Yad Vashem medals were awarded Friday to two Swiss citizens who helped rescue Jews during World War II. One medal was awarded to Mrs. Gertrud Lutz, widow of Carl Lutz, who was Swiss Consul General in Budapest during the war. Lutz saved thousands of Jews by giving them Swiss identity papers. Mrs. Lutz helped him in this task. Carl Lutz was awarded the Yad Vashem medal in 1958.
The second medal was given to a Yugoslav now living in Lausanne, Milord Tocitz. During the war, Tocitz was an active member of the Yugoslav resistance movement. He succeeded in evacuating numerous Jewish families from Yugoslavia to Hungary where, at that time, Jews were not yet persecuted. The ceremony, which was attended by the families of Lutz and Tocitz and leaders of the Jewish communities in Bern and Lausanne, received wide coverage in the Swiss press.
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