Swiss Diplomats Who Rescued Jews
Marcel Pilet-Golaz, Swiss Foreign Minister, 1944
Marcel Pilet-Golaz, the Swiss Foreign Minister, received authority from the Swiss Federal Council “to offer a temporary refuge in Switzerland to 8,000 Hungarian Jews.” Pilet-Golaz agreed to proceed with the rescue plan under Anglo-American guarantees. Minister Pilet-Golaz was a known pro-Nazi.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 1281 fn 102-103.]
Franz Bischof, Vice Consul in Charge of Swiss Interests in Budapest, 1937-1945
Franz Bischof was actively involved in rescuing Jews along with Carl Lutz in the Swiss Embassy in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45. In addition, Bischof personally hid more than 30 Jews from Nazi deportation and murder.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).]
Leopold Breszlauer, Swiss consular official in Budapest, Hungary, 1944
Swiss consular official Leopold Breszlauer, along with Ladislaus Kluger, issued 300 protective papers to Hungarian Jews. Breszlauer and Kluger produced a report in November 1944 on the death marches from Budapest to Hegyeshalom.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 841.]
Mr. Chauvet, Swiss Legation in Rome, 1943
Mr. Chauvet, of the Swiss legation in Rome, issued Swiss protective letters to Jews and certified that they were French citizens. Eventually, Chauvet expanded his protection to falsely certify that all refugees were French. Chauvet distributed false documents to hundreds of Jews. He worked with the Jewish relief agency Delegazione Assistenze Emigranti Ebrei (Jewish Emigrant Association; Delasem) and Father Marie-Benoit.
[Waagenaar, Sam. The Pope’s Jews. (La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishers, 1974), pp. 394-395, 399.]
René de Weck, Swiss Consul General in Bucharest, Romania, and Amsterdam, 1942-45
In spring 1933, de Weck was appointed Plenipotentiary Minister for Switzerland in Romania, Yugoslavia and Greece, stationed in Bucharest, Romania. In November 1941, as a result of the Nazi persecutions of Jews in Romania, de Weck contacted the Red Cross and urged them to send a special representative to Bucharest to protect Jews who were being murdered. As a result, the ICRC sent two representatives. Working with ICRC representative Carl Kolb in the summer of 1943, de Weck managed to gather more than 2,000 Jewish orphans in Moldavia to prevent their deportation and from being forced into ghettoes. De Weck also managed to protect Hungarian Jews who had sought refuge in Romania and who would otherwise have been murdered. De Weck worked to prevent the Romanian government from harming Jews of Swiss nationality or of those countries whose interests were being represented by Switzerland in Romania.
[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 349-350. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 1231, 1297-1298. Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 109, 198-200, 202, 206-207, 210, 212-213. Vago, Bela. “Political and Diplomatic Activities for the Rescue of the Jews of Northern Transylvania.” Yad Vashem Studies, 6 (1967), p. 161. Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 621. Lavi, T. Rumanian Jewry in World War II: Fight for Survival. (Jerusalem, 1965). Hebrew. Lavi, T. (Ed.). Rumania, Vol. 1. In Pinkas Hakehillot, Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities. (Jerusalem, 1969). Hebrew. Butnaru, I. C. The Silent Holocaust: Romania and its Jews.]
Dr. Harald Feller,* Swiss Minister in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45
Dr. Harald Feller replaced Maximilian Jaeger as head of the Swiss legation in Budapest, Hungary, in 1944. From the beginning of his appointment, Dr. Feller was tireless in his efforts to support Consul Charles Lutz and the rescue of Jews under Swiss protection. Feller worked closely with the other neutral legations in constantly pressuring the Horthy and Sztójay puppet governments to end the persecution and deportations of Jews. He signed a joint protest of the treatment of Jews along with his fellow diplomatic representatives. Feller protected members of the Swedish legation, who were targeted by the Arrow Cross, by giving them false Swiss passports and providing shelter. Toward the end of the war, Feller hid dozens of Jews in the basement of his consular residence in Budapest. In February 1945, the Soviets arrested Feller and sent him to Moscow, along with other Swiss nationals. He was returned to Switzerland in February 1946. Feller received his Righteous Among the Nations award in 1999. He passed away in 2002 in Bern, Switzerland.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 881. Tschuy, Theo. Dangerous Diplomacy. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000). Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 78. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 357-359, 366-368, 383-384, 387-388, 413-414, 416.]
Max Grässli, Consul General for Switzerland in Bratislava, 1942-1944
Max Grässli was the Swiss Consul General in Bratislava in 1942-1944. In 1942, Grässli helped Jewish refugees and managed to save numerous lives “invoking Swiss economic interests, in the widest sense of the term” (Favez, 1999, pp. 196-197). In October 1944, the Swiss Federal Council gave Grässli the job of informing the Slovak government that there would be negative repercussions for their mistreatment of Jews. Grässli demanded that deportations should be suspended and that Red Cross representatives should be allowed to visit the camps. He worked closely with ICRC representative Georges Dunand. They were both engaged in underground activities and hiding Jews in their residences. Grässli left Bratislava in December 1944.
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 196-197.]
Maximillian Jaeger, Swiss Minister in Budapest, 1936-44
In 1936, Jaeger was transferred to Budapest, where Switzerland had set up a legation that same year. He was head of the Swiss mission, and was Carl Lutz’s direct supervisor. Jaeger played an active role in opposing the deportation of Jews by the Nazi and Arrow Cross officials. In particular, he tried to persuade the Nazis from deporting Jews to Auschwitz and to respect the neutrality of the 76 Swiss protected houses. The activities of Minister Jaeger were instrumental in providing Lutz with the necessary conditions for the rescue of Jews in Budapest. Lutz stated that the Minister always allowed him a good deal of freedom of action, and had total confidence in him. Beginning early in the war, Jaeger sent regular reports to the Ministry in Bern regarding the fate of the Jews in Hungary.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 756, 978, 1079. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), p. 227, 276-277, 355. Tschuy, Theo. Dangerous Diplomacy. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000). Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).]
Hans Keller, Consul for Switzerland in Bratislava, Slovakia, and in Czechoslovakia
Hans Keller personally saved more than 25 Jews by smuggling them from Bratislava into Switzerland. He did this against the official policy and regulations of Switzerland. Hans Keller was sent to Bratislava in December 1944. He worked with ICRC representative Georges Dunand and helped to hide Jews there. Keller died at the age of 91 in Bern, Switzerland.
[Favez, Jean-Claude. Edited and translated by John and Beryl Fletcher. The Red Cross and the Holocaust. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 196. AG, G 59/2, letter from Dunand of 18 December 1944.]
Ladislaus Kluger, Swiss Consulate, Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45
Ladislaus Kluger was a member of the Swiss consulate in Budapest, Hungary. He participated in the rescue of Jews on the Hegyeshalom death marches.
[Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 86.]
Sigfried Lanz, Switzerland
We have no information on Swiss Consul Lanz. Information was requested from the Swiss Task Force.
Major Lüthi, Swiss military attaché in Helsinki, Finland, 1943
Major Lüthi was the Swiss military attaché in Helsinki, Finland. He sent a report to officials in Bern on the murder of 16,000 Jews in Eastern Europe. This report was based on the confession of a perpetrator who was involved in the murder. The individual described both mass shootings and the murder of Jews by “asphyxiation with carbon monoxide gas.” The report also mentioned a high-ranking German officer who confirmed the reports of mass execution. This report was suppressed by Swiss officials and not acted upon.
[Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 620-621.]
Charles “Carl” Lutz,* Consul for Switzerland in Budapest, Hungary, 1942-45, and Gertrud Lutz,* Wife of Consul Carl Lutz, Budapest, Hungary
Carl Lutz (1895-1975) 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 19, 1944, the Germans occupied Hungary and the new government of Döme Sztojay closed the Hungarian borders to Jewish emigration. In tough negotiations with the Nazis and the Hungarian government, Lutz obtained 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 additional “protective letters." He established 76 Swiss safe houses throughout Budapest and, with the help of his wife Gertrud, liberated Jews from deportation centers and death marches. In 1942-43, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Lutz had helped 10,000 Jewish children and young people to emigrate to Palestine. Lutz worked with hundreds of Jewish volunteers who helped him process the protective letters and distribute them throughout Budapest. Lutz was told that as long as he stayed in Budapest, his protectees would survive. He is credited by Jewish relief agencies with saving 62,000 Jews from the Nazi Holocaust. Carl Lutz was made Righteous Among the Nations by Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Authority in 1965. In addition, he has been declared an honorary citizen of the State of Israel. Carl Lutz died in 1975 at the age of 80.
[Tschuy, Theo. Carl Lutz und die Juden von Budapest. (Zurich: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 1995). Tschuy, Theo. Dangerous Diplomacy. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000). Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 840, 849, 899, 978, 979, 1079-1082. Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), pp. 89-90. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 227, 276-277, 282-284, 355, 366-369, 371. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust. (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 189, 194, 197-198, 200, 206, 212. Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 258, 690, 703, 755, 924-925, 1232, 1251, 1444. Lévai, Jenö, translated by Frank Vajda. Raoul Wallenberg: His Remarkable Life, Heroic Battles and the Secret of his Mysterious Disappearance. (Melbourne, 1988, originally published in Hungarian in 1948), p. 163.]
Pio Perucchi, Swiss Consular Officer in Milan, 1938-39
Pio Perucchi was a Swiss consular official stationed in Milan in 1938-1939. Perucchi and his colleague Candido Porta were responsible for issuing more than 1,600 illegal and unauthorized visas to Jews who had fled Austria after the Anschluss. The two consuls issued visas against the specific regulations and policies of the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police. For his activities, Perucchi was not allowed to continue working at the consulate after March 1939.
[Swiss Federal Archives, Bern, Switzerland. This information was provided by the Swiss Task Force in 2000.]
Candido Porta, Swiss Consular Officer in Milan, 1938-39
Candido Porta was a Swiss consular official stationed in Milan in 1938-1939. Porta and his colleague Pio Perucchi were responsible for issuing more than 1,600 illegal and unauthorized visas to Jews who had fled Austria after the Anschluss. The two consuls issued visas against the specific regulations and policies of the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police. For his activities, Porta was demoted and transferred to a different section.
[Swiss Federal Archives, Bern, Switzerland. This information was provided by the Swiss Task Force in 2000.]
Ernst Prodolliet,* Swiss Consul General in Bregenz, Austria, 1938-39
Ernst Prodolliet was the Swiss Consul in Bregenz, Austria, 1938-1939. He personally issued visas and documents to Jews and accompanied them to the Swiss border to help them escape Austria after the Nazi Anschluss. He worked closely with police captain Paul Grüninger, who allowed the Jews to cross into Switzerland at the border area of St. Gallen. Prodolliet received Israel’s Righteous Among the Nations award in 1982 for his life saving activities.
[Swiss Federal Archives, Bern, Switzerland. This information was provided by the Swiss Task Force in 2000.]
Walter Stucki, Swiss Minister to Vichy France and Acting Director of the Swiss Red Cross in France, 1942-?
Walter Stucki, the Swiss Minister to Vichy France and Acting Director of the Swiss Red Cross, protested the treatment and deportation of French Jews in southern France. He made his protest to the leader of Vichy France, Marshal Phillipe Pétain. Stucki tried to prevent Jewish children from being taken from institutions represented by Swiss charities. Pétain refused to change French policy against Jews.
[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 262. Levin, Nora. The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry, 1933-1945. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1968), pp. 447-448.]
Franz Rudolph von Weiss, Swiss Consul in Cologne, Germany, 1940-41
Swiss Consul in Cologne, Franz Rudolph von Weiss, forwarded a report about the euthanasia program in Germany to the Confederal Political Department (EDP, Foreign Ministry) in 1940. In 1941, von Weiss sent information to the EDP regarding the deportation of Cologne Jews. In 1942, von Weiss sent photographs of the execution of Poles and of the bodies of murdered Jews to Roger Masson of the Swiss Military Information Service. This information was not disseminated outside of government channels. After forwarding the information, von Weiss was criticized by his superiors at the embassy in Berlin as a “defeatist.”
[Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 620-621.]
Ernst Vonrufs,* Acting Representative of Swiss Interests in Budapest, 1945
Ernst Vonrufs was responsible for the rescue of tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest during the final days of the war. Specifically, he was involved in the rescuing of Jews concentrated at the Obuda brickyard. Along with Peter Zürcher, he had been appointed by Consul Carl Lutz to be his assistant. Zürcher and Vonrufs were active between late 1944 and mid-January 1945 in the protection of numerous safe houses and the Glass House on Vadasz street. Zürcher and Vonrufs, along with Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, prevented a planned, last-minute mass murder of the Jews of the Pest ghetto. Vonrufs was awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations in 2000.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 1083. Tschuy, Theo. Dangerous Diplomacy. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000). Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 97. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948).]
Peter Zürcher,* Acting Representative of Swiss Interests in Budapest, 1945
In December 1945, Consul Lutz appointed a Swiss lawyer, Dr. Peter Zürcher, to be his temporary representative in Pest. The nomination of this energetic man was a stroke of extraordinary luck. A few days before the Soviets occupied Pest, Zürcher heard of a plan be the SS to murder the 70,000 inhabitants of the ghetto in a last minute act of genocide. Zürcher, along with Swiss representative Ernst Vonrufs and Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, threatened the SS commander with bringing him to trial for war crimes if he carried out this horrific plan. Their threat worked, and the SS general ordered his troops not to enter the ghetto and even to protect Jews from the fascist Arrow Cross. Because of this heroic action, most of the Jews of the Pest ghetto survived. In addition, Zürcher intervened on behalf of the Jews living in Swiss safe houses in the international ghetto to prevent their murder by the Arrow Cross. He received the Righteous Among the Nations award in 1998.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981). Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 108. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948). Tschuy, Theo. Dangerous Diplomacy. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000).]
Swiss consul in Liége, Belgium
Presently being researched.
Swiss minister in Berlin, Germany
Presently being researched.
Swiss consul in Cologne, Germany
Presently being researched.
Swiss legation in Rome, Italy
Father Marie-Benoit, under the auspices of DELASEM, obtained protective documents for Jews from the Swiss legation in Rome. These documents protected Jews, at least in part, from deportation.
[Chadwick, Owen. “Weizsäcker, the Vatican, and the Jews of Rome.” In Michael Marrus (Ed.), The Nazi Holocaust: Historical Articles on the Destruction of European Jews. (Westport, CT: Meckler, 1989), pp. 1281-1282.]
Swiss diplomat in Trieste, Italy
[See book on Paul Grüninger by Stefan Keller.]
Swiss Legation in Slovakia
The Swiss legation in Slovakia protested the deportations of Jews in September 1944.
[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 448.]
International Red Cross – Swiss Representatives (Partial List)
Jean de Bavier, Swiss International Red Cross, Budapest
Jean de Bavier was a Swiss member of the International Red Cross in Hungary. He supported the activities of the Jewish Welfare Bureau (Pártfogó Iroda). He was replaced by Friedrich Born.
[Ben-Tov, Arieh. Facing the Holocaust in Budapest: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Jews in Hungary, 1943-1945. (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988), pp. 91-141, 167-170.]
Friedrich Born,* Chief Delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross of Switzerland in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45
Friedrich Born was the Chief Delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of Switzerland in Budapest, Hungary. He was sent to Budapest in May 1944. During the period from May 1944 to January 1945, Born issued thousands of Red Cross letters of protection to Jews of Budapest. He and his staff, along with numerous Jewish volunteers, are credited with retrieving thousands of Jews from deportation camps and death marches in and around Budapest. Born provided an additional 4,000 Jews with employment papers, preventing their deportation. He put over 60 Jewish institutions under Red Cross protection and housed over 7,000 Jewish children and orphans. He worked closely with the other neutral diplomatic legations, and set up dozens of Red Cross protected houses. Born’s Red Cross operation is credited with rescuing between 11,000 and 15,000 Jews in Budapest. After the war, he was criticized for overstepping his authority in his rescue activities. A postwar report completely vindicated Born’s actions and forced the Red Cross to reassess its wartime policies. Born died in Switzerland in 1963. Friedrich Born was declared Righteous Among the Nations by Israel in 1987.
[Ben-Tov, Arieh. Facing the Holocaust in Budapest: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Jews in Hungary, 1943-1945. (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988), pp. 139-170.]
Jean-Edouard Friedrich,* International Red Cross in Berlin
Jean-Edouard Friedrich (1912-1999) was a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Berlin. The authority of this delegation, which was established in 1940, extended over all the territories of the Third Reich, including the General Government, as well as the occupied territories, notably the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Friedrich helped a number of Jews enter Switzerland. He obtained papers for a young couple and accompanied them as far as the Swiss border, a story recounted by Lotte Strauss (1997). In Stuttgart, where he was posted, Friedrich escorted a young woman who was to be smuggled into Switzerland. They were spotted by the German police, whereupon Jean-Edouard Friedrich drew their attention and was caught, which allowed the refugees to escape and reach safety. Friedrich was awarded Righteous Among the Nations status in 1999.
Hans Weyermann, Swiss Chargé of the International Red Cross in Budapest, 1944-45
In December 1944, Hans Weyermann, Swiss Chargé of the International Red Cross, arrived in Budapest and was active in the rescue work along with other neutral diplomats. He was successful in keeping Jewish children from being placed in the Pest ghetto.
[Ben-Tov, Arieh. Facing the Holocaust in Budapest: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Jews in Hungary, 1943-1945. (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988), pp. 339-344. Braham, R. L., “The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary.” New York: Columbia University Press, 1981. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), p. 381.]
*Recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Jerusalem, Israel
Updated November 5, 2017