(JTA) Angel Sanz Briz, a Spanish diplomat who saved over 5,000 Jews from Nazi persecution in Hungary, was given an online tribute last Thursday. Appointed to a diplomatic post in Hungary in 1944, Sanz Briz offered to protect Jews of Spanish origin and bring them Spanish passports. He received the consent of the Hungarian authorities to enable 200 Spanish Jews to receive them, but he turned that into 200 families. In the last seven months of 1944, Briz issued forged Spanish documents to 5,200 Jews, according to Yad Vashem, which recognized him as Righteous Among the Nations in 1966. "My father thought that what he had done in Budapest was the most important and rewarding thing in his life," said his daughter Angela, who attended the event. "He also considered that he had simply done his duty, that he could not look the other way."
2020-07-16 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive