Antal János

Antal, János Kerpely de, Terézia (Therésa) János Antal was the father superior of the Salesian Order of St. John Bosco in Hungary. In the fall of 1944, when the Arrow Cross party was in power, Antal’s monastery, on the outskirts of Budapest, served as a hiding place for twelve adult Jews and about 40 Jewish children. Among the children who were saved because they were hidden in the monastery were Róbert Schiller and György Gadó. Both remained in Hungary after the war. The local headquarters of the Arrow Cross party was located near the monastery. On three separate occasions, armed party members entered the monastery in order to search for hidden Jews. The razzias, which always took place at night, were extremely brutal. On Christmas Eve, 1944, 13 Jewish children were taken from the monastery, and shot to death on the banks of the Danube River. The leaders of the monastery, including Father Antal, were beaten by the Arrow Cross men, and placed under arrest. One of the adult Jews hidden by father Antal in the monastery was István Anhalt, who had escaped from a labor-service company in the beginning of December 1944. Antal had given Anhalt the identity papers of a seminarian studying for the priesthood. On December 25, Anhalt was sent to the Apostolic Nuncio in Budapest with a letter for the Vatican embassy. Fearing another attack by the Arrow Cross gangs, Anhalt did not return to the monastery. Instead, he made his way to the home of the De Kerpely family, as he was friendly with one of the children. The De Kerpelys, who lived in the Buda part of Budapest, took Anhalt in and hid him for two months, treating him like one of their own children. The mother, Terézia de Kerpely, shared the family’s meager food supply with Anhalt, something that was not simple at all during the battles for Budapest. On October 4, 1992, Yad Vashem recognized János Antal and Terézia (Therésa) de Kerpely as Righteous Among the Nations.