Welcome to the History Blog featuring the connections between Switzerland and the Midwest. I am Joerg Oberschmied, Deputy Consul General in Chicago. My interest in history started at an early age and continues to this day. The views expressed are solely mine and I hope you enjoy these journeys through time.

As part of a large-scale rescue operation, Carl Lutz put all his energy into saving distressed Jews in Hungary during World War II. He provided thousands of protection letters and an estimated 50,000 members of the Jewish people survived thanks to his intrepid help. Lutz spent nearly twenty years in the United States, and especially in the Midwest. The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Museum recently received several documents and artifacts from his stepdaughter, Agnes Hirschi, which we are highlighting in this History Blog, along with a link to a conversation recently at the museum, highlighting his time in the Midwest.

From Appenzell to Missouri

Carl Lutz was born in Walzenhausen (Canton Appenzell Ausserrhoden) in 1895, the second youngest of ten children belonging to Johannes and Ursula Lutz-Künzler (1849-1941). At age 14 he lost his father, a stone merchant. His mother held the large family together and she remained until her death the closest person Carl had. A devout Methodist, Ursula Lutz was a Sunday school teacher for more than 40 years and exemplified to her children the importance of caring for others. After basic schooling, Carl entered a commercial apprenticeship with the embroidery export company Heinrich Peter in St. Margrethen (Canton Sankt Gallen). He also took English courses in nearby Rheineck, before emigrating in 1913 to Granite City (Illinois), where an old family friend lived. There he found employment in the offices of The National Enameling and Stamping Company (NESCO). In 1918, Carl Lutz attended Central Wesleyan College in Warrenton, near St. Louis. Whilst there, he devoted himself to the study of economics, banking, commercial subjects, and English rhetoric. In 1920, Carl Lutz was given the opportunity to work at the Swiss Legation (now Embassy) in Washington and he began to attend lectures at George Washington University, from where he graduated in 1924 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1926, Lutz was transferred to Philadelphia as chancery secretary and he briefly returned to St. Louis in 1933-34 to serve as Chancellor. There he got engaged to Gertrud Fankhauser (1911-1995), an employee at the Swiss Consulate. The couple married the following year in Switzerland, but the relationship ended in 1946. Ms. Lutz-Fankhauser had a successful post-war career with UNICEF in Poland and in Brazil, before she was appointed UNICEF’s Vice-President and Director for Europe and North Africa. Following his US postings, Carl Lutz was transferred to Palestine, where after outbreak of the war Switzerland also represented the interests of Germany. In January of 1942 he was posted to Hungary, where Switzerland represented the interests of (12) countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Later he served in various positions within the Swiss Foreign Office, and he retired as Consul General in 1960. The town of Walzenhausen named him honorary citizen in 1963, and in 1964 he became the first Swiss to be included in Yad Vashem’s Alley of the Righteous among the Nations. He passed away in Bern, Switzerland in 1975. In 2014, George Washington University awarded Carl Lutz its President’s Medal posthumously.   

The American Album

In 1949, Carl Lutz married Magda Grausz-Csänyi, the mother of Agnes Hirschi-Grausz, who became his stepdaughter. Mrs. Hirschi later worked as a journalist at the “Berner Zeitung” and she has travelled far and wide, giving talks about Lutz at exhibitions and events. In 2018, she and historian Charlotte Schallié published “Under Swiss Protection” – a book that retraces Lutz’s diplomatic wartime rescue efforts through the lens of Jewish eyewitness testimonies.

Agnes Hirschi recently donated family photos and official documents from Carl Lutz to the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum. The artifacts were presented at an official event, and Lutz’s story about coming to America and saving thousands of lives in Hungary was told in a conversation with Amy Lutz, the museum’s Director of Marketing and Communications, which can be seen in the video below.

For more information visit the website of the Carl Lutz Society. To see the artifacts donated by Agnes Hirschi, you can visit the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum in person or online.

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