Carl Lutz Memorial - Budapest, Hungary
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 47° 29.852 E 019° 03.617
34T E 353909 N 5262278
This memorial statue is dedicated to Carl Lutz, the Swiss Vice Consul based in Budapest during the war and others who saved thousands of Jews from deportation and possible execution.
Waymark Code: WMKVVN
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Date Posted: 06/01/2014
Views: 5
The memorial is in two parts and shows one figure high on the wall reaching down to give aid to another figure lying on the floor.
The figures are next to a tree, and they are connected by a column between tehm. From the distance the column appears to be the trunk of a tree similar to the one it stands next to. However it is actually a roll of cloth. The figure on the floor is wrapped in a similar cloth, and has one of their arms raised, reaching out for their rescuer.
"Carl Lutz had served as the Swiss Vice Consul in Jaffa, in what was then Palestine from 1934 until 1942. In 1942 he moved to Budapest andsoon began cooperating with the Jewish Agency for Palestine. He issued Swiss safe-conduct documents that enabled almost 10,000 Hungarian Jewish children to emigrate.
Once the Nazis took over Budapest in 1944, they began deporting Jews to the death camps. Lutz negotiated a special deal with the Hungarian government and the Nazis. He gained permission to issue protective letters to 8,000 Hungarian Jews for emigration to Palestine. He actually interpreted that the permission was for 8,000 families rather than individuals and so ended up saving tens of thousands of people.
In 1965, Lutz was the first Swiss national named to the list of "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem, the Jewish people's memorial to the Holocaust.
This memorial was erected in 1991 at the entrance to the old Budapest ghetto. It has a plaque on the floor in Hungarian and on the wall in English. The plaques contain a quotation from The Talmud, the comprehensive written version of the Jewish oral law and the subsequent commentaries on it.
"AKI EGYETLEN EMBERT IS MEGMENT,
MINTHA EGY EGESZ VILAGOT
MENTENE MEG." (TALMUD)
AZOK EMLEKERE AKIK CARL LUTZ SVAJCI
KONZUL VEZETESEVEL A NACIZMUS
ULDOZOTTEINEK EZREIT MENTETTEK MEG 1944 - BEN
SVAJCI CARL LUTZ BIZOTTSAG
BUDAPEST FOVAROS KOZGYULESE
1991
WHOEVER SAVES A LIFE IS CONSIDERED
AS IF HE HAS SAVED AN ENTIRE WORLD"
/TALMUD/
IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO IN 1944
UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF THE SWISS CONSUL
CARL LUTZ/1895-1975/ RESCUED THOUSANDS
FROM NATIONAL SOCIALIST PERSECUTION.