Spain to find the descendants of 5200 Jewish saved by ‘Spanish Schindler’ | Spain News | NewsRme
For the first time, the Spanish government is publishing a list of Hungarian Jews who were saved from the Nazis by a diplomat known as the “Spanish Schindler.” A clever legal move saved almost 5,200 Jews from being transported to Auschwitz in 1944, earning him the title of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial and museum. The anti-Israel Franco dictatorship that governed Spain from 1939 to 1975 prevented him from receiving Yad Vashem’s award, despite his efforts.
To alter this, the Centro Sefarad-Israel, a Sephardic cultural organization affiliated with the Spanish Foreign Ministry. The organization is releasing the names and information of the individuals he safeguarded with the help of the Spanish government archives in order to track down their descendants and tell their experiences.
As a 32-year-old Spanish ambassador stationed in Hungary, Sanz Briz defied the law by issuing thousands of fictitious Spanish passports to fleeing Jews between June and December 1944.
Malgré a Hungarian Jewish community dominated by Ashkenazi, Sanz Briz and his colleagues awarded citizenship to Hungarian Jews using an antiquated Spanish statute from 1924 which included Sephardic Jews exiled from Spain in 1492.
Sanz Briz went to great efforts to safeguard hundreds of Hungarian families. To protect the city’s Jews, the Spanish ambassador leased 11 apartment complexes for 5,000 people.
He sheltered families in the Buda Spanish embassy. That the General Archive of the Administration made public all of its diplomatic papers and official reports on the plight of concentration camp inmates during WWII is a historical milestone for Spain.
This account was prepared by two Slovak Jews who fled Auschwitz on April 7, 1944, after almost two years in captivity. The report, given to Sanz Briz, subsequently went to Madrid. It was a key piece of evidence in the 1945 Nuremberg Trials. Sanz Briz continued his diplomatic career after WWII. Ambassador to Guatemala after departing Hungary in 1960. He became Consul General in New York in 1962. His next position was as Ambassador to the Holy See, where he served until his death on diplomatic duty in Rome on June 11, 1980. Sanz Briz assisted Jews in Hungary previously. He received a Shipment of Merit of Hungary in 1994, and a Budapest boulevard was named after him in 2015. Anyone whose name or the name of a family member appears on one of Sanz Briz’s lists may contact the Centro Sefarad-Israel through email.

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