Protective Pass (“Schweizer Kollektivpass”) issued to a Hungarian Jew, Szoke Pal, endorsed by the Swiss Legation, Budapest.

(HOLOCAUST).

23rd October

Budapest

1944

Single printed page with typed entries and stamped endorsement.

Original protective pass issued by the Swiss 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 and extermination. Consul Lutz negotiated a deal with the Hungarian government and the Nazis and gained permission to issue protective letters to 8,000 Hungarian Jews for emigration to Palestine. Yet he went further, deliberately using his permission for 8,000 as applying to families rather than individuals, and so proceeded to issue tens of thousands of additional protective letters, all of them bearing a number between one and 8,000. He 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. In 1965 Lutz was the first Swiss national named to the list of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. He is credited with saving almost 65,000 Jews from the German and Hungarian Nazis and their sympathizers.