Károly Szabó

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Károly Szabó (1944)

Károly Szabó (born November 17, 1916 , † October 28, 1964 ) was a Hungarian employee of the Swedish Embassy in Budapest between 1944 and 1945. He was an employee of Raoul Wallenberg , who gained notoriety for his work to rescue Hungarian Jews was active during the Holocaust. Szabó was very valuable because he had special contacts with the police in Budapest.

In preparation for a Stalinist show trial for the death of Raoul Wallenberg in 1953, in which his death should be attributed to a Zionist conspiracy, he was held prisoner and tortured for several months. Szabó then visited some of those he had rescued and died in 1964 after a stroke.

Rescue operations

Swedish Embassy, ​​staff pin by Karoly Szabo
Document of the Hungarian State Archives . Letter to Karoly Szabo with thanks for the rescue of 154 people and the family of eight from Lajos Stöckler President of the Israelite Congregation. The rescue was life-threatening for Karoly Szabo, it says in the text (received from Tibor Farkas Holocaust Museum Melbourne with the archivist's book in the Hungarian State Archives in Szekeres).

The psychoanalyst Otto Fleischmann motivated Károly Szabó to help Raoul Wallenberg's rescue operations. A “disguise” with a leather coat was a deliberate staging as a “secret police” by the psychologist Fleischmann. Károly Szabó was blond, had blue eyes and, through his boy scout friend Pál Szalai, had special connections with the Hungarian police, who provided him with important documents, especially powers of attorney. His reputation in the Jewish community was as the "man in the leather coat". Szabó established the connection from Szalai to Wallenberg.

In Otto Fleischmann's estate there is a report according to which Károly Szabó's first successful action as a “secret police” was to save Otto Fleischmann and Pál Hegedűs in December 1944.

On January 1, 1945, Wallenberg was able to save 80 residents of the house in Révay utca with the help of Szabó.

The heaviest attacks by Arrow Cross commands on houses under the protection of the Swedish Embassy took place on January 8, 1945. About 180 Jews were deported from the house at Jókai utca 1 and shot on the Danube or in the streets of Budapest in the following days . Another raid was on the Üllői út house, a large, multi-storey house in which Wallenberg's office was located and which was home to office workers and Jewish families. The Jewish families living there were taken to a barracks, an underground quarter of the Arrow Cross, between Üllöi út and the banks of the Danube. There the valuables were taken from them. Szabó, who had been informed of this action by an employee of Wallenberg, referred to the Arrow Cross death squad on his police powers and was able to prevent the further implementation of the action. Some eyewitness accounts in the literature speak only of Szabó in this context, others of Szalai and Szabó. Since smaller groups had already been led to the bank of the Danube, Szalai and Szabó drove with other police officers, trucks and police vehicles to the bank of the Danube, where the planned shooting action was ended by the intervention of Szalai and Szabó. Witnesses described Szabó as the "man in the leather coat". Szabó brought the Jewish families back to the house in Üllői út. By intervening in this action, Szalai and Szabó were able to save all threatened Jews.

Among the 154 rescued were Lajos Stöckler and family, Erwin Koranyi and his wife, the Jakobovics family, Edith and Lars Ernster , Jacob Steiner, Eva Löw and Anna Klaber. Lars Ernster later became a chemist, professor and member of the Nobel Committee in Sweden, Jacob Steiner became a biologist and professor at the Hebrew University , Eva Löw and Anna Klaber became doctors in Basel . Jacob Steiner's father could not be saved, he was shot on December 25, 1944 on the banks of the Danube.

Erwin Koranyi described his rescue in a book. Quotes in the book Chronicle of a Life about the rescue on the Danube bank: “The police officers have turned their weapons on the Arrow Cross. One police officer there was Pál Szalai , who cooperated with Raoul Wallenberg, another in a leather coat was Karoly Szabo. I also saw Lajos Stoeckler in our group among those rescued. "

On April 7, 2009, Pál Szalai received the Righteous Among the Nations award for saving the ghetto in Budapest with the help of the German General Gerhard Schmidhuber . Schmidhuber intervened when Soviet troops approached the Budapest ghetto. In advance, Szabó and Szalai had considered what should be done against a planned attack on the ghetto. Some sources go on from the assumption that Szabó was sent by Szalai to Wallenberg and that he received a written communication for Schmidhuber.

1953 secret trial in Hungary

A show trial was to prove that Wallenberg was not deported to the Soviet Union in January 1945. Everything was prepared for a trial with "evidence" of a Zionist conspiracy against Wallenberg. Three people from the leadership of the Central Council of Jews in Budapest, László Benedek, Lajos Stöckler and Miksa Domonkos as well as the two "eyewitnesses" Pál Szalai and Károly Szabó, were arrested. Károly Szabó's arrest on April 8, 1953, came from an ambush on the street. He had disappeared without leaving any traces, and his family had not received any news from him for six months.

Wallenberg had three guests for the last dinner in Budapest, “to say goodbye”: On January 12, 1945, Ottó Fleischmann, Károly Szabó and Pál Szalai appeared at the Swedish Embassy on Gyopár Street. The next day, January 13, 1945, Wallenberg reported to the Russians and was deported to Moscow. Ottó Fleischmann lived in Vienna after the war.

It was a secret trial with no charge and most of the files were later destroyed. The Hungarian journalist Mária Ember did research in Moscow in the early 1990s and organized several publications and a Wallenberg exhibition on the preparations for the trial in Budapest. In a top-level note from Ernő Gerő to Mátyás Rákosi (“Stalin's best student” in Hungary) from March 1, 1953 in the Hungarian National Archives MOL 276.f. 56/184 the “Zionist leadership” of the Central Council of Jews in Hungary was called the “Murderer of Wallenberg”.

After six months of interrogation and torture, the prisoners' health was ruined, mentally desperate and exhausted. The show trial was initiated from Moscow, following on from the trials surrounding the so-called doctors' conspiracy . The preparations in Budapest were broken off not immediately after Stalin's death in March 1953, but only after Lavrenti Beria had been eliminated and liquidated († December 23, 1953). Depending on their state of health, the arrested were released somewhat delayed because of the necessary "restoration". Miksa Domonkos died of torture shortly after his release.

Posthumous awards

Károly Szabó "Righteous"
  • On August 4, 2010, a commemoration of the blessed memory of Károly Szabó took place. Speakers were Szabolcs Szita, Aliza Bin-Noun Ambassador to Israel, John Hóvári Ambassador, and Swiss Joseph National Rabbi retired.
  • On November 12, 2012, he was honored Righteous Among the Nations .
  • On December 6, 2012, a commemorative event was held at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences .
  • On December 16, 2013, a ceremony took place at the European Janusz Korczak Academy in Munich .

literature

  • Christoph Gann: Raoul Wallenberg. Save as many people as you can. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-45356-2 .
  • Andrew Handler: A Man for All Connections. Raoul Wallenberg and the Hungarian State Apparatus, 1944-1945. Praeger, Westport 1996, ISBN 0-275-95214-2 . ( Full text in google book search)
  • Erwin K. Koranyi: Dreams and Tears: Chronicle of a Life. General Store Publishing House, Ontario 2006, ISBN 1-897113-47-1 . ( Full text in google book search)
  • Kati Marton: Wallenberg. Missing Hero. Arcade Publishing, New York 1995, ISBN 1-55970-276-1 . ( Full text in google book search)
  • Danny Smith: Wallenberg. Lost Hero. Templegate Publishers, Springfield 1986, ISBN 0-87243-155-X .
  • József Szekeres: A pesti gettók 1945 januári megmentése: “A magyar Schindler”, Szalai Pál visszaemlékezései és más dokumentumok alapján. Budapest Főváros Levéltára, Budapest 1997, ISBN 963-7323-14-7 .
  • Szita Szabolcs: Üldöztetés - embermentés. Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest 1994, ISBN 963-18-5737-9 .
  • Szita Szabolcs: Magyarország 1944. Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest 1994, ISBN 963-18-5489-2 .
  • Szita Szabolcs: A Gestapo Magyarországon: a terror és a rablás történetéből. Korona, 2002, ISBN 963-9376-56-6 .
  • Mária Ember: Ránk akarták kenni. Héttorony Könyvkiadó, Budapest 1992, ISBN 963-7855-41-6 .

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ on Ottó Fleischmann see Paul Harmat: Freud, Ferenczi and the Hungarian Psychoanalysis. Edition Diskord, Tübingen 1988, ISBN 3-89295-530-1 , p. 271 f.
  2. ↑ Tamas Szabo: Who was the man in the leather coat? (on: amazon.de)
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Christoph Gann: Raoul Wallenberg. Save as many people as you can. Beck, Munich 1999, pp. 132-133, 136, 144-145, 252.
  4. ↑ Karen Linn Femia (Ed.): Otto Fleischmann Papers: A Finding Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress. (pdf, 29 kB) In: Library of Congress. April 2010, accessed on January 17, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c Kati Marton: Wallenberg. Missing Hero. Arcade Publishing, New York 1995, pp. 144/145.
  6. ↑ a b c d Erwin K. Koranyi: Dreams and Tears: Chronicle of a Life. General Store Publishing House, Ontario 2006, pp. 89-90.
  7. ^ Szabo Karoly, de man in het leer. In: Het Vrije Volk . October 11, 1947, ZDB -ID 2026309-0 .
  8. ↑ Karoly Szabo - his role among Wallenberg's supporters 1944–1945. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007 ; Retrieved January 17, 2020 (Hungarian, documents from January 8, 1945 in the Budapest Archives (Hungarian)).
  9. ^ Rachel Oestreicher Bernheim: A Hero for our Time. In: raoulwallenberg.org. 1981, archived from the original on February 6, 2007 ; accessed on January 17, 2020 (English).
  10. ^ Letter from the rescued Jacob Steiner on February 12, 2007 to Tamas Szabo
  11. ^ Erwin K. Koranyi: Dreams and Tears: Chronicle of a Life. General Store Publishing House, 2006, ISBN 1-897113-47-1 , pp. 89-90.
  12. ^ Rachel Oestreicher Bernheim: Israel honors Hungarians who saved Jews. In: CNBC . April 7, 2009, archived from the original on June 11, 2011 ; accessed on January 17, 2020 . Israel posthumously honors 16 Europeans who saved Jews from Nazis. In: Haaretz. April 7, 2009, archived from the original on December 18, 2015 ; accessed on January 17, 2020 (English).
  13. ↑ Klaus Schönherr : "To the last house". In: Welt Online . February 19, 2000, accessed January 17, 2020 .
  14. ↑ József Szekeres: A pesti gettók 1945 januári megmentése: “a magyar Schindler”, Szalai Pál visszaemlékezései és más dokumentumok alapján. Budapest Főváros Levéltára, Budapest 1997, p. 74.
  15. ^ Wallenberg family archives , Email from Marie Dupuy (Marie von Dardel) niece of Raoul Wallenberg to User: Tamas Szabo February 16. 2007.
  16. ↑ Tamás Szabó (Ed.): The “murder” of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. (pdf, 3.6 MB) Budapest, Munich, May 2012, accessed on January 17, 2020 (English).
  17. ^ Mária Ember: Ránk akarták kenni. Héttorony Könyvkiadó, Budapest 1992.
  18. ↑ Tamás Szabó, Károly Szabó: Wallenbergnek segített zsidókat menteni Szabó Károly. (No longer available online.) MTV1 , August 4, 2010, archived from the original on August 6, 2010 ; accessed on January 17, 2020 (Hungarian). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / videotar.mtv.hu
  19. ↑ Szabó Károly. In: The Righteous Among the Nations Database. Retrieved January 17, 2020 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Szabó, Károly
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian employee at the Swedish Embassy in Budapest and employee of Raoul Wallenberg
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1916
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1964