What do you think?
Rate this book
Dangerous Diplomacy: The Story of Carl Lutz, Rescuer of 62,000 Hungarian Jews
A stirring biography of courage in the face of evil chronicles the life of Carl Lutz, a Swiss diplomat who saved 62,000 Jews from certain death at the hands of the Nazis.
265 pages, Hardcover
First published October 31, 2000
137 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 10, 2007
read this for my WWII seminar, and i finally just purchased another copy to replace the one i had given away.
it's astounding, really, what happened in hungary during the war, and how people just gloss over it, in part, i think, because the soviets were right there at the end. (the most excellent musuem i have ever been in, i think, is the "terror house" in budapest, which chronicles the "double occupation" of the nazis and then soviets.)
anyway, this is the story of one man and his wife, and the struggle to save the jews of budapest. what is sad is that he is relatively forgotten (this is the only book i could find on him in english) and raoul wallenberg, who also worked in budapest to save jews, is considered this massive hero - mostly, i think, because he's one of "history's mysteries" - he disappeared after the war. (we now know he was imprisoned in a soviet camp, but other than that, nothing.) so because lutz didn't die, he returned to switzerland in shame, to a country that basically disowned him because he was a diplomat, and yet he intervened, and he died in depression and basic obscurity.
the book does an excellent job of contextualizing budapest at the time, and giving background to eichmann's plan for hungary. it's absolutely stunning to think about, but the hungarian jews were subject to the worst of the holocaust, in a way - because they were rounded up so late in the war, auschwitz was at full operating power, and they processed something like 480,000 hungarian jews in the month of august alone.
it's a beautiful book, and i wish there was a way to have more people remember, to learn about him.
it's astounding, really, what happened in hungary during the war, and how people just gloss over it, in part, i think, because the soviets were right there at the end. (the most excellent musuem i have ever been in, i think, is the "terror house" in budapest, which chronicles the "double occupation" of the nazis and then soviets.)
anyway, this is the story of one man and his wife, and the struggle to save the jews of budapest. what is sad is that he is relatively forgotten (this is the only book i could find on him in english) and raoul wallenberg, who also worked in budapest to save jews, is considered this massive hero - mostly, i think, because he's one of "history's mysteries" - he disappeared after the war. (we now know he was imprisoned in a soviet camp, but other than that, nothing.) so because lutz didn't die, he returned to switzerland in shame, to a country that basically disowned him because he was a diplomat, and yet he intervened, and he died in depression and basic obscurity.
the book does an excellent job of contextualizing budapest at the time, and giving background to eichmann's plan for hungary. it's absolutely stunning to think about, but the hungarian jews were subject to the worst of the holocaust, in a way - because they were rounded up so late in the war, auschwitz was at full operating power, and they processed something like 480,000 hungarian jews in the month of august alone.
it's a beautiful book, and i wish there was a way to have more people remember, to learn about him.
Displaying 1 of 1 review