Carl Lutz, his wife Gertrud and his colleagues Harald Feller, Peter Zürcher and Ernst Vonrufs contributed to the protection of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from death during World War II.

After the occupation of Hungary in March 1944, the Nazi regime and his Hungarian accomplices tried to eliminate the whole Jewish community of Hungary. The Swiss Vice-Consul Carl Lutz, Head of the Foreign Interests Division at the Swiss Embassy in Budapest 1942-45, took a central role in the collective efforts to protect the Jewish community in Hungary from persecution and deportation. Thousands of protective letters ("Schutzbriefe") were issued and great efforts were conducted to enable the emigration of Hungarian Jews to Palestine or Switzerland. Protective letters were also issued by the representatives of other neutral governments in Budapest such as Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden and others, which broadened the impact.

By the end of the war close to 124,000 Hungarian Jews survived. Tens of thousands of these owed their life to the courageous actions of Carl Lutz, his colleagues, the other neutral diplomats and their local partners in Budapest. Carl Lutz has been honored by Yad Vashem and the State of Israel. In 1963 a street was named after him in Haifa, Israel, later by his home village Walzenhausen, Switzerland and by the Swiss government. Since 1991 a memorial at the entrance to the old Budapest ghetto remembers Carl Lutz's work in Budapest. In 2006 the American Embassy honored Carl Lutz with a memorial in the park of the American Embassy. In 2018, a meeting room in the Federal Palace in Bern was named “Salle Carl Lutz”. The memorial plaque in front of the room reads as follows: «This room is dedicated to all employees of the department who, like Carl Lutz, Harald Feller, Gertrud Lutz-Fankhauser, Ernst Vonrufs and Peter Zürcher 1944-1945 in Budapest, demonstrated a great humanity that must be an incentive for us.»

Of central importance in the collective efforts to protect from persecutions and deportation was the Glass House, an old industrial building at Vadász utca 29. Over 3,000 Jews found refuge and protection from their prosecutors at the Glass House during World War II.  The Glasshouse is now open for visitors as a museum, that is documenting the history of Carl Lutz, his partners and their activities. A more general documentation on the Hungarian Jews and the Holocaust is available at the Holocaust Memorial Center, for further information please use the link below.

In the last years there were numerous occasions to celebrate the memory of Carl Lutz and of the other actors of the protection operation in Hungary and all around the world. In Budapest there is the Memorial Room in the Glass House, the Monument in front of the US Embassy and also the Carl Lutz Quay (XIII. district) where in April 2013 more than 20 000 people took part in the March of the Living honoring the deeds of Carl Lutz.

Swiss ambassadors and diplomats to Hungary are regularly invited to talk about Carl Lutz and the Embassy in Budapest actively promotes the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust and the memory of the humanitarian action of Carl Lutz and other neutral diplomats in Budapest during WW2.

In 2024, the Embassy participated actively in the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary. On this occasion, an article on the protection operation in Budapest was published in the online magazine of the Holocaust Memorial Center of Budapest. The Embassy also took part in a colloquium at ELTE University in Budapest on the persecution and protection of Hungarian Jews. You can find the text under the link below.

On the occasion of the project “Switzerland in Budapest” in 2025 the Embassy held various Carl Lutz walks together with their partners hosszúlépés.járunk?, the Carl Lutz Foundation of Budapest, that operates the memorial exhibition in the historic building of the Glasshouse in Vadász utca 29, and Zachor Foundation, who operate the IWalks App, that features a walk in the Glasshouse. Please reach out to our partners, if you want to get to know more about this important topic.