This volume retraces Carl Lutz's diplomatic wartime rescue efforts in Budapest Hungary
through the lens of Jewish eyewitness testimonies. Together with his wife Gertrud
Lutz-Fankhauser the director of the Palestine Office in Budapest Moshe Krausz fellow Swiss
citizens Harald Feller Ernst Vonrufs Peter Zürcher and the underground Zionist Youth
Movement Carl Lutz led an extensive rescue operation between March 1944 and February 1945. It
is estimated that Lutz and his team of rescuers issued more than 50 000 lifesaving letters of
protection (Schutzbriefe) and placed persecuted Jews in 76 safe houses-annexes of the Swiss
Legation. Based on interviews with Holocaust survivors in Canada Hungary Israel Switzerland
the UK and the United States this volume shines a light on the extraordinary scope and scale
of Carl Lutz's humanitarian response.
