Bidspirit auction | Life-Saving Document - Certificate of

Life-Saving Document - Certificate of Protection Issued by the Vatican Embassy to the Jewish Man André Tamás - November 1944 - OLTALOMLEVÉL - Certificate of Protection issued by the Apostolic Nunciature (Vatican Embassy) in Budapest on November 7, 1944 - to André Tamás (who survived the war) - a document of protection and rescue for Hungarian Jews during the Arrow Cross terror and the deportations of the Jews of Budapest. Signed by the Italian diplomat and clergyman, Righteous Among the Nations Angelo Rotta. Certificates of protection of this kind issued by the Vatican Embassy are extremely rare. Certificate of Protection issued by the Apostoli Nunciatura / Pápai Követség - the diplomatic mission of the Holy See in Budapest - the Papal Embassy. The certificate was issued to the Jewish man TAMÁS ENDRE (André Tamás), born in 1910, son of Dr. Fischer Mór and Guttmann Margit - unmistakably Jewish names. According to the information recorded at the time of issuance, Tamás served in forced labor battalion No. 101/210 II. munkásszázad. ”Certificate of Protection The representative of the Holy See in Rome hereby certifies that Mr. André Tamás, who was born in Budapest in 1910 to his parents Dr. Mór Fischer and Margit Guttmann, and who is currently serving in forced labor battalion No. 101/210 II, a resident of Budapest, is under the protection of the Vatican Embassy in Budapest (NUNCIATURA APOSTOLICA / Pápai követség). Budapest, November 7, 1944. [Handwritten addition at the bottom of the document - on the left]: The above protection also applies to the wife of the aforementioned and to his son Ferenc. Handwritten signature of Angelo Rotta. Papal representative (NUNZIO APOSTOLICO / Pápai követ)”. Certificates of protection of this kind were often used to rescue Jewish men directly from the forced labor battalions of the Hungarian army, as indicated in the document by the reference to munkásszázad (labor company), demonstrating that Tamás was serving in a forced labor battalion at the time. The document was issued on November 7, 1944, at the height of the death marches from Budapest toward the Austrian border. Tamás did indeed survive the Holocaust and, after the war, moved to the United States. See the Yad Vashem Names Archive, record No. 16924431. Monsignor Angelo Rotta (1872-1965) an Italian diplomat and senior clergyman of the Holy See, and is regarded as one of the most prominent and courageous figures in the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust. He served as the Vatican's ambassador in Budapest. Rotta was appointed Apostolic Nuncio (Vatican Ambassador) to Hungary in 1930. During World War II, as Nazi pressure and antisemitism in Hungary intensified, he transformed the Vatican mission into a center of humanitarian rescue activity. In the spring of 1944, following the German occupation of Hungary and the commencement of the rapid deportations to Auschwitz, Rotta repeatedly protested, both officially and publicly, before Hungary's ruler Miklós Horthy and the Hungarian governments. He vehemently condemned the deportations and mistreatment of Jews as contrary to Christian morality. Moving from demands for action to action itself, Rotta initiated and led the issuance of Vatican ”Certificates of Protection.” He used his diplomatic status to designate thousands of Jews as being ”under the protection” of the Vatican. The mechanism he established issued approximately 15,000 such certificates, which granted their holders protected diplomatic status, enabled them to move into ”protected houses” in Budapest, and shielded them from deportation to extermination camps and the death marches. Rotta worked in close cooperation with diplomats from other neutral countries, foremost among them Raoul Wallenberg (Swedish Embassy), Carl Lutz (Swiss Embassy), and representatives of Spain and Portugal. Together, they established the ”protected houses” in Budapest and saved tens of thousands of Jews from terror and certain death. He did not confine himself to office work; he and members of his staff personally went to railway stations and death marches to remove Jews from the columns of deportees by presenting certificates of protection and exerting intense diplomatic pressure on Hungarian and German policemen and soldiers. For his extraordinary efforts, his courage, and his rescue of thousands of lives while risking his own, Monsignor Angelo Rotta was recognized in 1997 as Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. [1] leaf. Fold marks. Good condition.