Tibor Baranszky

Tibor Baranski ( hu, Baránszki Tibor; June 11, 1922 – January 20, 2019) was a Hungarian-American man credited with saving more than 3,000 Hungarian Jewish women, men and children from the Nazis during the Holocaust.

When he was 22, he was forced by the advancing Soviets to leave his seminary studies and return to Budapest. He talked his way into the residence of Papal Nuncio Monsignor Angelo Rotta, the Vatican's representative in Budapest. He persuaded Rotta to give him papers that would allow a Jewish family, friends of his aunt, to escape Hungary. Rotta was so impressed by his boldness, he recruited Baránszki to help save other Jews. Over nine weeks, before the Soviets surrounded Budapest, Baránszki orchestrated the rescue of over 3,000 Jews.

Baranski was arrested by the Soviets on December 30, 1944, and sent on a 16-day, forced march towards a Soviet prison, during which he ate only four times. He was saved by a sympathetic guard and made his way back to Budapest. After he was hospitalized and released, he was arrested again in 1948 for "clerical reaction" and in a show trial was sentenced to nine years in prison. He was released after Stalin's death in 1953. He left Hungary during the 1956 revolution and settled with his wife in New York, where both became U.S. citizens and educators and raised a family.

On January 11, 1979, Baránszki was recognized as one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. He was a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

Early life

Baránszki was the son of Reszl Baránszki and Maria Schelnader. His grandfather was born in Poland and after serving in the Polish army in Budapest, decided to stay. His father married Maria Schelnader and Tibor was raised in Budapest. His father's family had roots in Hungary dating back 700 years. He was educated in Hungarian Gymnasia and became aware of rising antisemitism by 1938. He studied for the priesthood in Vesprem in 1940 and in Kassa (Košice) in 1943. He learned of the Nazi government's extermination camps through church channels. As the Soviet army drew near Košice, Baránszki was forced to leave for Budapest, sometimes only a few miles from the front lines, and arrived there on October 20, 1944.

World War II

Baránszki's aunt Margit Sterneder had become very close friends over several years with the Jewish family of Dr. Hedvig Szekeres through her work at the Chinoin pharmaceutical factory, in Újpest, a Budapest suburb.

Background

Starting in 1938, Regent Miklós Horthy led the government to pass a series of anti-Jewish measures, emulating Germany's Nuremberg Laws. The First Jewish Law passed on May 29, 1938, defined as Jewish anyone who had converted or were born to Jewish parents after 1919. It restricted the number of Jews in many professions to twenty percent. About 5,000 Jews converted to Christianity after the passing of the First Jewish Law. The second anti-Jewish law passed a year later on May 5, 1939, defined Jews for the first time by their race and not their faith. Individuals with two, three or four Jewish-born grandparents were declared Jewish. Jews were forbidden to work in government, as editors for newspapers, and the number of Jews among theater and movie actors, physicians, lawyers and engineers was capped at six percent. All private companies were forbidden to employ more than 12% Jews. Cumulatively, 250,000 Hungarian Jews were put out of work. Virtually all Jews lost their right to vote. At the next elections held in June, only 38 Jews could vote.

As a result of the laws and cultural oppression, the Sterneder and Szekeres families became even closer. The Third Jewish Law passed in 1941 prohibited sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews and classified another 58,320 people as Jewish who did not profess Judaism. The census question about Jewish grandparents was added late in 1941 after some census forms had already been printed, contributing to an inaccurate count. In addition, many Christians of Jewish ancestry did not answer the question truthfully. So while about 62,000 Christians admitted some Jewish ancestry (including 38,000 in Budapest), the actual number of Christians of Jewish origin by mid-1941 may have exceeded 85,000 and up to 100,000.

A census beginning on January 31, 1941, counted a Hungarian population of 13,643,621. Based on the second anti-Jewish law, 6.2% (846,000) were considered Jewish. In April 1941, Hungary annexed the Bácska, Muraköz, and Muravidék regions from occupied Yugoslavia. The total population of its annexed territories in 1941 was 1,025,508, including 15,000 Jews. As of May 1941, 5.87% (861,000) of the entire Hungarian population of 14,669,129 were under Hungarian law considered Jewish. According to Jewish religious law, 4.94% (725,000) were Jewish.

Germans occupy Hungary

In early 1944, Hungarian prime minister Miklós Kállay was secretly attempting to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies. To prevent Hungary from leaving the Axis, on March 19, 1944, launched Operation Margarethe, ordering German troops into the country. The far-right fascist Arrow Cross Party was legalized and assumed power on 15 October 1944. Led by Ferenc Szálasi, they formed the Government of National Unity.

Jews sent to death camps

Mass deportations of Jews to German death camps in occupied Poland began. SS- Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann