New Outdoor Mural Pays Tribute to Roswell Park Heroes Who Saved Thousands of Lives During Holocaust

BUFFALO, N.Y. — New York State leaders joined representatives from the Buffalo Jewish Federation (BJF) and the Holocaust Education Resource Organization (HERO) of Buffalo yesterday for a ceremony celebrating a powerful new mural that adorns a wall of the Research Studies Center on Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Buffalo campus. 

Painted by Hungarian street artist Taker, the spray-painted mural honors the enduring legacy of three longtime Western New York residents who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust: Clara Ambrus, MD, PhD, Tibor Baranski and Sister Margit Slachta. 

Family members of Dr. Ambrus, Baranski and of a cancer researcher saved by Slachta spoke at the event along with U.S. Congressman-elect Tim Kennedy, Nikolett Szantovszki from the Consulate General of Hungary in New York, officials from BJF and HERO and Candace S. Johnson, PhD, President, CEO and M&T Bank Presidential Chair in Leadership at Roswell Park.

Dr. Ambrus, Baranski and Slachta settled in Buffalo after saving thousands of Hungarian Jews from extermination during World War II. All three have been honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations in recognition of their extraordinary bravery. 

• Clara Ambrus, MD, PhD, was still in her teens when she first helped Jewish prisoners to escape from Nazi-occupied Hungary. She received the Courage of Care Award from the Anti-Defamation League in 2008, and has also been honored as a member of Hungary’s National Academy of Science. She and her husband, Julian, spent decades as cancer researchers at Roswell Park while raising their seven children. Dr. Ambrus died in 2011.
• Tibor Baranski is credited with saving at least 3,000 Jewish lives as a young seminary student with the help of Hungary’s Papal representative. They hid Jews in Vatican apartments and wine cellars and provided Jewish citizens with food, medicine and supplies. He settled in Buffalo and became a teacher; his wife, Katalin, became a researcher at Roswell Park. Baranski died in 2019. 
• Sister Margit Slachta, founder of the Sisters of Social Service, worked tirelessly to spare Jews from deportation, sent food and supplies to Jewish families and sheltered people in convents. It is estimated that she helped to rescue more than 2,000 Hungarian Jews — including Gabor Markus, MD, PhD, who went on to become an accomplished researcher and department head at Roswell Park. Slachta died in 1974.

Read more about these remarkable individuals and the lives they touched:
https://buffalojewishfederation.org/hero-global-mural-project/

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From the world’s first chemotherapy research to the PSA prostate cancer biomarker, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center generates innovations that shape how cancer is detected, treated and prevented worldwide. Driven to eliminate cancer’s grip on humanity, the Roswell Park team of 4,000 makes compassionate, patient-centered cancer care and services accessible across New York State and beyond. Founded in 1898, Roswell Park was among the first three cancer centers nationwide to become a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center and is the only one to hold this designation in Upstate New York. To learn more about Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Roswell Park Care Network, visit www.roswellpark.org, call 1-800-ROSWELL (1-800-767-9355) or email ASKRoswell@RoswellPark.org.