Hungarian who helped Jews flee Holocaust honored in Budapest

A Hungarian who worked with Raoul Wallenberg to save Jews from Nazi death camps was finally honored.  

A Hungarian who printed thousands of passports allowing Jews to flee the country during World War II has been honored with a memorial plaque.

Emil Wiesmeyer’s printing company initially made 4,000 of the basic passports, part of efforts by Swedish special envoy Raoul Wallenberg to save Jews from Nazi death camps.

He then produced about 20,000 more on his own to help Jews make it out of Hungary.

The plaque honoring Emil Wiesmeyer was unveiled Wednesday in Budapest by Szabolcs Szita, director of the Holocaust Memorial Center, and Swedish Ambassador Niclas Trouve.

Some 550,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

Wiesmeyer later suffered persecution and was jailed in the 1950s, during Hungary’s communist era.

Wiesmeyer died in 1967. His son Gabor attended the ceremony.

By: AP