Suzanne Gelleri Dear - obituary - Telegraph In his memoir, published many years later, Perlasca wrote that "Signorina Zsuzsi Gelleri had been severely tortured... and was in a pitiful state." He took her under his wing, designating her the Spanish legation interpreter. From December 1 1944 to January 16 1945, Perlasca, assisted by Suzanne and others, saved more than 5,200 Jews. But at the end of January 1945, as the Red Army arrived in Budapest, Suzanne lost contact with Perlasca and also Wallenberg, who was captured by the Russians and later killed. She was imprisoned for a short time by the Communists - something she would never talk about - and left Budapest with her mother in 1949, going first to Vienna and later to Paris and Nice before coming to Britain in the 1950s. She married Kenneth Dear, a businessman, in 1964, and after his retirement they moved to Malta, then Monte Carlo. Her husband died in 1981. For many years Suzanne Gelleri Dear tried unsuccessfully to find "Jorge," the man who had saved her life. She also tried to obtain recompense for the loss of her father's bank in Vienna which had been taken over in 1938 when the Germans annexed Austria. As compensation for her imprisonment by the Gestapo she was awarded three weeks a year recuperation at a health spa in Abano in Italy. There, in 2003, a chance meeting with Perlasca's son, Franco (named in honour of the Generalissimo), revealed the true identity of the "Spaniard" with whom she had worked so closely during the war. Perlasca's wartime exploits had remained a secret, even to his own family, until 1987, when he was recognised by some Hungarians who were visiting his home city of Padua. In 1989, three years before his death, he was presented with Israel's Righteous Among the Nations award. On her return to Monte Carlo Suzanne founded the Association Gelleri - Saved by Perlasca, to locate other survivors and spread the Perlasca story. Suzanne Gelleri Dear, born 30 May 1925, died 24 September 2013