Görgey Federika (de Thierry); Son: Guido

Görgey, Frederika Görgey, Guido Frederika Görgey (née De-Thierry) was a native of Fiume, Hungary. Her late husband, Erik Görgey, came from a well-known noble family. Frederika was the mother of three sons. A daughter, Edit, had died sometime before the war. After she was widowed in 1943, Frederika lived in Budapest with her youngest son. Her eldest son was a diplomat in Sofia. Her middle son, Guido, graduated from the Ludovika military academy in 1942, and served as a first lieutenant in the Hungarian army, together with his good friend Jenő de Thassy*. When the German army invaded Hungary in March 1944, Frederika did everything she could to help Jews, and urged her children to do the same. To her son Guido and his friend Thassy she announced: “Up to now, you have been taught to kill people in a war that is not ours… Now your job is to save as many people as you can.” Frederika helped a 16-year-old Jewish girl named Anna Stricker by giving her identity papers that had belonged to her deceased daughter, Edit. Then, Frederika left Budapest, moving with the girl to a small town in the Bakony Mountains. After a while, some of the neighbors became suspicious about Anna’s true identity. Frederika’s son Guido procured new papers for Stricker, and found her a new hiding place in another small town in Hungary, at the home of his uncle. Stricker remained with the uncle for a while, but, fearing she might be discovered, she eventually returned to Budapest where she hid temporarily with an aunt from the Görgey family. Later, Guido, wearing his army uniform, transferred the girl to the St. Vincent Convent. During this period, Guido also saved the one-and-a-half year old daughter of the fiancée of the author Ferenc Karinthy. He brought the child to a hiding place in the country. After two months, fearing betrayal, Guido went there in his uniform, retrieved the daughter and brought her back to Budapest, where he found her another hiding place. Guido Görgey and his friendThassy worked hard to save other fugitives, both on their own, and through an underground organization that operated out of Military Hospital Number 11 in Budapest. This hospital served as a hiding place for many Jews and army deserters. Görgey and Thassy also had connections with a network of monasteries that sought to save lives by putting Jews under the protection of the Papal Nuncio and the Swedish Red Cross. On May 26, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Frederika Görgey (née De-Thierry), and her son, Guido Görgey, as Righteous Among the Nations.