Pál Szalai (September 3, 1915 – January 16, 1994) also spelled Pál Szalay and later anglicized as Paul Sterling was a high-ranking Hungarian police officer and reinstated member of the

Arrow Cross Party The Arrow Cross Party ( hu, Nyilaskeresztes Párt – Hungarista Mozgalom, , abbreviated NYKP) was a far-right Hungarian ultranationalist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which formed a government in Hungary they named the Government of National ...

after 1944. In 1945, together with Swedish diplomat

Raoul Wallenberg Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. 31 J ...

, Szalai helped save hundreds of Hungarian Jews in the Budapest ghetto. In 2009, he was honored by Israel as

Righteous among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sav ...

Biography

He was born in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

on September 3, 1915.

The Wallenberg-Szalai connection

In the Hungarian

Boy Scout A Scout (in some countries a Boy Scout, Girl Scout, or Pathfinder) is a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement. Because of the large age and development span, many Scouting associations have split ...

s in 1929 he became friends with

Károly Szabó :''See also Károly Szabó (Ambassador to the United States)'' Károly Szabó (November 17, 1916 – October 28, 1964) was an employee of the Swedish Embassy in Budapest from 1944 to 1945 when he rescued Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. ...

. This friendship continued in the critical months 1944 - 1945 while Pál Szalai, high-ranking member of the police force supported

. Szalai was from 1939 to 1942 an idealistic member of the

. He left the party in 1942 disillusioned, and returned to a high-ranking police force position in October 1944 to help people in mortal danger from the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. Szalai's friend Károly Szabó was an employee of the Swedish Embassy. Dr.

Otto Fleischmann Otto Fleischmann (January 24, 1896 in Mór, Hungary; January 8, 1963 in New York City) was a Hungarian-born Freudian psychoanalyst. Vienna Otto Fleischmann, although originally a juris doctor, studied philosophy with Moritz Schlick at the Univer ...

Doctor of Medicine Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin language, Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a profes ...

and psychologist of the Swedish Embassy motivated Károly Szabó to play active role in the rescue actions of Raoul Wallenberg. Pál Szalai supported his friend with important personal documents, signed from the German command in the

Battle of Budapest The Siege of Budapest or Battle of Budapest was the 50-day-long encirclement by Soviet and Romanian forces of the Hungarian capital of Budapest, near the end of World War II. Part of the broader Budapest Offensive, the siege began when Budap ...

. Szalai agreed to meet Raoul Wallenberg at the Swedish Embassy in the night of December 26, 1944.

The ghetto in Budapest

Szalai provided Raoul Wallenberg with special favors and government information. In the second week of January 1945, Raoul found out that

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

Budapest ghetto. The only one who could stop it was the man given the responsibility to carry the massacre out, the commander of the German troops in Hungary, Major General

Gerhard Schmidhuber __NOTOC__ Gerhard Schmidhuber (9 April 1894 – 11 February 1945) was a German general during World War II. He was born in Saxony and in 1914 was a reserve officer in the Imperial German Army. He left the army in 1920 and rejoined in 1934. He had ...

. Through Szalai, Wallenberg sent Schmidhuber a note promising that he, Raoul Wallenberg, would make sure the general was held personally responsible for the massacre and that he would be hanged as a war criminal when the war was over. The general knew that the war would be over soon and that the Germans were losing. The massacre never took place. According to

Giorgio Perlasca Giorgio Perlasca (31 January 1910 – 15 August 1992) was an Italian businessman and former Fascist who, with the collaboration of official diplomats, posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in the winter of 1944, and saved 5,218 Jews fr ...

, who posed as the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

consul-general A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

in the winter of 1944 and saved 5218

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, Pál Szalai lied to save his life during his criminal trial, and the history of the saving is different.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...

,
Oral history interview with Giorgio Perlasca
', 5 September 1990Interview by Enrico Deaglio to Giorgio Perlasca, from: Mixer, ''Giorgio Perlasca'',

Giovanni Minoli Giovanni may refer to: * Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname * Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data * '' Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend ...

, Rai, 1990VareseNews,
Gli uomini giusti muoiono di sabato
', 22 May 2010Interview by Enrico Deaglio to Giorgio Perlasca, from: Fondazione Giorgio Perslasca, ''Giorgio Perlasca - il mixer israeliano in ebraico'', 1990 Raoul Wallenberg saved hundreds of people but was not directly involved in the plan to save the ghetto. While Perlasca was posing as the Spanish consul-general, he learned of the intention to burn down the ghetto. Shocked and incredulous, he asked for a direct hearing with the Hungarian interior minister Gábor Vajna, in the basement of the Budapest City Hall where he had his headquarter, and threatened fictitious legal and economic measures against the "3000 Hungarian citizens" (in fact, a much smaller number) declared by Perlasca as residents of Spain, and the same treatment by two Latin American governments, to force the minister to withdraw the project. This actually happened in the following days.

After the war

After the war, Szalai was one of few high-ranking members of the Arrow Cross Party not executed. He was set free in recognition of his cooperation with Wallenberg.

Show trial preparations 1953 in Hungary

Preparations for a show trial started 1953 in Budapest to "prove" that Wallenberg had never been in the Soviet Union, nobody had dragged off Wallenberg in 1945, least of all the Soviet Army. Everything was ready for a trial designed to prove that Wallenberg had been the victim of

cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Food and drink * Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo" History * Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953 Hotels and resorts * Cosmopoli ...

Zionists. Three leaders of the Jewish community of Budapest Dr. László Benedek, Lajos Stöckler, and Miksa Domonkos, as well as two additional "eyewitnesses" Pál Szalai and Károly Szabó were arrested and tortured. The preparations for the show trial were initiated in Moscow, as part of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

's increasing antisemitic and anti-Zionist campaign - e.g.

Solomon Mikhoels Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels ( yi, שלמה מיכאעלס lso spelled שלוימע מיכאעלס during the Soviet era russian: Cоломон (Шлойме) Михоэлс, – 13 January 1948) was a Latvian born Soviet Jewish actor and the art ...

murder,

Night of the Murdered Poets The Night of the Murdered Poets (; yi, הרוגי מלכות פֿונעם ראַטנפאַרבאַנד, translit=Harugey malkus funem Ratnfarband, lit=Soviet Union Martyrs) was the execution of thirteen Soviet Jews in the Lubyanka Prison in Mosco ...

(of the World War II time

Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, ''Yevreysky antifashistsky komitet'' yi, יידישער אנטי פאשיסטישער קאמיטעט, ''Yidisher anti fashistisher komitet''., abbreviated as JAC, ''YeAK'', was an organization that was created i ...

), Slansky Trial,

Doctors' Plot The "Doctors' plot" affair, group=rus was an alleged conspiracy of prominent Healthcare in Russia, Soviet medical specialists to murder leading government and party officials. It was also known as the case of saboteur doctors or killer doctors. ...

. After Stalin's death on March 5, 1953, and as

Lavrentiy Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik ...

was executed, the trial was aborted and the arrestees released in fall 1953. Due to severe torture Miksa Domonkos died shortly after being released and Lajos Stöckler became psychologically impaired.

Emigration and death

He emigrated 1956 to the United States and lived in New Jersey then moved to California. He died on January 16, 1994, in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, under the name "Paul Sterling".

Social Security Death Index The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) was a database of death records created from the Social Security Administration, United States Social Security Administration's Death Master File until 2014. Since 2014, public access to the updated Death Mas ...

; 141-32-9949 some biographies incorrectly list January 18, 1994

References

External links

Wallenberg: More Twists to the Tale, Mária Ember, They Wanted to Blame UsInterview with István Domonkos
son of Miksa Domonkos who died after the show trial preparations (Hungarian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Szalai, Pal Hungarian police officers Jewish Hungarian history Hungarian people of World War II Hungarian Righteous Among the Nations Raoul Wallenberg 1915 births 1994 deaths Hungarian emigrants to the United States