Freudiger Fülöp

Freudiger Fülöp 

Hungarian Jewish businessman, factory owner, community leader. Born in Budapest to a well-to-do family, Freudiger succeeded his father, Abraham, as the head of the Orthodox Jewish community of Budapest in 1939. Freudiger helped many of the Jewish refugees in Hungary. After German occupation, 1944 appointed to the Judenrat in Budapest. Through the intermediacy of Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel of Bratislava, Freudiger established close contact with Dieter Wisliceny of the Eichmann Sonderkommando almost immediately after the occupation in March, 1944. By bribing Wisliceny, Freudiger succeeded in rescuing about eighty prominent Orthodox Jews from various ghettos in Hungary. Partly with Wisliceny's aid, he and his family escaped to Romania, on August, 1944. Freudiger eventually settled in Israel, where his escape was subject of controversy. He served as a prosecution witness in the Eichmann trial in 1961.