Between December 1944 and February 1945, during the 50-day Soviet blockade of Budapest, Carl and Gertrud Lutz looked after "more than 50" people who were hidden in the basement of the Swiss embassy buildings, which now included not merely the pre-war Swiss embassy building but also the former embassies of states that were now, following the severing of direct diplomatic relations, being represented by the foreign interest section of the much expended Swiss diplomatic estate. The cellar of the burned out former British embassy building was being used to hide, according to one of them interviewed in 2017, roughly thirty people.