The Budapest Gang, Part I

In March 1944, the Nazis invaded Hungary.  Adolf Eichmann himself was sent to Hungary to oversee the mass deportation of more than 400,000 Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.   One-third of all Jews killed in Auschwitz was Hungarian.   Efforts to help Jews escape this terrible fate concentrated heavily on Budapest, Hungary.  The Budapest underground network, believed to have had as many as 350 volunteers, rose to meet the needs of Jewish refugees.  Of the 18 diplomats on Yad Vashem's Righteous Among the Nations list, 10 of them were part of the Budapest network.  They were representing:

Spain: Angel Sanz-Briz, Giorgio "Jorge" Perlasca
Sweden: Per Anger, Lars Berg, Carl Ivan Danielson, Valdemar Langlet, Raoul Wallenberg
Switzerland:  Friedrich Born, Carl Lutz
Vatican:  Monsignor Angelo Rotta

Spain
Angel Sanz-Briz was the Spanish Charge D'Affairs to Hungary.  He convinced the Hungarian government early on to allow 200 Sephardic Jews (whose ancesters originally came from Spain) to return to Spain.  

”The two hundred units that had been granted to me I turned them into two hundred families; and the two hundred families multiplied indefinitely due to the simple procedure of not issuing a document or passport with a number higher than 200”, Sanz Briz would tell years later in the book ”Spain and the Jews”, by Federico Ysart.  (Source)

An example of such a visa:

This certifies that Mor Mannheim, born in 1907, resident of Budapest, Katona Jozsef Street 41, has applied for Spanish citizenship through his relatives in Spain.  The Legation of Spain has authorized an entry visa to Spain before the completion of the proceedings started by this application.  Signed, Angel Sanz-Briz, 14 November 1944.  (Source)

Sanz-Briz also rented four building labeled "Annexes of the Spanish Legation" and filled the buildings with refugees until they could leave the country safely.

When Sanz-Briz was suddenly forced to leave Hungary in December 1944, the safe houses were threatened to be taken over by the Hungarian government.   The man he had put in charge of the houses, Giorgio "Jorge" Perlasca, an Italian who was granted an "honorary" Spanish citizenship, quickly forged documents appointing himself as the new Spanish Ambassador to Hungary.

Although Sanz-Briz invited him to go to Switzerland with him, Perlasca chose to stay in Budapest to keep the Spanish Embassy going.  He continued to run the Spanish safe houses and issue visas for another 45 days, until January 1945, when the Sovets took command of Budapest. It is estimated that Sanz-Briz and Perlasca helped save the lives of around 5200 Jews.

To be continued...

Additional information:

Angel Sanz-Briz:  Spanish Angel of Budapest (Spanish), Latin Schindler's of the Holocaust (Spanish),
Giorgio Perlasca:  Giorgio Perlasca (Italian)