl (Charles) Lutz. It depicts a man, lying on the ground, calling for help, and an angel coming to his aid.
Who is Carl Lutz?
He is the unsung rescue hero of Budapest’s Jews.
From 1942 to 1945 be was in charge of the foreign interests section in the Swiss Legation in Budapest, representing many countries, including the U.S. and the United Kingdom, which were then at war with Hungary.
From the day he arrived in Hungary, he took a benevolent interest in the situation of the persecuted Jews. One of his first steps in this respect was to recognize as American citizens, persons who could produce letters by American friends or relatives confirming that efforts were being made to get them entry visas into the U.S.
After the occupation of Hungary by the Germans, he negotiated with Eichmann and other German representatives to permit the emigration of persons who were in possession of Palestine immigration certificates. In his efforts to help Jews. he intervened with the Hungarian authorities and collaborated with Freiderich Born, the representative of the International Red Cross and with Raoul Wallenberg, after the latter arrived in Budapest.
Lutz provided holders of Palestine certificates with documents certifying that they had been “entered in a Swiss collective passport for purposes of emigration.”
These documents which created the impression that their holders were Swiss nationals formed the basis for the foreign safe-conduct passports (Schutzpasse) that were later issued by Lutz and other neutral embassies.
Lutz was the first foreign diplomat to wrest from the Hungarian Nazi leader, Ferencz Szalasi — who seized power on October 1944 — the promise to recognize safe-conduct passports of his country and to respect the extraterritoriality of its buildings.
When the Szalasi government made preparations for the resumption of the deportations of Jews, Lutz began issuing many thousands of safe-conduct documents. His chief aides were members of the Zionist Youth movements. Leaders and hundreds of members of the Zionist Youth movements found refuge and protection in the building of the Swiss Legation on Vadasz Street. They assisted Lutz in various capacities in his rescue activities. Lutz was also able to secure the release of people from Labor camps by claiming that they were needed for work at the Legation. Besides these people, a relatively large number of Jews who were involved in Lutz’s rescue efforts were officially employed by the Legation.
Though the Hungarian governemnt had limited the Swiss Legation to issuing only 7800 safe-conduct documents, Lutz distributed many times this number.
It is from their base in Vadasz Street that the Zionist youth movements staged their own daring actions to save Jews from the Arrow Cross thugs.
Despite the promise of the Salaszi government. Arrow Cross troopers broke into buildings protected by Foreign Embassies and arrested and killed Jews on possession of safe-conducts documents. (Zsigmund Platschek, the father of Andor Weiss, executive vice president of the Emanuel Foundation was killed by Arrow Cross men while he was searching for Jews to provide them with Swiss safe-conduct passports. Platschek himself carried a certificate that he was employed by the Swiss Legation.) Consul Lutz and his wife Gertrude, at great personal risk, protested against these personal breaches of the Szalasi government’s promises.
When the Russians entered Budapest early in 1945. there were about 124,000 Jews in the city. 46,500 of these had been protected by the Swiss Legation. 21,500 of the 46500 resided until the liberation of Budapest in buildings of the Swiss Legation or in houses protected by the Legation.
(Continued next week)
The Jewish Press, Friday, September 2, 1994
(Conclusion)
Raoul Wallenberg was sent to Budapest by the Swedish Foreign Minister- to help Hungary’s Jews. Carl Lutz acted on his own, without his country’s consent. After his return to Switzerland, he submitted a report to the Swiss government about his activities. For years he waited in vain for a reply. The government, apparently had no desire to occupy itself with Lutz’s “illegal” activities to save human lives. Lutz’s actions were “unauthorized.” He didn’t ask his government’s permission which he wouldn’t have received anyway.
Only in 1958 were Lutz’s rescue operations “officially recognized” in Switzerland.
On March 6 of that year, the Staenderat — one of Switzerland’s two legislative chambers — discussed the Swiss government’s refugee policy before and during World War II. During this session, Dr. Markus Feldman, one of the deputies, spoke about and cited from Lutz’s report about his rescue activities in Budapest which, until then had been ignored by the Swiss government.
Lutz died in 1975 at the age of 80. Several years before his death, he was recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize by the Center for Victims of Political Persecution, situated at Scheffau, Bavaria, for his contribution to the rescue of more than 50,000 Jews from Nazi persecution in Budapest The recommendation was supported by the World Jewish Congress and the International League of Human Rights.
A street in Haifa has been named for him. In 1977 Gertrude Lutz planted a tree in his memory in the “Grove of the Righteous Gentiles” in Yad Vashem.
In 1986 there appeared in Switzerland a large book in German about Lutz, which depicts in great detail his life, his views, his rescue activities, the part played by the Zionist youth movements, and their historical background The well-documented and richly illustrated volume was written by Alexander Grossman, a Zionist leader, who was prominently associated with
Lutz’s rescue efforts and who remained a close friend of his until Lutz’s death. Much of the information about Lutz presented in this column is based on Grossman’s comprehensive work.
In his book, Grossman describes his talks with Lutz. Lutz sharply criticized the Western nations for
not having come to the aid of the Jews before and during the war. He was ashamed of his country’s refugee
policy. Switzerland admitted large numbers of Jewish refugees, but it closed its borders to many, many other
Jews who were fleeing death. Paul Grueninger, a commander of the Swiss border guard, who admitted fugitives, in defiance of his government’s orders, was promptly fired! Many years later, Grueninger, who is believed to have saved about 2,000 persons was “morally rehabilitated” but his pension was never reinstated.
Lutz wrote: “Since my return from Budapest, I have the feeling that two different persons live within
me. One is my true ego. A humane Swiss person, who is often ashamed of being Swiss. The other “I” is the diplomat, who is condemned to remain silent; a coward, who carries out his orders with Swiss precision, without a murmur or grumble, and who watches out not to cause displeasure to his superiors.
“In Budapest I knew no fear. The humanist in me held sway. I acted in accordance with my convictions,
without asking Bern or getting support from there.”
The Jewish delegates from abroad, who attended last July’s memorial assembly — arranged by the Emanuel Foundation and Budapest’s city authorities — on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the destruction of Hungarian Jewry, visited the monument in honor of Carl Lutz and paid homage to this unsung rescue hero.
Dr. Ervin Farkas, editor of the New York-based Hungarian-Jewish monthly Figyelo (Observer), spoke to his fellow delegates about Lutz’s rescue activities, with which he was personally associated. He stressed that Lutz was the first foreign diplomat to provide Jews with safe-conduct papers. He also spoke about his late father Miklos, who was in possession of Swiss safe-conduct papers and resided in a Swiss-protected building in Budapest’s “international ghetto ”
The Arrow Cross men broke into the house and arrested him They released him when the Russians were about to enter the city, but shot after him and wounded him.
The Jewish Press, Friday, Sept. 9, 1994