Horrors Described
The unidentified narrator, witness and rescuer began his recital in this way: "Only Dostoevsky's pen would be capable of describing the horrors that accompany deportation from Budapest to Hegyeshalom, the frontier station. Going there by lorry, you pass group after group of deportees dragging themselves along, starving, frozen, limping, exhausted...."
By the end of December, Soviet forces encircled half of Budapest, but the anti-Jewish measures continued until the end. On December 24, 1944, the five neutral diplomatic missions joined in another, final protest. The government had decided to enclose all Jews in a ghetto, thereby of course, driving them from what-ever shelter they had found in various embassies, religious houses and other hospital centers. In their general remonstrance, the diplomats urged that at least children and their mothers should be permitted to remain. This document was sent to Rome by the nuncio months later, with no account of the outcome.