Tribute to Imre Farkass "Righteous Among The Nations"

The recent addition of Imre Farkass's name to the Israeli roll call of RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS represents official acknowledgment of his unflagging resistance to the Nazi occupation of Hungary during the dark days of World War II and his courageous achievements in helping those in need and rescuing those in danger-providing shelter, forging ID's and passports, collecting and destributing underground papers and fire arms, expediting escape. His story is astonishing and breathtaking:

As a young assistant professor of physics at the Polytechnical Institute in Budapest, he hid thirteen people-nine of them Jewish, four non-Jewish-in remote corners and cabinets of his laboratory. Here he housed them, fed them, concealed them from the Nazi authorities.

Where did he get the nerve? the chutzpah?-as he is often asked. His reply is simple: "I was only twenty-four years old, not a hero, but born into a family with very strong humanistic beliefs. Even as a student from 1937 on, I was so loudly anti-Nazi that when the German army came into Hungary in 1944, I was sure I'd be arrested." But he turned out to be-on the surface at least-"too small a fish. They were arresting writers and politicians." He was, by his own account, "young and brash, totally self-confident, even conceited." He saw the Nazis, he says, "as stupid, sadistic bullies. I felt that even though they were in total control of the country, I could outsmart them. And I did!"

Imre Farkass says this proudly, admitting at the same time that he was also extremely lucky. We too feel lucky to have an opportunity to salute this man who saved lives at the risk of his own life and who thereby so richly deserves the medal admitting him into that small, valiant circle so gratefully designated by the State of Israel as "Righteous Among the Nations."