Kalman Ferenczfalvi, 84; Honored for Saving 2,000 Jews in the Holocaust

Kalman Ferenczfalvi, credited with saving the lives of about 2,000 Jews during the Holocaust, has died.

He was 84.

Ferenczfalvi died April 8 in the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen after suffering a brain hemorrhage, said Balazs Kiss, who directed a documentary featuring testimony about Ferenczfalvi’s lifesaving acts during World War II.

In 1988, Israel’s Yad Vashem Institute granted Ferenczfalvi the title “Righteous Among the Nations,” which recognizes Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust.

During World War II, he worked as an administrator of a labor brigade, which many Jews were forced into during the latter stages of the war.

Disregarding orders, he designated the workers to guard the Budapest headquarters of the International Red Cross, thereby protecting them from deportation and likely death.

He also forged papers for Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis and their Hungarian allies.

The documents, written in Hungarian and German, were accepted as authentic by the Nazis long after similar papers issued by others no longer guaranteed safe passage.

After the war, Ferenczfalvi was a bookkeeper for several state companies under the Communist regime. A widower, he is survived by a son and daughter.