Letter of Protection issued to four female members of the Kohut family. Prepared by Angel Sanz Briz with his stamped signature and endorsement Legación de España en Budapest.

(HOLOCAUST).

7th November

Budapest

1944

Single printed page with typed entries in Hungarian. Affixed with four black-and-white photographs of protection-holders.

Letter of Protection issued by the Spanish Ambassador Angel Sanz Briz, the “Angel of Budapest.” Ángel Sanz-Briz (1910-80) was a diplomat at the Spanish Legation in Hungary, who, entirely of his own accord, saved the lives of some five thousand Hungarian Jews from Nazi persecution and deportation by issuing letters of protection. He also authorized the establishment in Budapest of a dozen safe houses each under Spanish diplomatic protection, where hundreds of Hungarian Jews found shelter. Working parallel to Raoul Wallenberg and with the same extraordinary degree of courage, Sanz Briz created a ruse suggesting that the Spanish Franco government acknowledged the right of Sephardic Jews to posses Spanish nationality. Hence the Hungarian authorities granted Sanz Briz permission to issue 200 protective passes. Covertly, Sanz Briz turned these two hundred unities into two hundred families, and these two hundred family documents would often contain up to 15 names squeezed onto a single paper. Of all the Jews saved by Sanz Briz, hardly any were in fact of Spanish heritage. Exceptionally rare document of the “Spanish Schindler.”