August 8, 2008

Anti-Defamation League Honors Hungarian American Guido de Görgey with Bearing Witness Award

On August 6, the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center hosted an award ceremony by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) at which the organization honored Mr. Guido de Görgey, a Hungarian émigré to the U.S., who saved Jewish people during the Holocaust. ADL gave this year’s Bearing Witness Award to Mr. de Görgey for his bravery and selflessness at the Center located within the campus of the Catholic University of America.

Mr. de Görgey, now 87 years old, showed exceptional courage when he deserted the Hungarian army after his country’s occupation by Nazi Germany and worked relentlessly for months to hide, protect and save Jewish people from being deported to concentration camps and being killed. Mr. de Gorgey, together with his mother and his friend Jenő Thassy, ended up saving the lives of more than a hundred people in 1944-1945. The first person he and his mother saved was a 13-year-old Jewish girl who was their neighbor and who now lives in Australia and still keeps in touch with Mr. de Görgey. The Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem proclaimed Mr. de Görgey a Righteous Among Nations in 1997.

The Bearing Witness award ceremony opened with an introduction by Hugh M. Dempsey, Deputy Director of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center. Remarks were presented by Father James Massa, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Dr. Maria Vass, Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of Hungary. The honoree was presented by Steve Schramm, the Director of ADL Washington. Father Massa recognized the exemplary cooperation existing between ADL and the Bishops’ Conference over Holocaust education, which centers around the Bearing Witness educational program for teachers taking place this month in Washington.

Chargé d’Affaires Mária Vass highlighted the courage of Mr. de Görgey showed during the horrific days of the Shoa, and presented the steps taken by the Hungarian government to enhance Holocaust education and remembrance as well as to fight anti-Semitism in Hungary. She quoted the Hungarian-born, late Congressman Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever to have served in the U.S. Congress: “it is the responsibility of the entire international community to prevent another Holocaust and to keep the memory of those who perished alive” In closing, she conveyed the message of Ambassador Ferenc Somogyi.

The 2008 Bearing Witness honoree, Mr. Guido de Görgey remembered the sad and trying days of 1944-1945 in his exceptionally humble acceptance speech. While recalling the numerous human stories in which he worked hard to protect Jews from harm, he emphasized that he could not have acted alone and many helped him.

Guido de Görgey was born in 1920 in Vienna, Austria, where his father served as Military Attaché at the Hungarian Embassy. He is the grandchild of the military commander of the Hungarian revolution and freedom war in 1848-49 General Artúr Görgey. In 1941, he graduated from Ludovika Military Academy and served in the Hungarian army until the country’s Nazi occupation in March 1944 when he deserted. The Communist government of Hungary imprisoned him in the 1950s. He left Hungary after the revolution in 1956 and he settled in New York. He published his and his brother’s life story in 2004 under the title Two Gorgeys, by Helikon Publishing.
 

         Photos by Carl Cox Photography (www.carlcoxphoto.com)