Protective Pass issued to a Jew, Florian Kimpel, by the Swiss Legation in Budapest, led by Carl Lutz.

Original protective pass issued by the Swiss Embassy’s Department of Foreign Interests in Budapest, led by Carl Lutz. Once the Nazis took over Budapest in 1944, they immediately began deporting Jews to Auschwitz. Swiss Consul Lutz negotiated a deal with both the Hungarian government and the occupying German Nazis and received permission to issue protective letters to 8,000 Hungarian Jews for emigration to Palestine. Yet Lutz went further, deliberately using his permission for 8,000 as applying to families rather than just to individuals, and so he proceeded to issue tens of thousands of additional protective letters. Lutz also set up some 75 “safe houses” throughout Budapest, declaring them annexes of the Swiss legation and thus off-limits to Hungarian forces or Nazi soldiers. This included the legendary Glass House (Üvegház) which offered protection and shelter to Jews between 1944 and the liberation of Budapest in January 1945. <<Supplementary information:>> According to Agnes Hirschi (daughter of Carl Lutz) and Prof. Charlotte Schallié, co-editors of “Under Swiss Protection: Jewish Eyewitness Accounts from Wartime Budapest” (Stuttgart, 2017), this particular document is unlike any other Schweitzer Schutzpass issued under the jurisdiction of Carl Lutz, and consequently, it is believed to be a <<rare forged protective pass>> likely issued by the Zionist Youth Resistance Movement in Budapest (see Hirschi & Schallié, pp. 97-100).