Sara Salkahazi (1899 – 1944)
SARA SALKAHAZI was born in Kosice, Slovakia (at that time Kassa, Hungary) on May 11, 1899, as the second child of a bourgeois family.
After receiving an elementary school teacher’s degree (the highest available for woman at that time) and working in a school for only one year she became a bookbinder, and later on a writer and a journalist. She worked as the editor of the official paper of the National Christian Socialist Party of Czechoslovakia, writing also short stories – mainly about the conditions of the poor and on moral issues regarding injustice.
She lived the average life of a modern woman (smoking, wearing trousers) but having completely changed her lifestyle in 1929, joining the Society of the Sisters of Social Service in Budapest, and committing herself for life to God.
She wanted to be sent in Brazil to the missions, but this dream didn’t come true – she was refused because of having a ‘difficult’ character, and because of the outbreak of World War II.
During the final months of WWII, she offered shelter to hundreds of Jews in one of the buildings that belonged to the Sisters in Budapest (Bokréta street 4). She even made a formal pledge to God to be prepared to sacrifice herself if only the other sisters were not harmed during the war – the text of which can be read in her journals.
On December 27, 1944 the house was surrounded by the Nazis who were looking for Jews. They took four suspects and a religion teacher (Vilma Bernovits) into custody, just when Sister Sára arrived home – she immediately introduced herself as the one in charge of the house and was dragged away together with those whom she wanted to protect. On the very same evening all six of them were taken to the bank of the Danube shot into the icy river, after having been forced to strip naked.
Her body was never found. The killings came to light in 1967, during the trials of Arrow Cross members.
She was honored by the Yad Vashem’s nomination in 1972, and on September 17, 2006 she was beatified in a proclamation by Pope Benedict XVI.
Sources: http://www.salkahazisara.com
The Hungarian Roman Catholic religious sister who saved the lives of some one hundred Jews during WWII.
SARA SALKAHAZI was born in Kosice, Slovakia (at that time Kassa, Hungary) on May 11, 1899, as the second child of a bourgeois family.
After receiving an elementary school teacher’s degree (the highest available for woman at that time) and working in a school for only one year she became a bookbinder, and later on a writer and a journalist. She worked as the editor of the official paper of the National Christian Socialist Party of Czechoslovakia, writing also short stories – mainly about the conditions of the poor and on moral issues regarding injustice.
She lived the average life of a modern woman (smoking, wearing trousers) but having completely changed her lifestyle in 1929, joining the Society of the Sisters of Social Service in Budapest, and committing herself for life to God.
She wanted to be sent in Brazil to the missions, but this dream didn’t come true – she was refused because of having a ‘difficult’ character, and because of the outbreak of World War II.
During the final months of WWII, she offered shelter to hundreds of Jews in one of the buildings that belonged to the Sisters in Budapest (Bokréta street 4). She even made a formal pledge to God to be prepared to sacrifice herself if only the other sisters were not harmed during the war – the text of which can be read in her journals.
On December 27, 1944 the house was surrounded by the Nazis who were looking for Jews. They took four suspects and a religion teacher (Vilma Bernovits) into custody, just when Sister Sára arrived home – she immediately introduced herself as the one in charge of the house and was dragged away together with those whom she wanted to protect. On the very same evening all six of them were taken to the bank of the Danube shot into the icy river, after having been forced to strip naked.
Her body was never found. The killings came to light in 1967, during the trials of Arrow Cross members.
She was honored by the Yad Vashem’s nomination in 1972, and on September 17, 2006 she was beatified in a proclamation by Pope Benedict XVI.
Sources: http://www.salkahazisara.com