Lengyel Balázs & Nagy Ágnes

Lengyel, Piroska Lengyel, Sándor Piroska Lengyel and her brother Sándor were both chemists, who worked in Budapest’s Egger pharmaceutical factory. They had many friends and relatives who were Jewish, and after the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944, many of them were in mortal danger. In a few days, the brother-and-sister team found a chemical technique, which allowed them to erase details from genuine identification papers and write other details in their place. With the help of this method, the lives of Jews and many of their supporters were saved. Piroska and Sándor Lengyel were part of a wide liberal-left circle of activists. They taught others their forgery method and gave them the chemical materials they needed, without telling them the makeup of the mixture, so that they wouldn’t be able to serve as witnesses if they were discovered. Among the activists in this group were Gyula Kandó* and his wife. Piroska Lengyel gave all of her identity papers to a Jewish friend, Vera Méhes. With the help of these documents, Méhes was admitted to a hospital and gave birth under Piroska’s name in December 1944. Lengyel gave an additional copy of her papers to Dr. Magda Messer a friend of her twin brother Balázs Lengyel*. Thanks to these documents, her life was saved. During the Arrow Cross period, when Jews of Budapest were in especially great danger, Piroska Lengyel, with the help of friends and co-workers from the pharmaceutical factory, sought out hiding places for persecuted Jews. Partners in this endeavor were the painter István Szőnyi* and his family, and the sculptor Pál Pátzay* and his wife and others. When one of the workers was captured together with a Jewish family he was hiding at Piroska’s request, there was great fear that the entire rescue operation would be discovered. However, due to the battles and the approach of the Red Army, the danger passed, and many lives were saved. Every one of those rescued by Piroska and Sándor Lengyel lived to seethe end of the war. On October 6, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Piroska Lengyel as Righteous Among the Nations. On March 13, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Sándor Lengyel as Righteous Among the Nations. Lengyel, Mrs. Sándor (Irén) Irén Gonda was born into a liberal Calvinist family in Hungary. She was married to Sándor Lengyel, a Jew who had converted to Christianity as a young man, many years before he and Irén wed. The couple had three children, Sándor*, Piroska* and Balázs*, who were considered Christians according to the racial laws. Following the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, a friend of Lengyel’s, Mrs. Ilona Wohlberg found herself in great danger. This was not only because she was Jewish, but also because she held German citizenship and had escaped to Hungary after her husband, Hugo Wohlberg, was murdered by the Nazis. Gonda came to Wohlberg’s aid, giving her the identification papers that had belonged to her late sister. With the help of these documents, Wohlberg went into hiding, first in a village, and later, in Gonda’s apartment in Budapest. In addition to Wohlberg, other Jews hid in the apartment: Wohlberg’s sister, and her husband, István Ulmann, and the Lengyels’ Jewish relatives, the famous musician István Kardos and his wife. Gonda’s son Sándor and her daughter Piroska also lived in the apartment. They were both chemists who used their expertise to develop a chemical method for forging papers and were actively involved in saving Jews. Gonda knew about her children’s activities, and agreed to allow them to set up a laboratory for forging papers in the bathroom, despite the great risk involved. Gonda’s life was in danger when those who had received the forged documents prepared in her home were caught by the Gestapo, and were being interrogated. However, this occurred during the battles in Budapest itself. The Gestapo headquarters in Buda was hit in the bombing and the prisoners managed to escape. As a result, Gonda was neverarrested. On March 13, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Mrs. Sándor Lengyel (née Irén Gonda) as Righteous Among the Nations. Lengyel, Balázs Nemes-Nagy, Ágnes Balázs Lengyel was an author who lived with his wife, the poet Ágnes Nemes-Nagy, in Budapest. He was the twin brother of Piroska Lengyel*. In 1944, after the German invasion, Lengyel was drafted into the Hungarian army. Because he wore a Hungarian army uniform, Lengyel was able to smuggle Mrs. Ilona Wohlberg, a Jewish friend of his mother’s, out of a yellow-star house. She moved to the provinces, to the city of Mezőkövesd, where she hid for a number of months with the help of Aryan papers. Later, holding false papers showing that she was a registered Christian citizen of Mezőkövesd, Mrs. Wohlberg returned to Budapest, accompanied by Lengyel. Lengyel took Wohlberg to his mother’s house, where she was hidden until the liberation. During the Arrow Cross period, Lengyel deserted from the army and moved with his wife to the small village of Alsómihályfalva / Donji Mihaljevec (today Slovakia). With the papers of his sister Piroska, Lengyel smuggled his friend, a Jewish woman named Magda Messer from Budapest to Alsómihályfalva. Lengyel and his wife hid her until the end of the war, despite the great danger involved. On March 13, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Balázs Lengyel as Righteous Among the Nations. On April 19, 1998 Yad Vashem recognized Ágnes Nemes-Nagy as Righteous Among the Nations.