Agota Adler was 7 years old and living in Budapest, Hungary, when she, her mother, and dozens of others spent months in cramped quarters trying to seek refuge from the Nazis.

It is the story of families who were forced to go underground and live in abject fear, like so many others since the end of World War II and the Holocaust.

Adler, now 88, lives in Great Neck and revisited that history Wednesday night in Glen Cove. She and others honored four people at the Nassau County Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center, including a legendary Swedish diplomat whose work saving her life and thousands of others by establishing safe housing for Jews in Budapest.

The tribute, unveiled on Wednesday, is a light show featuring photos of diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and three other people credited with saving Jewish lives from the Nazis at the risk of their own lives in the process.

Adler appeared as a witness on Wednesday.

Being crammed together with more than 40 people in a two-room apartment in Budapest furnished by Wallenberg “was not a luxury,” Adler said. “But we survived.”

The light installation contains the phrase “Righteous Among the Nations” written on four discs about 1.50 meters high, on which the four names and faces are written. It now hangs from the ceiling above a foyer staircase leading to the second floor of the center.

“I owe my life to Wallenberg, my mother owes her life and my late husband owes his life,” said Adler, standing on the stairs in front of the side of the display case that displayed a photo of the dark-haired Swedish diplomat.

“These four people represent the tens of thousands who risked their lives to do what was right and moral,” said Bernie Furshpan, a member of the memorial committee who hung the plaques with his wife and also has a personal connection to them. “They serve as role models of courage and compassion.”

In addition to Wallenberg, the exhibition includes black-and-white photographs of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman whose life-saving efforts formed the basis for the 1993 film Schindler’s List; Irena Sendler, a Polish nurse who smuggled Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland; and André Trocmé, a French Protestant pastor who encouraged his congregation to take in Jewish refugees.

Furshpan added that those who helped Jews during World War II came from a variety of backgrounds, “including Muslims, Christians and even atheists.”

“These include high-ranking diplomats … right down to small farmers who saved my father,” he said.

In Wallenberg’s case, he was a “diplomat and businessman” when he was “appointed Legation Secretary of the Swedish Diplomatic Mission in Budapest in June 1944,” according to a biography on the Swedish government website.

He issued Swedish passports – real and fake – and sheltered Jews in safe houses that were “off limits” to the Nazis because they flew the Swedish flag, according to Donna Rosenblum, director of education at the Holocaust Memorial.

Furshpan expressed hope that the new light installation will “inspire individuals and communities to stand up against discrimination and prejudice” at a time “when anti-Semitism is on the rise in many parts of the world, especially here.”

According to the latest available New York State data, police departments in Nassau County reported 61 hate crimes in 2022, up from 28 the year before.

Suffolk police departments reported 28 such crimes in 2022, unchanged.

New York defines a hate crime as a crime directed against a person, group, or property because it violates a list of “protected” characteristics, such as race, religion, or sexual orientation.