Relatives of rescued Jews sought

IN an unprecedented effort to find their relatives and raise awareness about their stories, Spanish authorities are releasing a list of the Hungarian Jews protected from the Nazis by a diplomat nicknamed the “Spanish Schindler”.

Angel Sanz Briz was recognised as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1966 for using an ingenious legal manoeuvre to save more than 5200 Jews from being deported to Auschwitz in 1944.

But even though his efforts saved five times as many Jews as those of Oskar Schindler, his story is far less well known – in part because the staunchly anti-Israel Franco regime, which ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975, barred him from accepting Yad Vashem’s honour.

Now, the Centro Sefarad-Israel – a Sephardic cultural institution that is part of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs – is working to change that. With the support of the Spanish government’s archives, the group is publishing the names of the people he protected, along with details about them, with the goal of tracing their descendants and making their stories known.

Between June and December 1944, Sanz Briz, who was stationed in Hungary, took the law into his own hands by creating fake Spanish passports for thousands of Jews. Despite Hungary’s Jewish community being predominantly Ashkenazi, Sanz Briz granted Spanish citizenship to Hungarian Jews based on a long-expired 1924 Spanish law that extended citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492.

Sanz Briz went to extreme lengths to ensure hundreds of Hungarian families were put under Spain’s protection. As the Nazis closed in on the city’s Jews, the Spanish diplomat rented 11 apartment buildings to house approximately 5000 people. He placed the Spanish flag on the buildings, passing them off as official properties of the Spanish Legation, ensuring that the authorities would not seize them. He also hid some families in the Spanish embassy.

“For him, the principle of humanity prevailed over the principle of legality,” Miguel de Lucas, director of Centro Sefarad-Israel, told the Spanish daily El País in a recent interview.

Hungary, whose Jews Sanz Briz helped, has honoured him before. He was awarded the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in 1994, and in 2015 a Budapest street was renamed after him.

For more information, visit email lalistasanzbriz@sefarad-israel.es