Budapest Ghetto - Saving The Ghetto in January 1945

Saving The Ghetto in January 1945

Károly Szabó an employee on the Swedish Embassy in Budapest attracted exceptional attention on December 24, 1944 as Hungarian Arrow Cross Party members occupied the Embassy building on Gyopár street. He rescued 36 kidnapped employees from the Budapest ghetto. This action attracted Raoul Wallenberg's interest. He agreed to meet Szabó's influential friend, Pál Szalai, a high-ranking member of the police force The meeting was in the night of December 26. This meeting was preparation to save the Budapest ghetto in January 1945.

Pál Szalai provided Raoul Wallenberg with special favors and government information. In the second week of January 1945, Raoul Wallenberg found out that Adolph Eichmann planned a massacre of the largest Jewish ghetto in Budapest. The only one who could stop it was the man given the responsibility to carry the massacre out, the commander of the German troops in Hungary, General August Schmidthuber. Through Szalai, Wallenberg sent Schmidthuber a note promising that he, Raoul Wallenberg, would make sure the general was held personally responsible for the massacre and that he would be hanged as a war criminal when the war was over. The general knew that the war would be over soon and that the Germans were losing. The massacre was stopped at the last minute thanks to the courage and daring action of Wallenberg.