Ocskay László

Ocskay, László László Ocskay was born in Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia) in 1893 into an aristocratic family. He became a professional soldier. When he was wounded in World War I, he was declared unfit for further military service. In the interwar period, the American Socony-Vacum Company employed him in Budapest. In World War II, he reported for voluntary military service with the rank of captain. He was assigned as the commander of the so-called clothes collecting Forced Laborer Company no. 101/359. After the Szálasi take-over, the company was stationed in Budapest – first in the building of the head offices of the Neolog Jewish Community of Pest at Síp Street, then in the building of the Jewish High School on Abonyi Street. Ocskay would accept into his company fleeing forced laborers and Jewish men who had escaped deportation and give them official Hungarian military forced laborer documents. On several occasions, he took them in together with their family members. Ocskay repeatedly assigned people from among his forced laborers to work for Raoul Wallenberg*, the secretary of the Swedish Embassy, who employed them in various rescue operations. Working for the so-called T(ransport)-Department operating under the aegis of the International Red Cross, the forced laborers, for example, distributed food to the children’s homes and to the houses protected by the Swedish embassy. The offices of the T-Department were officially situated in Ocskay’s home at no. 16 Benczúr Street. By January 1945, about 2,000 Jews (family members included) were “assigned” to Ocskay’s forced laborer company. They were all put up in the building of the Jewish High School on Abonyi Street, survived the war, and were liberated there. Several times, Ocskay with soldiers under his command chased off Arrow Cross men, who were trying to break into the school building. Besides saving the forced laborers and their relatives, Ocskay also hid a small group of Jews in the cellar of his own home.During the final days of the siege of Budapest, Raoul Wallenberg was also hiding there. Wallenberg and his Jewish driver, engineer Vilmos Langfelder, met the first Soviet soldier, Sergeant Dmitrijenko, in László Ocskay’s house on January 16, 1945. After the war, Ocskay left Hungary for Austria, and from there, he immigrated to the U.S.A. together with his family. He died in Kingston, New York, in 1966. On March 25, 2002, Yad Vashem recognized László Ocskay as Righteous Among the Nations.