Zsindely Klára (Tűdős)

Zsindely, Mrs. Ferenc (Klára) Klára Tüdős was born in Debrecen in 1895 to a well-to-do Calvinist bourgeois family. For her schooling and education, she was sent to boarding schools for young women in Switzerland and England. She then returned to Hungary where she studied at the College of Arts-and-Crafts in Budapest. As a volunteer nurse, she tended to wounded Hungarian soldiers in Lemberg (today Lviv, Ukraine) in 1915. In 1925, she became the costumier of the Opera House in Budapest. In 1938, after her first unsuccessful marriage, she married the Under-Secretary of Education Ferenc Zsindely, who later became the Minister of Transportation. She opened an exclusive boutique in the center of the capital: the famous Pántlika Salon. The dresses, which she designed, based on Hungarian folk motifs, were famous both in Hungary and abroad. As an activist in the Calvinist Church, she founded the Nationwide Calvinist Women’s Association (Országos Református Nőszövetség), and established its journal, The New Hungarian Woman (Új Magyar Asszony). She became the first president of the Association in 1944. After the Szálasi take-over in October 1944, during the Arrow Cross reign of terror, Klára Tüdős rescued many Jews, mainly orphans and mothers with young children. She would take them either to her own villa in the 12th district of Budapest at no. 92-94/b Istenhegyi Street or hide them in the apartment of the former prime minister, Kálmán Darányi at no. 6/b Maros Street, which stood empty ever since he had fled when the German army invaded Hungary. Some of the Jews whom Tüdős helped held false identity documents and were claiming to be refugees from Transylvania. Others were leftists, such as Mrs. Antal Apró (née Klára Kovács), who was a communist, with her two-year-old son, also named Antal, and the daughter of the president of the Social Democratic Party, Klára Szakasits with her three sons from her Jewish husband: Pál, Péter, and Ferenc Schiffer. Since Tüdős’s husband,Ferenc Zsindely, disapproved of her role in saving leftist activists, eventually they were forced to leave the villa. Tüdős then sent them to Darányi’s apartment, where she established a so-called home for mothers and infants with the help of Calvinist deaconesses. When any of the hiding places established by Klára Tüdős became dangerous, the children were taken to the Calvinist Bethesda hospital for a while. This was what happened to seven-year-old Mária Popper for example. The deaconesses of the Bethesda hospital, Asta Nilsson from the Swedish embassy, some members of the Nationwide Calvinist Women’s Association, as well as several Calvinist pastors with some members of their congregations, helped Tüdős save Jews. All-in-all about 70-80 Jews survived the Holocaust due to Klára Tüdős’s help. After 1945, the villa of the Zsindelys became one of the centers of Calvinist religious life in Budapest and was called Istenhegyi Home. The Communist Rákosi-regime persecuted the Zsindelys, so, in 1951, they fled from Budapest to Balatonlelle in order to escape internment. They lived in Balatonlelle until 1963, with Klára Tüdős working as a summerhouse caretaker and Ferenc Zsindely as a gardener. In 1963, Ferenc Zsindely died and Klára Tüdős moved back to Budapest. She died in 1980 in a Calvinist old age home. Her autobiography entitled “Isten markában merni élni!” (“Daring to live in God’s Palm!”) was published in Budapest in 1991. On August 1, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Mrs. Ferenc Zsindely (Klára) as Righteous Among the Nations.