Szapáry Erzsébet

Szapáry, Erzsébet With the defeat of Poland in September 1939 and the subsequent Nazi occupation, thousands of Poles crossed into Hungary and settled there. The Polish refugees were followed by hundreds of Jewish families. More Jewish refugees arrived in 1942 and 1943, when the Polish ghettos were liquidated and Hungary was still relatively safe. Countess Erzsébet Szapáry served as one of the heads of The Hungarian-Polish Committee for Refugee Affairs, which was active in Hungary from 1939-1944. Among the refugees from Poland, she was known as the “Good Polish Countess,” perhaps because her mother was of Polish extraction. Szapáry used her high social status to save the lives of as many Jewish refugees as possible. Among the tens of thousands of Polish refugees who arrived in Hungary before March 1944, were Jews. Aware of the special danger faced by these Jewish refugees, Szapáry worked to save them within the framework of the White Cross organization. The White Cross was established to care for Jews who had converted to Catholicism, but in fact, the organization supported activities aimed at saving Jews who had arrived in Hungary before the German occupation. Szapáry, and others like her in the White Cross, provided Jewish refugees from Poland with shelter, money, clothing and medical help, as well as forged Christian documents. Through the organization, she helped have Jews released from the camps and prison. Some of the Jews helped by Szapáry were Dr. Hannah Tisch (later Efrati) and her daughter Miriam, who stole across the Polish-Hungarian border in 1942, and Dr. Tzvi Zimmerman, who arrived in Hungary from Poland at the end of 1943. It is estimated that Szapáry, together with József Antall from the Hungarian Ministry of Interior Affair and Jan Kołłątaj-Srzednicki and Henryk Sławik from the Polish Civilian Committee helped approximately 5 000 Jewish refugees from Poland. After the German invasion of Hungary, Countess Szapáry was arrested by the Gestapo for her activities. She survived and emigrated to Switzerland after the war. The Tisches and Dr. Zimmerman immigrated to Israel. On April 19, 1998, Yad Vashem recognized Erzsébet Szapáry as Righteous Among the Nations. File 7933