Raoul Wallenberg

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Raoul Wallenberg (August 4 1912 – July 16 1947?) was a Swedish humanitarian sent to Budapest, Hungary under diplomatic cover to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. He was of the prominent Swedish Wallenberg family.

Inspired by the the tale of the Scarlet Pimpernel, he worked to save the lives of Hungarian Jews in the later stages of World War II by issuing them protective passports from the Swedish embassy. These documents identified the bearers as Swedish nationals awaiting repatriation. It is impossible to determine exactly how many Jews were rescued by his actions, but Yad Vashem credits him with saving 15,000 lives.

On January 17, 1945, he was arrested on the direct order of Soviet Deputy Commissar for Defense Nikolai Bulganin. It is probable that the order came from Stalin, for reasons never disclosed. In 1957, responding to diplomatic pressure, the Soviets announced that Wallenberg had died of a heart attack in 1947 in Lubyanka prison in Moscow, but this has been disputed.

Early life

He was born in Lidingö (near Stockholm, Sweden) to Raoul Oscar Wallenberg (1888–1912), a Swedish naval officer, and Maria "Maj" Sofia Wising (1891–1979). Raoul Oscar Wallenberg died of cancer three months before his son was born. In 1918, his mother married Fredrik von Dardel, and Raoul had a half-brother, Guy von Dardel. Raoul Wallenberg also had a maternal half-sister, Nina Lagergren. Nina's daughter, Nane Maria Lagergren, married Kofi Annan.

In 1931, Wallenberg went to study architecture in the United States at the University of Michigan. In college, he learned to speak English, German and French. He used his vacations to explore America. Although he came from a wealthy family, during his free time, he worked at odd jobs, including a World's Fair.

He returned to Sweden, but he was unable to find a job as an architect. Eventually, his grandfather arranged a job for him in Cape Town, South Africa, in the office of a Swedish company that sold construction material. Between 1935 and 1936, he was employed in a minor position at a branch office of the Holland Bank in Haifa. He returned to Sweden in 1936 and got a job with the help of his uncle, Jacob Wallenberg, at the Central European Trading Company, a trading company with only five employees. The firm was owned by Kálmán Lauer, a Hungarian Jewish emigré. When the outbreak of war barred Lauer from certain areas of Europe, Wallenberg traveled as his representative. Within a year, Wallenberg was a joint owner and the international director of the company.

The Holocaust

Massacre of Hungarian Jews 1941

Starting in 1938, Hungary under the regency of Miklós Horthy passed a series of anti-Jewish measures that restricted their professions, reduced the number of Jews in government jobs, and prohibited intermarriage. The first massacre of Hungarian Jews took place in July of 1941, when 20,000 Jews were driven from Carpathian Ruthenia into German-occupied Soviet territory, where they were killed by the SS.

US War Refugee Board January 1944

Hillel Kook (also known as Peter Bergson) and his rescue group incessantly pressured the U.S. government to help rescue Jews from the Nazis and Fascists. The group had considerable support in the Senate and Congress and from Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. As pressure for action mounted and after much delay, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board (WRB) in January 1944, to aid civilian victims of the Nazis and the Axis powers. The executive order establishing the board read: "it is the policy of this Government to take all measures within its power to rescue the victims of enemy oppression who are in imminent danger of death and otherwise to afford such victims all possible relief and assistance consistent with the successful prosecution of the war".

Partly for his role in establishing the War Refugee Board, some historians have suggested Hillel Kook and his organization saved the lives of over 200,000 people, the majority of whom were Hungarian. Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer emphatically disagrees with this.

Döme Sztójay installed as Prime Minister, March 1944

On March 23, 1944 the Germans installed a puppet government in Hungary with Döme Sztójay as Prime Minister. Miklós Horthy was still the regent, but now had less power. Despite the fact that the loss of WW II was a foregone conclusion, between April and late May 1944 the Germans and their Hungarian accomplices began mass deportation of Hungarian Jews, at the rate of 12,000 per day to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

The devotion to the cause of the "final solution" of the Hungarian gendarmes surprised even Adolf Eichmann himself, who supervised the operation with only twenty officers.From an original number of 725,000 Hungarian Jews, by the end of the war 560,000 were dead.

According to Winston Churchill, in a letter to his Foreign Secretary dated July 11, 1944, "There is no doubt that this persecution of Jews in Hungary and their expulsion from enemy territory is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world....

Mounting Swiss protests, Paul Vogt Spring 1944

In late spring 1944, within 24 hours of receipt, George Mantello (also known as Mandl Gyuri) publicized what has now been called the Wetzler-Vrba Report, or the Auschwitz Report, included as the main section in the Auschwitz Protocol. This triggered a major grassroots protest in Switzerland, with about 400 glaring headlines protesting against Europe's barbarism and its dark age in the twentieth century. The news articles were published in spite of strict Swiss censorship rules. Publication of the report also triggered Sunday sermons in Swiss churches expressing deep concern over the fate of Jews, and a leading Swiss theologian, Paul Vogt, wrote and published a book called "Am I my brother's keeper". In addition there were various street protests. The intensity and scale of the Swiss protests led to Churchill, Roosevelt and other world leaders to assist Hungary's ruler Horthy in stopping the deportations to Auschwitz. The lull gave the Wallenberg mission time to set up and also encouraged rescue efforts by many others in Budapest, among them Carl Lutz, Monsignor Angelo Rotta, Giorgio Perlasca, the Spanish legation and the Zionist Youth Underground in Budapest. It also "put rescue in the air", empowering ordinary citizens to act on behalf of the remnant of Hungary's Jews.

Wallenberg as US Representative July 1944

Iver Olsen of the War Refugee Board was in contact with Kálmán Lauer; it was Lauer who recommended his business partner to the board. On July 9, 1944, with the cooperation of the Swedish government, Wallenberg was given diplomatic status as First Secretary to the Swedish legation in Budapest, Hungary. His mission was to save as many Hungarian Jews as possible, with financing provided by the board.

Working with fellow Swedish diplomat Per Anger, they used their diplomatic status to prevent deportations to death camps by issuing "protective passports" (German: Schutz-Pass), which identified the bearers as Swedish subjects awaiting repatriation. Although not legally valid, these documents looked official and were generally accepted by German and Hungarian authorities, who sometimes were also bribed. The Swedish legation in Budapest also succeeded in negotiating with the Germans that the bearers of the protective passes would be treated as Swedish citizens and be exempt from having to wear the yellow Star of David on their chests.

With the American money, Wallenberg rented thirty-two buildings in Budapest, and declared them to be extraterritorial, protected by diplomatic immunity. He put up signs such as "The Swedish Library" and "The Swedish Research Institute" on their doors and hung oversize Swedish flags on the front of the buildings to bolster the deception. The buildings eventually housed almost 10,000 people.

Wallenberg hands out Swedish passports to Hungarian Jews

Sandor Ardai, one of the drivers for Wallenberg, recounted what Wallenberg did when he intercepted a trainload of Jews about to leave for Auschwitz:

...he climbed up on the roof of the train and began handing in protective passes through the doors which were not yet sealed. He ignored orders from the Germans for him to get down, then the Arrow Cross men began shooting and shouting at him to go away. He ignored them and calmly continued handing out passports to the hands that were reaching out for them. I believe the Arrow Cross men deliberately aimed over his head, as not one shot hit him, which would have been impossible otherwise. I think this is what they did because they were so impressed by his courage. After Wallenberg had handed over the last of the passports he ordered all those who had one to leave the train and walk to the caravan of cars parked nearby, all marked in Swedish colours. I don't remember exactly how many, but he saved dozens off that train, and the Germans and Arrow Cross were so dumbfounded they let him get away with it.

Miklós Horthy halts transportation of Jews July 1944

With help from Wallenberg and others, Miklós Horthy reasserted his authority and stopped the transporting of Jews to concentration camps on July 9, 1944. In December of 1944, Wallenberg attended a dinner party in Budapest with Nazi official Adolf Eichmann. The war was almost over, Wallenberg asked, why didn't Eichmann just give up his task and wait for the war to end? Eichmann replied that he would do his job until the very end so that when he walked to the gallows he would know he had successfully carried out his assignment.

Wallenberg cancels a death march

Wallenberg then started sleeping in a different house each night to avoid being captured or killed by Arrow Cross Party members or by Adolf Eichmann. Two days before the Russians liberated Budapest, Wallenberg negotiated with both Eichmann and General Gerhard Schmidthuber, the commander of the German army in Hungary. Wallenberg bribed Arrow Cross Party member Pál Szalai to deliver a note in which Wallenberg persuaded them to cancel a final effort to organize a death march of the remaining Jews in Budapest by threatening to have them prosecuted for war crimes once the war was over.

Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz issues Swiss passports

Wallenberg did not work alone in Budapest; at the height of his program, over 350 people were involved. Sister Sara Salkahazi was caught sheltering Jewish women and was killed by members of the Arrow Cross Party. Carl Lutz, a Swiss diplomat, also issued protective passports from the Swiss embassy, and was the initiator of the saving action in spring 1944. Italian businessman Giorgio Perlasca posed as a Spanish diplomat and issued forged visas. Henryk Sławik was a Polish diplomat who distributed fake passports. People saved by Wallenberg include biochemist Lars Ernster, who was housed in the Swedish embassy, and Tom Lantos, later a member of the United States House of Representatives, who lived in one of the Swedish protective houses.

Wallenberg contacts the Red Army January 1945

On January 13, 1945, Wallenberg contacted the Russians to secure food and supplies for the people under his protection. He and his driver, Vilmos Langfelder (1912–1948), were detained by the Soviet Red Army on January 17, 1945 when they captured Budapest, on suspicion of being a spy for the United States, since the War Refugee Board was actually engaged in espionage. The Soviets may have moved him to Moscow, hoping to exchange him for defectors in Sweden. He was driven to the headquarters of Rodion Malinovsky in Debrecen by the NKVD. Wallenberg's last recorded words were: "I'm going to Malinovsky's ... whether as a guest or prisoner I do not know yet. In 2003, a review of wartime Soviet correspondences indicated Vilmos Böhm may have provided Wallenberg's name to Stalin as a person to detain.

Moscow

Information about Wallenberg’s fate after his detention by the Russians is mostly speculative. There were many witnesses who claim to have met him during his imprisonment.

Wallenberg was transported by train from Debrecen through Romania to Moscow. The Soviets may have moved him to their capital in hopes of exchanging him for defectors in Sweden. Vladimir Dekanosov notified the Swedes on January 16, 1945 that Wallenberg was under the protection of Soviet authorities. On January 21, 1945, Wallenberg was transferred to Lubyanka prison and put in cell 123, with fellow prisoner, Gustav Richter, a police attaché at the German embassy in Romania. Richter testified in Sweden in 1955 that Wallenberg was interrogated once for about an hour and a half, in early February of 1945. On March 1, 1945, Richter was moved from his cell and never saw Wallenberg again.

On March 8, 1945, Soviet-controlled Hungarian radio announced that Wallenberg and his driver had been murdered on their way to Debrecen, suggesting that they were killed by the Arrow Cross Party or the Gestapo. Sweden's foreign minister, Östen Undén, and ambassador to the Soviet Union, Staffan Söderblom, wrongly assumed that they were dead. In April of 1945, William Averell Harriman of the U.S. State Department, offered the Swedish government help in inquiring about Wallenberg’s fate, but the offer was declined. Söderblom met with Molotov and Stalin in Moscow on June 15, 1946. Söderblom, believing Wallenberg was dead, ignored talk of an exchange for Russian defectors in Sweden.

In February of 1949, former German Colonel Theodor von Dufving, as a prisoner of war, provided evidentiary statements concerning Wallenberg. While en route to Vorkuta, in the transit camp in Kirov, Dufving encountered a prisoner with his own special guard and dressed in civilian clothes. The prisoner claimed that he was a Swedish diplomat and that he was there "through a great error."

On February 6, 1957, the Soviets released a document found in their archives which stated that "I report that the prisoner Walenberg [sic] who is well-known to you, died suddenly in his cell this night, probably as a result of a heart attack. Pursuant to the instructions given by you that I personally have Walenberg [sic] under my care, I request approval to make an autopsy with a view to establishing cause of death... I have personally notified the minister and it has been ordered that the body be cremated without autopsy." The document was dated July 17, 1947, and was signed by Smoltsov, then the head of the Lubyanka prison infirmary. It was addressed to Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov, the Soviet minister of state security. In 1989, the Soviets returned Wallenberg's personal belongings to his family, including his passport and cigarette case. Soviet officials said they found the materials when they were upgrading the shelves in a store room.

A Swedish-Russian working group, after Guy von Dardel's, Raoul Wallenberg's half-brother, initiative was set up in 1991 to search 11 separate military and government archives from the former Soviet Union for information about Wallenberg. In Stockholm in 2000, Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev announced that Wallenberg had been executed in 1947 in Lubyanka prison. He claimed that Vladimir Kryuchkov, the former Soviet secret police chief, told him about the shooting in a private conversation. The statement did not explain why Wallenberg was killed or why the government had lied about it. Pavel Sudoplatov claimed that Raoul Wallenberg was poisoned by Grigory Mairanovsky. In 2000, Russian prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov signed a verdict posthumously rehabilitating Wallenberg and his driver, Langfelder, as "victims of political repression". A number of files pertinent to Wallenberg were turned over to the chief rabbi of Russia by the Russian government in September 2007. They will be housed at the Museum of Tolerance in Moscow, scheduled to open in 2008.

Because of the deliberate destruction of documents by the Soviets, the reason for the arrest and death of Wallenberg may never be known. There is a parallel to his fate in the arrest of two Swiss diplomats detained in Budapest, whose records still exist. Stalin directly ordered the arrest of Maximilian Jaeger and Harald Feller of the Swiss embassy. They were interrogated by SMERSH and were released in exchange for two Russian pilots who had defected to Switzerland.

Several former prisoners have claimed that Wallenberg may still have been alive into the early 1950s.. Efim Moshinsky claims to have seen Raoul Wallenberg on Wrangel Island in 1962. The last reported sightings of Wallenberg were by two independent witnesses who said they had evidence that he was in a prison in November of 1987.

Raoul Wallenberg's brother, Professor Guy von Dardel, a well known physicist, retired from CERN, is dedicated to finding out his brother's fate. He travelled to the Soviet Union about fifty times for discussions and research, including an examination of the Vladmir prison records. He, his sister Nina Lagergren (Kofi Annan's mother-in-law) and their mother never gave up hope of finding Raoul Wallenberg. Many, including Professor von Dardel and his daughters Louise and Marie, do not accept the various versions of Wallenberg's death and continue to request that the archives in Russia, Sweden and Hungary be opened to impartial researchers. It is assumed that an independent international board of inquiry is required to resolve Raoul Wallenberg's fate. In the family today, Wallenberg's niece, Ms. Louise von Dardel, is the main activist and dedicates much of her time speaking about Wallenberg and to lobbying various countries to help uncover information about her uncle.

Wallenberg show trial preparations 1953 in Hungary

The State Protection Authority (Államvédelmi Hatóság or ÁVH) was the state police force of Hungary from 1945 until 1956. ÁVH actions were not subject to judicial review.

On April 7 1953, early in the morning, Miksa Domonkos, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Budapest, was kidnapped by ÁVH officials to extract "confessions". Preparations for a show trial started in Budapest in 1953 to prove that Wallenberg had not been dragged off in 1945 to the Soviet Union, but was the victim of cosmopolitan Zionists. For this show trial, two more Jewish leaders – László Benedek and Lajos Stöckler – as well as two purported "eyewitnesses" – Pál Szalai and Károly Szabó – were arrested and interrogated using torture.

Szabó was arrested on April 8 1953 without any legal procedure. His family had no news of him throughout the following six months. A secret trial was conducted against him of which no official record is available to date. After six months of interrogation, the defendants were driven to despair and exhaustion.

The idea that the "murderers of Wallenberg" were Budapest Zionists was primarily supported by Hungarian Communist leader Ernő Gerő, which is shown by a note sent by him to First Secretary Mátyás Rákosi. The show trial was then initiated in Moscow, following Stalin's anti-Zionist campaign. After the death of Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria, the preparations for the trial were stopped and the prisoners were released. Miksa Domonkos spent a week in hospital and died at home shortly afterwards, mainly due to the torture to which he had been subjected.

Legacy

Honors

In 1966, Wallenberg was honored at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, recognizing non-Jews who saved Jews from the Holocaust.

He was made an Honorary Citizen of the United States in 1981. When President Ronald Reagan signed the legislation in October 1981, Wallenberg became the second person to be granted this status, after Winston Churchill. Wallenberg became the first Honorary Citizen of Canada in 1985; he was awarded honorary citizenship in Israel in 1986, and in the city of Budapest in 2003.

January 17, the day he disappeared, was declared Raoul Wallenberg Day in Canada.

The United States Postal Service issued a stamp to honor him in 1997. Representative Tom Lantos, one of those saved by Wallenberg's actions, said: "It is most appropriate that we honor [him] with a U.S. stamp. In this age devoid of heroes, Wallenberg is the archetype of a hero -- one who risked his life day in and day out, to save the lives of tens of thousands of people he did not know whose religion he did not share.

The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States bestows the Raoul Wallenberg Award "on individuals, organizations and communities that reflect Raoul Wallenberg's humanitarian spirit, personal courage and nonviolent action in the face of enormous odds.

The Wallenberg Endowment at the University of Michigan awards the Wallenberg Medal and Lecture to outstanding humanitarians. The university's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning also awards Wallenberg Scholarships to exceptional undergraduate and graduate students, many of which are given to enable students to broaden their study of architecture to include work in distant locations.

Groups in the USA, Israel, China and Hungary have been holding International Rescuer Day events on January 17 for the past few years. This is the anniversary of Wallenberg's abduction.

During the 1980s, Wallenberg had his own entry ("Most Lives Saved") in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The musical Another Kind of Hero, composed by E.A. Alexander with collaborator Lezley Steele, was performed at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia in 1992, and in Toronto and New York in 1993. (music clips)
The portion of 15th Street, SW, in Washington, D.C., on which the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum sits, was renamed Raoul Wallenberg Place.

Raoul Wallenberg Traditional High School is named after him.

Memorials

In 2001, a memorial was created in Stockholm to honour Wallenberg. It was unveiled by King Carl XVI Gustaf, at a ceremony attended by the UN Secretary General at the time Kofi Annan and his wife, Wallenberg's niece. It is an abstract memorial depicting people rising from the concrete, accompanied by a bronze replica of Wallenberg's signature. It generated criticism in Sweden because many saw it as ugly and unworthy of such a great hero; however, Wallenberg's sister Nina Lagergren approved of it. At the unveiling, King Carl XVI Gustaf said Wallenberg is "a great example to those of us who want to live as fellow humans." Kofi Annan praised him as "an inspiration for all of us to act when we can and to have the courage to help those who are suffering and in need of help."

There are a number of sites honoring Wallenberg in Budapest, among them Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park, which commemorates those who saved many of the city's Jews from deportation to extermination camps, and the building that housed the Swedish Embassy in 1945.

The Raoul Wallenberg Monument is located on Raoul Wallenberg Walk in Manhattan, across from the headquarters of the United Nations. It was commissioned by the Swedish consulate and was designed by Swedish sculptor Gustav Graitz. Graitz’s piece, Hope, is a replica of Wallenberg’s briefcase, a sphere, five pillars of black granite, and paving stones which once were used on the streets of the Jewish ghetto in Budapest.

There is a little-known memorial to Raoul Wallenberg behind Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Montreal. Between the cathedral and the skyscraper to the north (KPMG Tower) and located between the former rectory (now a French restaurant) to the west and a type of astronomical chart worked into a stone gateway to the east lies the memorial. A bust of Wallenberg and a caged metal box (styled as a barbed-wire gate) stand beside each other immediately behind the cathedral at a point where the pedestrian entering the square must take a sharp left hand turn before entering the Medieval styled courtyard. It is a remarkable square, though it is hardly known, and during the day, despite the many tall buildings on all sides, the square is constantly filled with sunlight.

Numerous memorials, parks, and monuments honouring Wallenberg can be found across Canada, These include Raoul Wallenberg Corner in Calgary, Raoul Wallenberg Park in Saskatoon, and Parc Raoul Wallenberg in the Ottawa suburb of Nepean, Ontario.

References

External links

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Last updated on Monday March 10, 2008 at 00:02:23 PDT (GMT -0700)
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