Stollár Béla

Stollár, Béla Béla Stollár was a sports reporter. He was born in 1917 into a military family. In the 1930s he had several Jewish friends amongst who were the Deáks. In 1943, Stollár was drafted. Being that he was a Hungarian champion in stenography, as a lieutenant, he was assigned to work in this capacity at the Headquarters Staff in the Ministry of Defense. There he was able with ease to obtain various blank official forms, stamps, and signets. In 1944, he made use of these items to save Jews. In the fall of 1944, after the Szálasi take-over, Stollár, for example, gave forged identity papers to Éva Deák, who afterwards was able to live as a governess in the provinces. He also provided papers for Éva’s mother. Immediately following the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, the Germans arrested and interned István Deák, Éva’s father. He was released from the Kistarcsa internment camp on October 15, 1944. He went straight to Stollár’s apartment at no. 33/b Ráday Street in the 9th District of Budapest. Stollár hid him there for weeks. Still in October, after the Szálasi take-over, István Deák’s son, István Deák Jr., escaped from forced labor. Stollár hid him as well. In June 1944, right after taking his matriculation exam, István Jr. was drafted for forced labor service. He was taken to Transylvania where his unit of forced laborers was building a railroad. Béla Stollár stayed in constant touch with him via mail and informed him about his family’s welfare. Occasionally he was also able to send him food and money, something, which was absolutely forbidden. Péter Deák, a cousin to Éva and István, was also able to escape from forced labor with the help of false documents given to him by Stollár. Béla Stollár attempted to save Éva and István’s grandmother, Mrs. Hermann Deustch as well. She had been taken to a death march towards the Austrian-Hungarian border from a yellow–star house in Budapest on November 17, 1944. Stollár followed the group wearing hisuniform intending to bring her back to Budapest using a court order, which he had forged. However, he was not able to find her. In 1944, Béla Stollár organized an armed resistance group within Endre Bajcsy Zsilinszky’s resistance movement. They fought against the German invaders, and even more so against the Hungarian Arrow Cross forces. Stollár obtained the use of an apartment for his group in Budapest at no. 22 Klotild Street (this street was renamed after Béla Stollár following the war). He also obtained forged documents, forged military orders, as well as food and arms for the members of the group who were either escaped Jewish forced laborers or deserters of the Hungarian army. On December 25, 1944, a lorry filled with armed Arrow Cross men arrived to Klotild Street in order to look for Stollár and his men. They came on the basis of a tip that they had received from an informant. The Arrow Cross men broke into the house and at first executed the building concierge, Béla Schóber, and his wife together with another couple – relatives who were there by chance. They murdered them after Béla Schóber tried to alert the group using a warning bell. After the executions, the Arrow Cross men attacked Stollár’s group. The majority of the members of the group escaped through the roof, but Stollár stayed behind with a few others in order to burn all the documents in the apartment. For a while they were able to hold the Arrow Cross men off with hand grenades, but eventually everyone who stayed behind was killed. On March 5, 2003, Yad Vashem recognized Béla Stollár as Righteous Among the Nations.