From Pharmacy to Global Company - Gedeon Richter and Anna Winkler

(GR: Ecséd, 1872 – Budapest, 1944; AW: Szeged, 1883 – Lugano, 1953)

Gedeon Richter was born into a Hungarian Jewish family of Czech origin in 1872. In 1902 he opened a pharmacy in Budapest, in the basement of which he conducted chemical and pharmaceutical research. Starting from a laboratory on the edge of town, his knowledge, diligence, inventive and business genius enabled him to create the largest pharmaceutical company in Central Europe in less than two decades by the end of WWI. He was greatly helped in this by Anna Winkler (Nina), born in Szeged, with whom he married in 1902. Her family contributed considerable capital to the expansion of the company. Anna Winkler, who supported her husband's social aspirations, also played a role in enabling the workers of the company to work under favourable conditions for the time, including free training and decent pay.

Anna Winkler and Gedeon Richter (Múlt és Jövő, Wikipédia)

In 1919 the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic confiscated the pharmaceutical factory and Richter was forcibly removed from his company. After the fall of the Communist dictatorship, the owner got the factory back, and over the next 20 years he developed it into a global company, with 50 depots opening from China to Mexico. Richter's person and work became synonymous with the Hungarian pharmaceutical industry, but with the anti-Jewish measures that began in 1939, the Hungarian state deprived him of the company he had built up over four decades. In 1941, he had to hand over the management of his company to his Christian colleagues, who had great difficulty in getting the government to allow Richter to work even without pay in his former factory. The decision-makers realised that his expertise and international prestige were essential to the running of the company.

The factory in 1930. Many of the medicines still in use today are Richter's inventions, including the antiseptic Hyperol and the painkiller Kalmopyrin. (Fortepan/MZSL/Ofner Károly)

After the German occupation, it became clear that the couple's lives were in danger. They arranged the rescue of their son László Richter from the country via Romania. The Richters had several options to leave for Switzerland, but Gedeon could not leave his life's work behind. Wearing a yellow star on his coat, he went to inspect the factories daily until the autumn of 1944. After the Arrow Cross took power in October 1944, the couple were forced into hiding. In November, the rescuer diplomat Raoul Wallenberg extended Swedish diplomatic immunity to them.

The name of the couple on Wallenberg’s list (Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives)

The Richters took refuge in the Swedish protected house at 21 Katona József Street, in the so-called international ghetto. On the morning of 30 December 1944, an Arrow Cross unit entered the building. All the residents - including the elderly, sick people and children - were forced out into the street. One resident, Ferenc Faragó, managed to escape and asked for help from the gendarmes guarding the Swedish Embassy's branch on Tátra Street. The commander was only willing to send a man to Katona József Street after prolonged urging. The gendarme accepted the Arrow Cross explanation that the Jews were only being taken to have their identities checked, and then hurriedly left the scene. Faragó then alerted Wallenberg, who arrived too late and found only the empty house.

The Arrow Cross took their victims to their headquarters at 60 Andrássy Avenue. Here the Jews were looted and then, with the men and women arranged into separate columns, they were marched towards the Danube bank. Gedeon Richter and Anna Winkler embraced before parting. Around Kossuth Square, 50 people were selected from among the men. Gedeon Richter was one of them. They were stripped to their underwear and shot into the river at the mouth of Zoltán Street. After a brief discussion, the other Jews were taken back to Andrássy Avenue, probably at Wallenberg's intervention, and then transported to the large ghetto. Anna Winkler thus survived the massacre, but her health suffered the ordeal: she died in a sanatorium in Italy in 1953.