1891. Paul Gruninger was born

Photo: yadvashem.org

125 years ago, on October 27, 1891, Paul Gruninger, the head of the Swiss canton, St. Gallen, who saved 3601 Jews from Germany and Austria, was born to the "righteous of the peoples of the world".

After the Switzerland government in August 1938 closed the country's borders for refugees from Germany, Gruninger, along with several subordinates, began to fake the entrance documents of Jews. In retroactively, he affixed the dates of entry in their passports, preceding the closure of the boundaries. Thus, these people were saved from death.

When these facts were discovered by the superiors, Grunhunger was removed from his post in March 1939 and soon fired from the police without the right to restore and without a pension. In 1941, Canton’s court sentenced him to a fine for falsification of documents and violation of job descriptions. The policeman motivated his actions by the fact that it was about people who threatened death.

In 1970, the Switzerland government apologized to Grunhunger, but refused to revise the case. He died in 1972 and was posthumously rehabilitated only in 1996.