Egon Mayer (December 23, 1944 – January 30, 2004) was a Swiss-born American sociologist and professor at Brooklyn College.
The train left Budapest in June 1944 after Rudolf Kastner, a Hungarian lawyer, negotiated with Adolf Eichmann to allow 1,684 Jews safe passage to Switzerland.
The passengers arrived in Switzerland in two stages – one in August 1944, the second in December – the month in which Mayer was born – after a stop at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
[3] Mayer's family returned to Budapest when the war ended, then immigrated to the United States in 1956.
[1] Mayer died on January 30, 2004, aged 59, from cancer of the gall bladder, in Laurel Hollow, New York.