Hungarian who helped Jews flee Holocaust honored in Budapest

Emil Wiesmeyer’s printing company made fake passports as part of efforts by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg to save Jews from Nazi death camps

By AP 19 October 2017, 3:39 am

Edit

Director of the Holocaust Memorial Center Szabolcs Szita lays a wreath at a memorial plaque dedicated to the late director of the one-time Antiqua Printing House Emil Wiesmeyer who helped to save the lives of thousands of Jewish Hungarians during WWII, October 18, 2017. (Zsolt Szigetvary/MTI via AP)

BUDAPEST, Hungary — A Hungarian who printed thousands of passports allowing Jews to flee the country during World War II has been honored with a memorial plaque.

Emil Wiesmeyer’s printing company initially made 4,000 of the basic passports, part of efforts by Swedish special envoy Raoul Wallenberg to save Jews from Nazi death camps.

He then produced about 20,000 more on his own to help Jews make it out of Hungary.

The plaque honoring Emil Wiesmeyer was unveiled Wednesday in Budapest by Szabolcs Szita, director of the Holocaust Memorial Center, and Swedish Ambassador Niclas Trouve

Some 550,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust.