Paul Grüninger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paul Grüninger (1891-1972) was the commander of police in the Canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland.
In August and September, 1938, following the Austrian Anschluss (annexation) of March, he provided falsely dated papers to some 3,601 Jewish refugees from the Nazis in Austria, permitting them to enter Switzerland. Once discovered (apparently also following denounciation by some Swiss Jews, as these had officially to pay for the maintenance of foreign refugees of the same religion), he was dismissed and denied pension rights.
As in the case of Carl Lutz, he was not "rehabilitated" in his country until 1970; he also received official honors in Israel one year later, shortly before his death: he is one of over 20,000 gentiles remembered as the Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem official Israeli holocaust memorial.
[edit] References
- http://www.memo.fr/article.asp?ID=PAY_SUI_CON_024
- www.paul-grueninger.ch