Eduard Benedek Brunschweiler
Righteous Among the Nations |
---|
By country |
Eduard Benedek Brunschweiler (1910–1987) was a
In early 1944, Archabbot Kelemen Krizosztom wrote to the Committee with a proposal that the Archabbey, situated in North-Western
In October 1944, Born appointed Brunschweiler, a Swiss national who had been living in Budapest, to take charge of the operation, on behalf of the ICRC. Brunschweiler managed to arrange a meeting with the German Reich plenipotentiary for Hungary, Edmund Veesenmayer, concerning arrangements for the shelter of the refugees there. According to Arieh Ben-Tov's research, Veesemeyer accepted that Jewish children would be sheltered in the archabbey but insisted that the percentage of Jewish refugees should not exceed those of half-Jewish refugees (Arieh Ben-Tov, p333)[1].
At the time, those
As the Red Army approached Pannonhalma, the refugee population grew to about 3000 people. Following the defeat of the defensive forces around the abbey in April 1945, the Red Army took control of the area and Brunschweiler and the ICRC were expelled from the Abbey.
In 2001, a Hungarian director, Szilveszter Siklósi, made a documentary about this episode entitled "My castle, my shelter"[3] ("Menedéket adó váram" in Hungarian). On 17 October 2006 a memorial plaque to Brunschweiler was unveiled at the Archabbey [4]. On 31 March 2009 the Israeli ambassador to Hungary presented an award to the present arch-abbot of the Abbey, posthumously recognizing Brunschweiler as
References
- Holocaust, at Yad Vashemwebsite
External links
- Budapest Sun article 19 October 2006. [6]. Retrieved 5 October 2007.
- Press release from Ministry of Education and Culture, Hungarian Government, 16 October 2006 [7]
- ISBN 90-247-3764-8
- Hoover, Jennifer, Refuge at Pannonhalma: Rescue and Relief Efforts at a Hungarian Monastery in 1944, MONITOR Journal of International Studies, Volume 12, Number 2, Spring 2007, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, USA. [8]