Holocaust exhibit opens and American Hungarian Foundation Museum

By Sarah Morrison

September 12, 2008

The "Carl Lutz and the Legendary Glass House in Budapest" exhibit opened on Sept. 7 at the American Hungarian Foundation Museum, New Brunswick. The exhibit, open until Sept. 14, features five free-standing kiosks that includes photographs, text, a DVD, and a computer-generated tour of the famous safe house in Budapest.

Dr. Randolph L. Braham, professor emeritus of political science at the Graduate Center of City University of New York and director of the Graduate Center's Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, delivered a lecture at the exhibit's opening about diplomat heroes who rescued Jews in the Holocaust. Braham spoke specifically about Carl Lutz, Swiss Vice-Consul who hid over 3,000 Jews from 1942 to 1945 in Budapest. He established 76 Swiss safe houses throughout Budapest, the most famous being the Glass House, on which the museum's exhibit is based. The old industrial building provided refuge for over 3,000 people over the three years it functioned as a safe house.

Braham spent his speech dispelling rumors of rescue and bravery that came out of Hungary. He said, "If every story of rescue from Hungary was true, more Jews would have been saved than there were Jews in the country." Braham focused on the heroic efforts of Carl Lutz, who saved tens of thousands of Jews from certain death.

Although Nazi Germany did not invade Hungary until March of 1944, the anti-Jewish laws were in effect for years prior because of Hungary's alliance with Germany in the fight against Russia starting in 1941. When Hitler broke the alliance and invaded Hungary, all Jewish organizations were dissolved and Jews had to begin to wear the yellow star.

Almost immediately after the takeover, the Nazis began to deport the Jewish population, who originally did not believe they would meet the same fate as Polish Jews, to German death camps. When the deportation began, Braham noted, Lutz took action and immediately negotiated a deal with the Nazis and the Hungarian government. Lutz was granted permission to issue protective letters to 8,000 Jews and grant them emigration to then Palestine, but it was only granted on condition that the rest of the Jews in Hungary be deported. Lutz agreed, and he deliberately misinterpreted the permission he was granted from 8,000 individual letters to 8,000 families, granting thousands of more letters to anxiously waiting families.

In addition to Lutz's protective letters, he established a safe house called the Glass House on Vadasz Street 29 in Budapest. He annexed this house as official Swiss property, sheltering the Jews in it from Nazi harm. This former warehouse turned safe house and its neighboring building shielded around 3,000 Jews during the last stages of World War II.

More than 70 additional houses of refuge were added alongside the Glass House, the Swiss diplomat extending the official Swiss property lines to accommodate for all of these houses as well. It is estimated that Lutz saved 62,000 Jews out of the 124,000 total surviving Hungarian Jewish people. One man used his diplomatic power to save half of Hungarian Jewry.

Lutz's heroic achievements were not recognized by Switzerland until 1958; there were so many rules broken to save the Jews that the Swiss government was unsure of what to do with him. Early on, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, recognized him as one of the Righteous Among The Nations, but his story was unheard of for years.

Braham has authored 60 books on the Holocaust and he is frequently used as a major source of information for courts of law around the world regarding restitution and war crimes. At the opening of the exhibit, Braham was presented with the Abraham Lincoln Award on behalf of the American Hungarian Foundation for his work in the field of the Holocaust in Hungary.

The lecture Braham delivered was one in a series sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of Central New Jersey and The Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County. Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11-4; Sunday, 1-5. Five-dollar donations are suggested.