When an unsung Indian helped Austrian Jews escape the Nazis

Kundanlal risked all to rescue Jewish families during Europe's darkest hour and bring them to India.

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That single sentence from his mother set Vinay Gupta off on a journey into his grandfather's past. What he unearthed was a tale more gripping than fiction: a little-known act of heroism by an Indian businessman who risked everything to save strangers in Europe's darkest hour.

This wasn't just compassion; it was logistics, risk, and resolve. Back in India, Kundanlal set up a businesses to employ Jews, built homes to house them - only to watch the British declare them as "enemy aliens" and detain them once World War Two broke out.

Kundanlal's life reads like an epic: a poor boy from Ludhiana, married at 13, who sold everything from timber and salt to lab gear and bullock-cart wheels. He also ran a clothing business and a matchstick factory. He topped his class in Lahore - joining the colonial civil service at 22, only to resign from it all to participate in the freedom movement and a life of building factories.

He shook hands with Indian independence leader and later its first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and crossed paths with actress Devika Rani on a steamer to Europe.