Alexander Grossman (born Grossmann, Sándor 3 March 1909 – 29 October 2003) was a Zionist activist and, during the German occupation, a Hungarian resistance hero.
[1][2] Sándor Grossmann was born in Pusztaszomolló on the edge of the rapidly expanding industrial city of Miskolc in north-east Hungary.
Leopold and Serena Schlesinger, his parents, were members of the city's German speaking community, and deeply religious adherents of the Orthodox faith.
[1] Leopold Schlesinger died in 1915 and his widow moved the family into Miskolc where Sándor attended the Jewish middle school.
[1] As he grew up Grossmann became aware of a relentless growth in antisemitism on the streets and in the institutions of the recently launched Hungarian state.
[2] Helped by a friend who was a police officer, when the ghetto was set up at Miskolc during the early summer of 1944, Grossmann managed to avoid the round-up by escaping to Budapest.
The building also became a centre for the organisation of a wider rescue programme which saved the lives of many times that number of those whom the National Socialists wished to destroy.
[1] At the same time he became a member of the directorate of the Emigration Department of the Swiss Diplomat Mission in Budapest[b] which meant working very closely with Vice-consul Carl Lutz himself.
[1] From October 1944 he headed up the rescue programme which involved issuing and distributing the diplomatic letters of protection under the authorization of the vice-consul.
Under exceptionally tough conditions this meant providing care and support for perhaps 40,000 Jewish refugees who were distributed around Budapest in maybe 50 "safe houses" which enjoyed Swiss diplomatic protection.
Back at the Glass House, when doubts were expressed that admitting yet more of the Jewish persecutees gathered outside might endanger the lives of the people already inside, Grossmann made the (subsequently much quoted) assertion, "For the sake of one hundred thousand Jews it is worthwhile to risk our own lives", and personally opened the gates of the complex.