At the age of 17, Endre Grósz was training as a craftsman in Budapest. After the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, he went underground and joined a Zionist resistance group. Since he could do technical drawing, he became a member of the “forgers’ workshop.” To evade persecution, the young Zionists adopted non-Jewish identities and forged several thousand documents for people living underground, including identity papers, visas, birth certificates, and marriage certificates. They also produced forged letters of protection ostensibly issued by the embassies of Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and the Vatican, which protected persecuted Jews from deportation.
In December 1944 Endre Grósz and many other members of the Zionist underground were captured by German occupying forces and the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party’s combat troops. Grósz was interned in a military prison. At the end of 1944, a number of Zionists managed to free 120 underground activists from the prison. This group, who thereby evaded being murdered, included Endre Grósz. He emigrated to Israel in 1949 and changed his name to David Gur.
Members of the Zionist “forgery workshop,” left to right: Franciska Schechter (1920–1966), Ernő Teichman (1922–?), Endre Grósz, and a friend (name unknown), Budapest, 1944. Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C., 55027
Endre Grósz (later David Gur) in Arrow Cross Party uniform, 1944/45. Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C., 94470
