Gresham against the Nazis

Located in the heart of Leopold Town district in Budapest and facing the famous Chain Bridge, the building of the Gresham Palace saw glamorous and horrible historical events and holds many secrets of the 20^th-century Hungarian history.

LÁSZLÓ SZELKE follows the history of the Art Nouveau palace from its predecessor ot its renovation and conversation into a luxury hotel in the 2000s. Besides the building itself he also focuses on the famous and everyday people who lived, worked, or shopped there. These were legendary figures like Mihály Kertész, the famous director of Casablanca, who also worked at a film studio here before immigrating to the United States. Simon Papp, an expert in Hungarian oil explorations and director of American-Hungarian oil companies, who worked in the building witnessed the killings of Jews at the Danube Bank from his office window. During WWII. the Gresham served as a prominent site of anti-Nazi resistance and rescue activities in Hungary. The book's focus is on these years, and the author describes the Hungarian anti-Nazi resistance endeavors and separate-peace initiative in context. During the war, the Swedish diplomat and rescuer of tens of thousands of Budapest Jews, Raoul Wallenberg established close contacts with the most important Hungarian national resistance organizations, including those located in the Gresham.

Gresham against the Nazis is a book about a building and its residents in Budapest standing in the center of twentieth-century liberal-opposition activity, anti-Nazi intellectual resistance, secret diplomacy and wartime rescue activities in Hungary.