Witness Juraj Szanto: teenage memories of Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest
Juraj Szanto is a medical journalist, and has had a long career in Prague as a dentist. He originally comes from the part of southern Slovakia that was annexed by Hungary just before the Second World War. When the war broke out, his father was sent to the Russian Front and his mother was imprisoned in Budapest for her links with the resistance. Juraj was fifteen when his mother was released in 1944, but this was just the time when the Nazis began to transport Hungarian Jews to the death camps in the east. Juraj and his mother were among thousands of people in the city who found refuge in the Swedish Embassy, under the protection of the now legendary Raoul Wallenberg. Here Juraj remembers not just Wallenberg, but also other Swedish diplomats in Budapest, who helped to save tens of thousands of lives, including his own:
Juraj Szanto
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