Posted on 08/15/25
In 2015, a quiet street in Jerusalem was named for Moshe (Miklós) Krausz, a man whose extraordinary heroism during the Holocaust had gone largely unrecognized for decades. A Hungarian Jew and leader of the Palestine Office of the World Zionist Movement in Budapest, Krausz orchestrated one of the largest rescue operations of the Holocaust - saving at least 40,000 Jews, with some estimates as high as 100,000.
To appreciate the scale of his achievement, consider that Oskar Schindler - whose name is universally known - rescued 1,200 Jews. Yet Krausz’s story remained in the shadows. When he died in Jerusalem in 1986, it was in obscurity and without public acknowledgment of his heroism.
When the Nazis invaded Hungary in March 1944 and began deporting Jews to concentration camps, Moshe Krausz partnered with Swiss Vice-Consul Carl Lutz to launch a daring rescue operation. Lutz had negotiated permission to issue protective Swiss documents - called Schutz-Passes - for 8,000 Hungarian Jews emigrating to Palestine. They deliberately interpreted the quota as applying to families - not individuals - and issued tens of thousands of Shutz-Passes.
To shelter those under protection, they obtained diplomatic immunity for more than 75 buildings across Budapest, turning them into safe houses. The most famous was the abandoned glass factory - later known as the “Glass House” - where over 3,000 Jews found refuge for several harrowing months.
Zionist youth group members played a vital role, smuggling Jews into these shelters - often dressed as Nazi officers - and distributing forged documents, sometimes with the ink still drying. The scale, coordination, and daring of the operation were unprecedented.
Why, then, did such a monumental effort remain virtually unknown for so long?
The answer sadly lies in political infighting. Moshe Krausz was affiliated with the Mizrachi movement, while the leadership of the Yishuv in British Mandate Palestine - and later the State of Israel - was dominated by Mapai (the Labor Party). Separately from Krausz, Mapai had formed the Budapest Rescue Committee and appointed Israel Kasztner as its leader.
After the war, Kasztner was accused of collaborating with the Nazis. In a high-profile trial, Krausz testified against him, accusing Kasztner of undermining the Swiss document scheme by informing the Nazis that the 8,000 authorized Schutz-Passes were for individuals, not families. This betrayal, Krausz said, jeopardized the entire rescue effort. His testimony turned him into a political pariah, and for decades, his contributions were erased from public memory.
Carl Lutz, Krausz’s Swiss partner, was honored early on by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Lutz himself insisted that Krausz was the true mastermind behind the rescue. When the Jewish National Fund informed Lutz he would be inducted into its “Golden Book,” he requested that the honor go instead to Krausz. But at the official ceremony, Krausz’s name was never mentioned - only Lutz, again and again, spoke of the man behind the mission.
It wasn’t until the publication of Dr. Ayala Nadivi’s 2014 book Between Krausz and Kasztner: The Battle to Save Hungarian Jewry that the truth began to resurface. Disturbed by the near-complete absence of Krausz’s name in Yad Vashem’s archives, Nadivi called the omission a tragic injustice. No other individual-led rescue effort saved as many Jews during the Holocaust - and if that weren’t enough, Krausz’s plan also served as a blueprint for several subsequent operations that saved thousands more.
Slowly, recognition began to take shape. In addition to the Jerusalem street naming, the Beit Ha’Edut museum in Nir Galim built a full-scale replica of the Glass House and created a permanent exhibit honoring Krausz’s legacy.
Moshe Krausz never sought fame. He acted to save lives. It is only right that the world now remembers the hero it once overlooked.
Gedaliah Borvick is the founder of My Israel Home, a real estate agency focused on helping people from abroad buy and sell homes in Israel. To sign up for his monthly market updates, contact gborvick@gmail.com. Please visit his blog at www.myisraelhome.com.