Glass House

Former Swiss consulate in Budapest that served as a refuge for persecuted Jews in 1944 under diplomat Carl Lutz — now a memorial to one of the Holocaust's largest rescue operations.

The Glass House at 29 Vadász utca in Budapest's 5th district is a quiet but haunting testament to humanitarian courage during World War II. In the summer of 1944, as Hungary's Jewish population was being deported en masse to Auschwitz, Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz declared the building — then the offices of the Swiss consulate — a place of sanctuary. Thousands of persecuted Jews found refuge here from the Arrow Cross militias and the SS. Lutz issued protective passes and is estimated to have saved around 62,000 lives — the largest rescue operation carried out by a single diplomat during the Holocaust. Today a memorial inside the building commemorates this history, with small exhibitions and plaques documenting the events of 1944. Visitors come here to understand how a city building became a lifeline for tens of thousands.