Portal:Spain/Selected biography/11
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Ángel Sanz Briz (Zaragoza, September 28, 1910 - June 11, 1980) was a Spanish diplomat during World War II who helped save many Hungarian Jews from Nazi persecution. After studying law, his first diplomatic posting was to Cairo. He was sent to Budapest in 1942 where he is credited with saving the lives of 5,200 Jews from the Holocaust by using his influence and the facilities of the Spanish embassy. In 1944, as the Red Army approached Budapest, he was ordered to leave for Switzerland. Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian veteran of the Spanish War, continued his labor with fake documents.
After these events, Briz continued his diplomatic career: he was posted to San Francisco and Washington, Lima, Bern, Bayonne, Guatemala, The Hague, Brussels and China (1973, where he became the first Spanish ambassador). In 1976, he was sent to Rome as Ambassador of Spain before the Holy See, where he died on June 11, 1980. Briz Briz himself tells how he was able to save the lives of so many Jews, in Federico Ysart's book "Los judíos en España" (1973). In 1991, Briz was recognized by the Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem of Israel, and gave his heirs the title of Righteous Among the Nations. In 1994, the Hungarian government gave him the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary.
