From HeraldNet, Saturday, August 19, 2006, by LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press ....
...Clara Ambrus-Baer and her family had their home in Budapest.....[They] provided a safe haven for Jews during the Holocaust, saving about 50 people targeted by the Germans, including the future chief rabbi of Vienna.
...the Israeli government honored Clara Ambrus-Baer for her life-saving efforts more than six decades ago. "I never expected this," said Ambrus-Baer, now 81 and living in Buffalo. "I didn't want to get praised for what I did. I took it for normal that somebody saves people's lives."
Ambrus-Baer received a "Righteous Among the Nations" award, presented to people who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. It is the highest honor bestowed on non-Jews by the state of Israel, with 21,310 recipients as of January.
Ambrus-Baer was 19 when the Germans invaded Budapest in 1944. Her family turned its home into a safe haven for Jews hiding from the Nazis, and provided elaborate hideouts in a vacant textile factory that her parents once managed. She recalled times when the Germans came to the house, when the discovery of the hidden Jews would have led to the death of her own family....
Arye Mekel, Israeli consul general in New York, said the heroism of Ambrus-Baer and her family was verified by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. "The Jewish state has a long memory," Mekel said. "We remember our enemies. We don't easily forgive. But we remember our friends, too, particularly those who saved Jews during the Holocaust." ...
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