Pinchas Freudiger () also Fülöp Freudiger, Philip von Freudiger (born 1900 in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, Austria-Hungary, died 1976 in Israel) was a Hungarian-Israeli manufacturer and Jewish community leader.

Life

Pinchas Freudiger was the son of Abraham Freudiger (1868-1939). His grandfather, textile manufacturer Mózes Freudiger (1833-1911), helped found the

Orthodox Jewish Orthodox Judaism is a collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as literally revealed by God on Mount Sinai and faithfully tra ...

community in Budapest and was elevated to noble status. Pinchas Freudiger studied and entered the family business. He was a member of the Orthodox Jewish council in Budapest, succeeding his father as council chairman upon his father’s death in 1939.

Holocaust

Starting in 1938, the authoritarian Horthy regime of Hungary tightened

antisemitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

laws enacted to isolate Jews. After the German

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...

in 1939, thousands of Polish Jews fled to Hungary. Freudiger and others created support organizations to aid them. Meanwhile, many Hungarian Jews continued to believe in their own safety, despite deepening antisemitism in the country. During

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along ...

in 1941, the Jewish men were not recruited for the

Hungarian army The Hungarian Ground Forces (, ) constitute the land branch of the Hungarian Defence Forces, responsible for ground activities and troops, including artillery, tanks, Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs), and g ...

, but used in forced labor battalions often stationed behind or at the front. In 1942, after intense pressure by Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl of the

Bratislava Working Group The Working Group () was an underground Jewish organization in the Axis-aligned Slovak State during World War II. Led by Gisi Fleischmann and Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl, the Working Group rescued Jews from the Holocaust by gathering and disse ...

, Hungary’s orthodox Jewish community — under Freudiger’s leadership — financially aided persecuted

Jews in Slovakia The history of the Jews in Slovakia goes back to the 11th century, when the first Jews settled in the area. Early history In the 14th century, about 800 Jews lived in Bratislava, the majority of them engaged in commerce and money lending. In ...

, paying a ransom to the Nazis to stop transports of Slovakian Jews to

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

. Those transports stopped for two years. After the German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944, Freudiger and Samu Stern were appointed by the Germans as representatives of the orthodox and Neologue Jewish communities on the

Jewish Council A ''Judenrat'' (, ) was an administrative body, established in any zone of German-occupied Europe during World War II, purporting to represent its Jewish community in dealings with the Nazi authorities. The Germans required Jews to form ''J ...

(

Judenrat A ''Judenrat'' (, ) was an administrative body, established in any zone of German-occupied Europe during World War II, purporting to represent its Jewish community in dealings with the Nazi authorities. The Germans required Jews to form ''J ...

, Zsidó tanács) in Budapest. The Jewish Council was among recipients of the

Vrba–Wetzler report The Vrba–Wetzler report is one of three documents that comprise what is known as the '' Auschwitz Protocols'', otherwise known as the Auschwitz Report or the Auschwitz notebook. It is a 33-page eye-witness account of the Auschwitz concentrati ...

, also known as the Auschwitz Protocols, the Auschwitz Report. It detailed the atrocities in Auschwitz. Much like

Rezső Kasztner Rezső Kasztner (; 1906 – 15 March 1957), also known as Rudolf Israel Kastner (), was a Hungarian-Israeli journalist and lawyer who became known for having helped a group of Jews escape from occupied Europe during the Holocaust on the Kastne ...

(aka Rudolf), members of the Jewish Council failed to publicize the atrocities or warn Hungarian Jews of their impending fate.

In Israel

Freudiger and his family escaped to Palestine via Romania in August 1944 in coordination with high-ranking SS officers

Dieter Wisliceny Dietrich "Dieter" Wisliceny (13 January 1911 – 4 May 1948) was a member of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) and one of the deputies of Adolf Eichmann, helping to organise and coordinate the large-scale deportations of the Jews across Europe during t ...

and . They warned Freudiger that

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ;"Eichmann"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 19 March 1906 – 1 Ju ...

hated him, partly because of his red beard, and intended to imminently put him on a transport. He testified at the

Eichmann trial The Eichmann trial was the 1961 trial of major Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann who was Operation Eichmann, captured in Argentina by Israeli agents and brought to Israel to stand trial. Eichmann was a senior Nazi party member and served at t ...

in Jerusalem.

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (born Johanna Arendt; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German and American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theory, political theorists of the twentieth century. Her work ...

, in her 1963 book 'Eichman and the Holocaust' described Freudiger as "The only witness t the trialwho had been a prominent member of a

...". She describes how "during his testimony the only serious incidents in the audience took place; people screamed at the witness in Hungarian and in Yiddish, and the court had to interrupt the session." Freudiger, 'shaken', responds to the audience. * "There are people here who say they were not told to escape. But fifty per cent of the people who escaped were captured and killed - annah Arendt commentsas compared with ninety-nine percent, for those who did not escape." * "Where could they have gone to? Where could they have fled?' - annah Arendt commentsbut he himself fled, to Rumania, because he was rich and Wisliceny helped him." * "What could we have done? What could we have done?' And the only response to this came from the presiding judge: 'I do not think this is an answer to the question' - a question raised by the gallery but not by the court." Hannah Arendt is highly critical of Jewish leaders who co-operated with the Nazis and mentions Freudiger again in this context. "Wherever Jews lived, there were recognized Jewish leaders, and this leadership, almost without exception, cooperated in one way or another, for one reason or another, with the Nazis. The whole truth was that if the Jewish people had really been unorganized and leaderless, there would have been chaos and plenty of misery but the total number of victims would hardly have been between four and a half and six million people. (According to Freudiger's calculations about half of them could have saved themselves if they had not followed the instructions of the Jewish Councils."

Life

Holocaust

In Israel

References

Further reading