"By the time Jews were deported and eliminated from society they were no
longer considered human beings. This was a very very dangerous time, very critical time."
Charlotte Schallié, holocaust historian is about to recount a story about a person
who changed her life, even though she never met him.
In this time what he did was the righteous thing to do
The story begins as Nazi forces close in on Budapest, Hungary in 1944. Aided by
Hungarian militias loyal to Adolf Hitler.
"Within a very short time frame, Jews in
the countryside were deported.
Almost 440,000 people were deported straight to Auschwitz.
The majority were killed upon arrival."
In Budapest, every day brought new threats, new terrors.
"It was a most successful mass murder in the whole genocide history of the Second World War"
"I mean we were very close to being deported ourselves."
"We were about to be marched to the Danube to be shot."
But one man, who probably felt far more
comfortable sitting behind a desk, stepped out and into the middle of all
the threats, all the terror -- a man named Carl Lutz.
"What makes me fascinated by his story
is that he was not cut out to be a hero, you know. He was not a risk-taker, he
was very shy, awkward. "
Schallié is a Swiss citizen now living in Victoria was in
Budapest four years ago when she spotted a memorial to a man named Carl Lutz, also Swiss.
That began her quest.
"Hardly anybody was aware of it and I
felt, this can't be true and the more I read about him the more I felt we need
to hear about him.
What he did was was on such a magnitude -- I mean he spearheaded
the biggest civilian rescue operation during the Second World War.
So I felt I needed to do something.
Carl Lutz, a quiet Swiss diplomat used
his skills to maneuver through the fascist bureaucracy and craft a plan
that was simple, clever and audacious. A plan that would ultimately save tens of
thousands of men women and children.
The Nazis had surrounded Budapest by 1944
and in the city, a then six year-old Andrew Simon and his friends faced fear by
making a game of it.
"I and my friends used to play air raids we'd stand on the
balcony and watch the skies to see if there's any enemy planes and then we'd
scream "air-raid" because in buildings there would be a siren and
everybody had to quickly go down to the air-raid shelters.
In that same year in January,
a 25 year old mother gives birth to her first child a boy Gabor Maté.
She is alone her husband forced to work in a labour camp.
"So my mother actually kept a diary.
She talks about the difficulties but she concentrates more
on the joy and having a new baby.
She was like other Jews in terrific fear
Which I imbibed really
For Gabor and all of them the risk of dying was real every day
They moved into the ghettos eventually finding their way into Carl Lutz's grand plan.
With those Jewish homes becoming increasingly unsafe Lutz invented new
ways to declare buildings off-limits to Nazis and their supporters
"But he creatively invented a system that put Jews under diplomatic protection..."
And was this his invention as well?
His invention and I think this is we can say with certainty
and we can also say with certainty that it was then adopted by other diplomats.
Over time though only one sight offered any real measure of protection.
An old glass factory that Carl Lutz declared Swiss property in December of 1944
Andrew Symonds showed up at the door of what became known as the glass house
with his mother.
"We were shunted into the basement where
there were tons of people and we were given an area of the floor near the wall
I would guess it to be about three meters square
Where we could sit on the floor and be there."
Maté, not yet a year old also arrived with his mother
joining the 2,000 or so others inside.
"They were multiple the number of people
that it could possibly accommodate.
Imagine toilet facilities were
completely overwhelmed, there was feces and urine on the floor
Foor was very uncertain.
A lot of disease.
Still, it was safe at least until one night around New Years Eve.
"The Nazis just barged in and told everybody to get out, guns and the
whole thing, all of us and they were at least a thousand people in there young
and old and kids and everything.
We had to line up on the sidewalk three abreast
holding the hands up and we were standing there for three hours and what
I know now what I didn't we didn't know then is that we were about to be march
to the Danube to be shot in because they had no trains they have no other
way of getting rid of us
That is when Carl Lutz arrived on the scene the Swiss flag fluttering from his car.
What happened next was extraordinary.
"Carl Lutz came down there and started
telling these people first of all this is Swiss territory and they threatened
him I don't know what the hell they did or what they said but anyway it made
them give up and they let us go back in.
But safety wasn't enough for
Gabor Maté's mother.
She made a heartbreaking decision for fear of her
infant son's health.
She gave him to a Christian woman, a passerby, she didn't
know asking her to keep him safe.
"So imagine a 25 year old young woman whose
parents who just been murdered, who for all she knows her husband is dead
At least there's no idea whether he's dead or alive
and now she has to give her baby away
And just what that would take on her part.
He had no superheroes cape no dashing
secret agents appeal but Carl Lutz bespectacled quiet diplomat saved the
lives of these two boys.
We think of the trauma as being those events.
Maté reunited with his mother after Soviet troops liberated the Glass House with
his father they eventually made it to Canada where Maté, a doctor has become a
leading expert on childhood trauma and its impact.
And Andrew Simon now
celebrates his faith with family in Canada.
He retired after a long career
with the CBC as a journalist and producer.
Neither knew Carl Lutz's role in saving their lives until recently.
This is what they wish they could say to him now.
"But I thank you for my own life and my parents life and all the
thousands of Jews that you saved."
I can't imagine how in those dire circumstances
you could possibly come up with any plan whatsoever
to save large numbers of people.
Why was Lutz so little known for so long?
Why do we know so much more about Raoul Wallenberg
And Oskar Schindler?
"Here is the quintessential Swiss bureaucrat."
Nobody knows about him, he's in the background
And he's able to accomplish something that is truly astounding
and extraordinary.
Instead of being celebrated by the Swiss
Lutz was reprimanded for overstepping his boundaries when he returned home
Only recently was he formally recognized by Switzerland for his role.
And so I think you can hopefully will be inspired by what he did
Again to keep in mind he was
a very very unlikely hero.
And so historian Charlotte Schallié continues
on her mission to tell the story of Carl Lutz.
A mission that has awakened
something profound within her.
It changed many ways my life and I feel in some
small way I'm an activist too, I really can tell his story.
That one single human being
who was not born to be a hero, who said I can stand up and I can make a
difference, that is for me a deeply personal lesson.
As you heard, Carl Lutz shared his strategy with other diplomats
Two Portuguese officials are credited
with saving more than 2,000 lives and arranging visas for those with relatives
in Portugal.
Angelo Rota, the Pope's envoy to Budapest joined Lutz's protests
against forced deportations.
The Vatican let him issue more than 15,000 documents
so Jews could pass as converts.
And this Spanish diplomat is still remembered in
Hungary as the angel of Budapest for his part in saving about 5,000 lives
Now, earlier this month Justin Trudeau announced he will issue a formal apology
on behalf of Canadians for this country's actions during the war.
Canada turned away a ship carrying 907 German Jews seeking refuge.
That decision is blamed for 254 deaths in the Holocaust