Petényi Géza

Petényi, Géza Prof. Géza Petényi was a doctor who was a specialist in children’s diseases. He was the director of the pediatrics department in the White Cross Hospital, in Budapest. After the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944, and especially during the Arrow Cross period, Petényi saved the lives of dozens of Jewish children and adults. He did so by admitting them into his department on the pretext of various medical conditions, and by keeping them there for a long period of time under false identities. Some of the nurses and the other staff members of the pediatrics department guessed that Prof. Petényi’s patients were Jews, but they closed their eyes to the beloved doctor’s illegal activities. When Petényi could no longer keep certain patients in his department, he would send them to his friend Leo Hochner, an Austrian Jewish architect who had escaped to Hungary after the annexation of Austria in 1938. Hochner lived on Sas Street in Budapest with forged papers, posing as an Aryan supporter of the Nazis. While he was keeping up this pretense, he hid dozens of Jewish children and adults in his apartment. Hochner even wore an SS uniform during this period, in order to arouse fear in the neighbors and to keep them from suspecting that he was actually helping Jews. Petényi visited Hochner’s apartment and brought the Jews food, soap and medicines during the battles over Budapest. When the apartment became too crowded, Prof. Petényi temporarily took some of the children back to his department in the hospital, returning them to Hochner later. Among Petényi’s many survivors were Ottó Gordon, then 15 years old, and his sister, Mária, who were hidden in the hospital together with their parents. Ottó Gordon later a resident of New York, recalled that even Prof. Petényi’s private room was filled with ‘sick’ Jews. Other survivors who owe their lives to Petényi were Dr. Makai and his wife, who Petényi smuggled out of the Budapest ghetto, then placed in Hochner’sapartment. Petényi also saved the pianist Pál Urbach, the surgeon Alfréd Berendorfer, Magda Pető, who went on to become a chemist in Budapest, Lili Deményi, Ágnes Kenedy and many others. On March 17, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Géza Petényi as Righteous Among the Nations.