Today, after school, Laura and I took the bus down to the U.N. Today was the Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. The large program took place at the Assembly Hall, Palais des Nations (U.N.) First there was a moving video shown from actual filming of prisoners by the germans. After the movie was shown, the Director General of the U.N. spoke and was followed by the ambassadors of Israel, Poland, Hungary and Switzerland. Then the keynote speaker was Ms. Agnes Hirschi. She is the daughter of Carl Lutz. She told of life during the war and many people that passed through their home, hidden from the Nazi's. Afterwards, Laura talked with Ms. Hirschi and got a picture with her.
In America, we are familiar with the story of Oskar Schindler, whom the film, Schindler's list was based on. He is credited with saving over 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories. We do not hear so much about Carl Lunz.
Carl, Ms. Hirschi's father, is credited with saving over 62,000 Jews! In 1944, the Nazi's began deporting Jews to the death camps. Lutz negotiated a special deal with the Hungarian government and the Nazis. He gained permission to issue protective letters to 8,000 Hungarian Jews for emigration to Palestine. NOW HERE IS THE HEROCICS....
Lutz deliberately used his permission for 8,000 as applying to families rather than individuals, and proceeded to issue tens of thousands of additional protective letters, all of them bearing a number between one and 8,000.
At the end of the night, they played the haunting theme from Schindler's list as they showed picture after picture of those that were unable to be saved. We stood and had a minute of silence.
It was a sobering night. We walked out of the Great Assembly Hall with hundreds of others, to a room full of pictures and names of those who were lost during the Holocaust.
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