The people who saved George Soros

Elza Brandeisz – movement artist and dance teacher

Elza Brandeisz was born on 18 September 1907 in Budapest. She grew up in a bourgeois family that valued books, knowledge, knowledge and faith. As a young girl, she attended lectures and was interested in many things, but she finally committed herself to movement, Kisalföld.hu wrote in her tribute. The special turn named after her, the Brandeis jump, is still taught at the artistic gymnastics school.

During the Second World War, the Brandeisz family moved to their plot in Balatonalmádi, where Aunt Elza met Mrs. Julia Soros, whose family was persecuted because of their Jewish origin. Júlia was often visited by her teenage son György Soros, who was also hiding in Balatonalmádi. He later lived there for a time. „If the neighbours had been malicious, we would have been finished,” Elza Brandeisz told Kisalföld earlier. Her courage, her act as a Christian man, was recognised by Israel. For her brave stand during the Holocaust. She has also been awarded the „Friend of the Fatherland” and the „Righteous among the nations” awards. The oldest, most respected and beloved citizen of Sopron died in her 111th year.

Her courage and her deeds, worthy of a Christian man, were recognised by Israel.

Ferenc Balázs – House Manager

Dr. Tivadar Soros, a lawyer, doctor and writer, lived in Budapest with his wife and two sons (Pál and György). Besides his practice as a lawyer, Soros also represented two houses. One of the houses, on 15 March Square, was managed by Ferenc Balázs, who moved in with his wife Julia and their two children and ran a shop on the ground floor of the building. A deep friendship developed between the two men as they worked together. After the German occupation, Ferenc Balázs donated his own papers to Tivadar Soros and those of his family members to members of the Soros family. The Soros family thus avoided deportation and harassment. However, the Arrow Cross arrested Soros’ mother-in-law and moved her to the ghetto. Ferenc Balázs escaped, gave her false papers and hid her in a hotel. He also helped the Sorger family, who he hid in their shop downstairs. Ferenc Balázs was awarded the title of Righteous among the nations by Yad Vashem in 2010.

István Szalkay

A cool man with an arrow cross armband

István Szalkay lived in Budapest with his Jewish wife and mother-in-law. He was well known in his circle for his help to Jews, but he was never reported. He and his wife, who was his Aryan partner, took great care of his mother-in-law, but in June 1944 they also took in the Kende family of three.

The Kende’s came from Yugoslavia, where in 1941, during a pogrom, her husband Ernő Kende was murdered. The mother fled to Budapest with her two younger children, while her eldest daughter joined the Yugoslav partisan movement. When the Kende family arrived at the Szalkays’ apartment in the summer of 1944, there were already six of them. In addition to the three Szalkays, three other Jews had fled. After October 1944, the number of refugees rose to seventeen or eighteen. The apartment was extremely crowded, and they did not dare to speak loudly, lest their neighbours discover them.

At this time István Szalkay himself seemingly joined the Arrow Cross, and took part in the raids with an Arrow Cross armband. Of the Jews he captured, he pulled aside those he could and at a careless moment released them or took them to his apartment. In December 1944, he arrested a whole company of labourers, who were already in a wagon train at Józsefváros Railway Station, but he got them out and led them away. They were thus saved from deportation to the German Reich. Many were also rescued from the brick factory in Óbuda, which was a collection point before the death marches. István Szalkay was awarded the title of Righteous among the nations by Yad Vashem in 1985.

He seemingly joined the Arrow Cross

Elisabeth Mészáros – maid

Child of an anti-Semitic family who saves lives

The story of Elisabeth Mészáros is an important example of how a person can make the right choices even though her family was staunchly anti-Semitic. Our hero’s family was so seriously anti-Semitic that in their village of Mohol, following the deportations, they set out to loot the houses of their Jewish neighbours on the basis of lists prepared in advance. Elisabeth also worked as a maid for Jewish families in her youth, and after the German occupation she met the Grosz family in Budapest. Because she peddled dairy products in the capital, she was allowed into many homes. Judit, the Groses’ 20-year-old daughter, was sobbing loudly when Elisabeth came to them. When asked what was the cause of her grief, the young woman replied, „I am a Jew, so I am going to die!” Elizabeth Mészáros felt very sorry for the girl and took her back to her village that very day. A few days later she took her mother, Agnes, with her. She hid both women in her own house, under false names and with false documents. She told neighbours that the two women had fled the capital because of the bombings. A few months later, the neighbours denounced the woman for hiding Jews.

The local gendarme interrogated Judit and Agnes, cross-examined them and examined their documents thoroughly. He was suspicious but did not arrest them, but ordered them to report to the local gendarmerie the next day. Elizabeth drove Grosz’s to a distant railway station at night, on unpaved roads. They travelled up to Budapest, where the two women found safe haven and survived the most dangerous era. After the war, Erzsébet Mészáros explained her reasons for helping Jews she did not know.

In 1987, Yad Vashem awarded Elisabeth Mészáros the title of Righteous among the nations.

„They looked at me as a human being, and I consider Jews to be human beings.”

László Ocskay – Captain

The Hungarian Schindler

The life of the military officer known as the Hungarian Schindler is as eventful as the era in which he lived. Born into an old noble family, Ocskay (whose ancestor was a brigadier of Rákóczi, whose story was also told by Mór Jókai) chose a military career. After the First World War he became a member of the National Army. As a result of the Treaty of Trianon, he entered a civilian career: he became an employee of an American oil company. When he re-enlisted in 1943 for active service in the Royal Army, he was presumably motivated by the need to help the conscripts. He became the commander of the 101/359th, the so-called clothing collection company. The workmen assigned to them were to collect, clean and repair clothes for the German army. Initially consisting of about 200 men, the unit had grown to 2,500 by the end of 1944, and not only men but also women and children were sheltered in it. The increase in numbers was the reason why they moved their headquarters from Síp Street, now Radnóti, to the then Jewish Gymnasium. Following the Arrow Cross takeover, Ocskay somehow persuaded one of the Waffen-SS units, which had been forced into the capital, to protect the labour force, which was otherwise doing useful work for the Germans. In this way, he managed to protect the persecuted until the arrival of the Red Army. After the war, as a former military officer of noble birth and with Western connections, he was dragged so in 1948 he left the country.

 

He lived in the United States, his history was unknown, he worked as a night watchman. By the time those he saved discovered and embraced him, he died of an illness in 1966. He received the The Righteous Among the Nations recognition from the Yad Vashem Institute. In Budapest, his statue can be seen in the Városliget, and a memorial plaque can be seen on the wall of the Radnóti High School.

„When he re-enlisted in 1943 for active service in the Royal Army, he was presumably motivated by the need to help the conscripts. „