Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Larry Brenner - December 13, 1981

Swiss Amnesty

Okay. Uh, after awhile, what happened in Hungary, as I told you, there was about a hundred or a hundred and twenty thousand Jews there. Uh, somehow the Swedish and the Swiss government, in order to save Jews, they declared uh, Swedish homes. They built up, they built up certain apartments and so did the Swiss government and they declared them Swedish and Swiss property. And who did on it and why did on it, I don't know. But uh, the Swedish we know that uh, because this uh, fellow, name? What's his name, the Swedish fellow who's in usually news?

Wallenberg.

Wallenberg. Anyway, he was very active, he was very active in Hungary and, and he was one of the... which he started this ??? and gave per form for Jewish people who, who could get there. Don't forget, it's a hundred and twenty thousand people, you can't get just, it's, it's tremendous amount of people who could get somehow there, he gave them a Swedish passport, a Schutzpässe they call 'em, saying that the Swedish government is willing to kind of uh, take 'em as an, as, as a subject, a Swedish subject. The, the Germans unwillingly, but somehow kind of uh, forced to halfway to honor. So what happened, my family, my, my, my family, what I'm saying, my aunts, my uncles...

In Budapest.

...in Budapest uh, got into this... One of 'em, one of 'em got into the Swiss protection home and the other went into the Swedish protection home. Now these were protected by the Swedish and Swiss government. However the Germans, as such, they only honored them halfway. They went into those homes in there. I don't know if they took away... I think they took away some Jews, but they weren't com... completely successful. Because whenever they did this, Wallenberg went in there and he in... interfered on behalf of the Jews. So, they survived there.


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