Szörényi Péter & Erzsébet

Szörényi, Péter Szörényi, Erzsébet The Ungár family lived in the town of Nyiregyháza in Hungary. Following the German occupation of Hungary in 1944 a ghetto was established in the town; János, the head of the family, had already been taken to the forced labor camp, and so Mrs. Ungár and her four-year-old daughter Zsuzsánna moved to the ghetto on their own. János’s good friend, György Bartha (recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 1995) helped smuggle Zsuzsánna out of the ghetto and took her to her aunt, Mrs. Tibor Horvai, in Budapest. By that time Mrs. Horvai was already living in a “Yellow Star” house, in which the Jews of Budapest were forced to move, practically serving as a ghetto. Eventually, in December 1944, Bartha came back for Zsuzsánna, and placed her with a Christian family, Péter and Erzsébet Szörényi. The Szörényis told their neighbors that Zsuzsánna was the child of relatives that had fled from Transylvania. Zsuzsánna remembers that it was almost Christmas Eve and that she was sick, and Erzsébet cared for her and nursed her. She also remembers sleeping in the dark cellar during the frequent bombings of Budapest by the approaching Soviet Army. She remained in hiding with the Szörényis for several months until the liberation on February 1945. When the war was over, her aunt Mrs. György Balázs came to collect Zsuzsánna, and brought her back to Nyiregyháza. Her mother had survived Auschwitz and retuned to Nyiregyháza, and so did her father. The Ungárs kept in touch with their daughter’s rescuers for several years. In 1949 the Szörényi’s business was nationalized by the new Hungarian regime, and a few years later in 1956 the family immigrated to Australia. The Ungárs changed the family name to Urbán, and in 1965 also immigrated to Australia; but contact between the two families was lost. On 20 September, 2011, Yad Vashem recognized Péter and Erzsébet Szörényi as Righteous Among the Nations.