Sztehlo Gábor

Sztehlo, Gábor In the fall of 1944, the International Red Cross founded two departments for the care of children. One, Section A, was under Zionist leadership, and was responsible for Jewish children. The other, Section B, was responsible for Protestant children of Jewish origin, and was headed by the Lutheran minister, Dr. Gábor Sztehlo. Section B operated 32 “Good Shepherd” residences in Budapest. Although, officially, these residents provided protection for Protestant children, under Sztehlo’s leadership, they also served as a place of refuge for Jewish children and adults during the Arrow Cross period. Thanks to Sztehlo and the Good Shepherd organization, the lives of 1,500 Jewish children and 500 adults were saved. Budapest’s Good Shepherd residences were established throughout the city in the autumn of 1944. These residences were located in private homes whose owners had decided to cooperate with the International Red Cross, either for monetary compensation and/or because they supported the organization’s humanitarian efforts. Sztehlo oversaw the day-to-day functioning of all the residences – both in terms of finances and in terms of the on-going struggle to protect the people living there. He helped maintain contact between the various residences, and between the residences and Friedrich Born* (see Switzerland), the International Red Cross representative in the city. Arrow Cross gangs, accompanied by German soldiers, invaded the residences on a number of occasions, looking for hidden Jews. Despite the danger, Sztehlo heroically resisted the attacks, and managed to save residents from arrest. Under his orders, the Jewish children in the residences were equipped with forged Aryan papers, and they acted out their roles as required. In December 1944, children from a number of the Good Shepherd residences were rounded up and taken to the main ghetto. When Sztehlo found out, he and his assistants stole into the ghetto and smuggled the children back to theGood Shepherd houses, in the Aryan part of the city. During this period, Sztehlo himself lived in one of the Good Shepherd residences together with his family. Within the walls of his own residence, Sztehlo sheltered Jews, children as well as adults who had deserted from forced-labor units in order to avoid expulsion to the German Reich, 33 people in all. After the liberation, Sztehlo continued to look after the Jewish children until their families, or Jewish refugee organizations came to take them. Later, Sztehlo moved with his family to Switzerland, where he died in 1974. After the war, Sztehlo’s survivors scattered to the four corners of the globe. They established the Children of Sztehlo organization and faithfully guard his memory. Among the survivors are David Peleg, later a teacher in Israel, and Pál Fóti who later testified that Sztehlo not only saved his life, he also saved his faith in mankind, without which he could not have survived. On January 30, 1972, Yad Vashem recognized Gábor Sztehlo as Righteous Among the Nations.