Zoltán Baló

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Zoltán Baló (January 23, 1883 – December 10, 1966) was a Hungarian military officer who reached the rank of Colonel in the Royal Hungarian Home Defence Force. He is best known for helping Polish and French refugees in Hungary during World War II.

Born in the Kingdom of Hungary, Baló trained as a soldier and fought in World War I. In the mid-1920s he became a director at the Ministry of Defence and later held several other posts during the interwar years.

When Poland was invaded in 1939, Hungary created the XXI Directorate of the Ministry of Defence to help Polish refugees. As head of the directorate, Baló helped many of the about 50,000 Polish soldiers who reached Hungary in 1939 avoid internment and join the Polish Army in the West. He was followed in the post by Lóránd Utassy.

In 1944, after Germany took over Hungary, Baló was briefly arrested by the Nazis and then returned to Budapest. He retired in 1946. He died in 1966 at age 83 and was posthumously promoted to Major General.

After the fall of communism in Central Europe, Baló’s actions were honored with several medals from Poland and Hungary, including the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (1999). A street in Warsaw’s Ursynów district is named after him.