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Raoul Wallenberg

Did you mean: Raoul Wallenberg (Swedish statesman/stateswoman & businessman/businesswoman), Adolf Wallenberg, Knut Agathon Wallenberg, Victor Wallenberg, Wallenberg (family name)

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Raoul Wallenberg
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(born Aug. 4, 1912, Stockholm, Swed. — died July 17, 1947?, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Swedish businessman and humanitarian. The scion of a family of bankers, industrialists, and diplomats, in 1936 he became the foreign representative of a Hungarian trading company whose president was Jewish. When the Nazis sent troops to round up Jews in Hungary (1944), Wallenberg asked to be sent to Budapest as a diplomat. There he rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews by sheltering them in "protected houses" under the Swedish flag or securing their passage out of Hungary through bribes or counterfeit documents. Soon after Soviet troops occupied Budapest (1945), he was arrested on suspicion of espionage. He was sent to Moscow, where he allegedly died of a heart attack in prison in 1947. Unconfirmed reports from freed Soviet prisoners reported him alive in 1951, 1959, and 1975.

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Biography: Raoul Wallenberg
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Raoul Wallenberg (1912-?) was one of the great heroes of World War II and one of the first victims of the Cold War. In 1944, as a Swedish diplomat in Budapest, he saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from certain death. Taken into custody by the Russians at the beginning of 1945, he simply disappeared.

Raoul Wallenberg was born on August 4, 1912, into one of Sweden's wealthiest families, three months after his father had died of cancer. His grandfather, a distinguished diplomat, saw to it that the precocious boy traveled and studied widely, acquiring fluency in several languages, international perspective, and savoir-faire.

After graduation in 1935 from the University of Michigan with an honors baccalaureate in architecture, Wallenberg worked in commercial enterprises first in Capetown and then in Haifa, where he learned from German refugees what was happening to the Jewish Germans under Hitler. In 1941 he joined a Stockholm-based export firm whose Jewish owner could no longer safely travel in Hitler-controlled Central Europe. In this position he developed a knowledge of Budapest that made him an ideal volunteer three years later for a desperate rescue mission initiated by the U.S. War Refugee Board.

Until the last year of the war, Hungary, though an Axis ally, had not cooperated in Hitler's program of genocide. Its Jewish community, once Europe's third largest, had even been increased by Jews seeking refuge in Hungary. In 1944, however, German army units moved in, together with a special SS force commanded by SS-Lt. Col. Adolf Eichmann, the engineer of the Holocaust. During the spring and summer of 1944 his men scoured the Hungarian countryside, rounding up and sending 400,000 Jews and others to the death camps.

Determined to do whatever he could to save the 200,000 surviving Jews assembled in Budapest, Wallenberg accepted a diplomatic appointment to the Swedish legation as special attaché for humanitarian questions. Carrying the two knapsacks he had used hitchhiking in America, a sleeping bag, a windbreaker, and a revolver, the soft-spoken, dark-eyed bachelor of 31 arrived in Budapest in July 1944 with a mandate even more unusual for a diplomat than his baggage: he had elicited from the Swedish Foreign Ministry, with American support, formal personal authorization to appeal directly to Stockholm, to use his unprecedented funding (from U.S. and Jewish sources) even for bribery, and to grant Swedish diplomatic asylum to documented victims of persecution.

He opened a special branch office of the Swedish legation near the Jewish quarter, built up a staff of 400 (mostly Jews, all granted diplomatic immunity), and by January 1945, when the Russians took Budapest, had issued protective passports to perhaps 20,000 Jews placing them under the protection of the Swedish crown until they could emigrate to Sweden. He sheltered over 12,000 in dozens of buildings over which he flew the Swedish colors, making them de facto annexes of the Swedish legation with extra-territorial status.

To the consternation of bureaucratic colleagues, Wallenberg acted on the premise that the conventional rules could not be honored. "When there is suffering without limits, there can be no limits to the methods one should use to alleviate it," he argued and, with desperate ingenuity, acted accordingly. He cajoled, intimidated, and bribed Axis officials, established networks of spies within the Hungarian fascist party and the Budapest police, provided officials with food and amenities from hoards he could afford to lay in before the black market was sold out, and even issued protective passes to key fascists - documents that might greatly facilitate their "disappearance" at the end of the war.

His authority with the Hungarians established, Wallenberg fearlessly challenged the Germans, going so far as to retrieve intended victims from the trains on which they had been jammed for shipment to Auschwitz and personally to confront Eichmann, who was behind at least one attempt on his life. His approach was vigorously followed by representatives of other neutrals, particularly the Swiss consul Charles Lutz, who not only provided documentation to thousands of Jews but accompanied Wallenberg in the perilous retrieval of Auschwitz-bound victims.

In the final days of his mission, as the Russians closed in on the surrounded city, fanatically anti-Semitic Hungarian fascist death squads sought to finish what Eichmann, who had withdrawn in December 1944, had left undone. Countless Jews saved from Auschwitz were murdered in the streets or drowned in the Danube. But Wallenberg's network of collaborators thwarted the fascist murderers' plans for a last-minute, full-scale massacre of the 100,000 Jews who had survived in Budapest.

When the city fell to the Soviet Army in January 1945, Wallenberg was taken into custody by the Russians - possibly as an American agent or possibly because of his fascist connections (realistically cultivated to fulfill his mission). That spring, he did not return to Sweden with the other members of the Budapest legation staff who were held for six weeks after their "liberation" in a Soviet internment camp. The Swedish government then enquired about Wallenberg.

In 1947 Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinsky finally came up with an answer: Wallenberg was not in the Soviet Union and was assumed to have died during the struggle for Budapest. Not until 1957, after Stockholm had begun to pursue the matter seriously, did Moscow acknowledge responsibility and formally expressed regrets. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko informed the Swedish ambassador that Wallenberg had died of heart failure in prison in 1947 and had been cremated. But numerous reports indicated that Wallenberg was moved with deliberate frequency from one location to another and was alive in captivity, possibly as late as 1981.

By the end of the 1970s an international movement on behalf of Wallenberg, including participation by many he had saved, organized support for his release to the United States, at whose behest he had undertaken his mission to Hungary. In October 1981 Wallenberg was proclaimed an honorary citizen of the United States - a distinction previously accorded only the descendants of the Marquis de Lafayette and Sir Winston Churchill. The law granting him honorary citizenship also provided, belatedly if not posthumously, for "all possible steps [to be taken] … to secure his return to freedom."

Russian President Boris Yeltsin created a special commission in 1991 to study the Wallenberg case. The commission was short-lived and failed to shed any new light on the Wallenberg mystery. Through the efforts of a number of Holocaust survivors, now American citizens, a bust honoring Wallenberg was placed in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in 1995. The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp (1996) in honor of the Swedish diplomat. Because of the popular belief that Wallenberg may still be alive, the Postal Service did not issue the stamp as a "commemorative," which would have implied that Wallenberg was dead. U.S. government documents released from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1996 confirmed that Wallenberg had been a valued agent for the Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the CIA). Why the Soviets would have executed Wallenberg or have held him in captivity for so long remains unknown.

Further Reading

The Wallenberg case was made widely known in the United States by an article in the New York Times Magazine of March 30, 1980, "The Lost Hero of the Holocaust: The Search for Sweden's Raoul Wallenberg," by Frederick E. Werbell, a Swedish-born rabbi, and Elenore Lester. Foreign correspondent Kati Marton has provided in Wallenberg (1982), with eight pages of photographs, a concise, readable account based on extensive interviews and archival research. A memoir by a Swedish diplomat is Per Anger's With Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Memories of the War Years in Hungary, translated by David Mel Paul and Margareta Paul (1981). Focusing sharply on the failure of the Swedish government to pursue the case vigorously during the crucial first years after the war is Harvey Rosenfeld's Raoul Wallenberg: Angel of Rescue - Heroism and Torment in the Gulag (1982). Two U.S. congressional publications include the War Refugee Board report from 1945 on Wallenberg's activities and information on the U.S. government's efforts on his behalf since 1981: U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Proclaiming Raoul Wallenberg To Be an Honorary Citizen of the United States, hearing before the Committee, June 4 and 9, 1981; and U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Update on Raoul Wallenberg, hearing before the Committee's Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations, August 3, 1983. Charles Fenyvesi and Victoria Pope provide an account of CIA documents identifying Wallenberg as a U.S. spy: The Angel Was a Spy (U.S. World News, May 13, 1996).

Holocaust: Raoul Wallenberg
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(1912--?), Swedish diplomat, Righteous Among the Nations who saved the lives of Jews in Budapest, Hungary.

In March 1944 the Germans occupied Hungary, and began deporting Jews to Auschwitz in May. Between mid-May and July some 435,000 Hungarian Jews were deported; by the time the Deportations ended, only about 200,000 Jews remained in Budapest. Soon after the invasion, the Swedish diplomatic representatives in Budapest began a rescue operation. The Swedish foreign minister, Ivar Danielsson, suggested that they issue temporary Swedish passports to Hungarian Jews who had some connection to Swedish citizens. In July, based on the recommendation of the Swedish branch of the World Jewish Congress and with the support of President Roosevelt's War Refugee Board, the Swedish Foreign Ministry sent Wallenberg to Budapest to take over the passport operation.

The deportations halted in the summer of 1944, but by October they began again in full force. Then the Arrow Cross Party took over the government, putting the Jews in further danger. At this point, Wallenberg also stepped in in full force. Over the next three months, he issued thousands of impressive looking "protective passports." When Adolf Eichmann ordered the Death March of Budapest's Jews to the Austrian border, Wallenberg chased the convoys in his car, removed those Jews who held his passports, and took them back to Budapest. He was even able to remove passport holders from trains that were about to depart for Auschwitz, and rescue Jews from being sent to Forced Labor camps.

Wallenberg also spared Jews from the danger of the Arrow Cross by setting up special hostels---protected houses---as safe havens for them. Other diplomatic delegations created their own protected houses in a part of the city which came to be known as the "international ghetto." Approximately 600 Jewish employees helped manage Wallenberg's operation, which included providing food, health services, and sanitation for the protected Jews.

The Soviet army entered Budapest on January 16, 1945. The first part of the city that they liberated was Pest, where both the main Ghetto and the "international ghetto" were located. Wallenberg attempted to negotiate with the Soviets and make sure that they would take good care of the liberated Jews. However, the Soviets suspected Wallenberg and the other Swedish diplomats in Budapest of spying for the Germans. They asked Wallenberg to report to their army headquarters in Debrecen, where he went, believing that his diplomatic immunity would protect him. He returned to Budapest the next day, accompanied by two Soviet soldiers. Wallenberg was overheard saying, "I do not know whether I am a guest of the Soviets or their prisoner." After that, Wallenberg disappeared without a trace.

For several years after Wallenberg's disappearance, the Soviets claimed that they knew nothing of his whereabouts. However, German Prisoners of War returning from the Soviet Union swore that they had met Wallenberg in prison. On the basis of these testimonies, the Swedish government demanded that the Soviets release any information they had on Wallenberg. After the death of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet government announced that Wallenberg had indeed been arrested, but had died in a Soviet prison in 1947. Nonetheless, Wallenberg's family did not believe this story, as they had received other reports from Soviet prisoners who claimed to have seen Wallenberg alive at various later dates. There is no definitive proof of his death.

As years passed, many people criticized the Swedes for mishandling the situation. Wallenberg had become a legendary name; films were made about him, streets were named for him, and the United States awarded him honorary citizenship. He was also designated as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Raoul Wallenberg
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Wallenberg, Raoul (räūl' văl'ĕnbâr) 1912-47, Swedish diplomat and businessman. In 1944, he was assigned to Sweden's legation in Budapest, where he helped save approximately 100,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi extermination. He issued Swedish passports to approximately 20,000 Jews and sheltered others in houses he bought or rented. Adolf Eichmann, heading the transport of Jews to concentration camps, demanded that Wallenberg stop these activities and ordered his assassination, but the attempt failed. In 1945, the Soviets, who had just entered Budapest, imprisoned him, possibly because of work he was doing for the U.S. secret service. In 1957 the Soviet government announced that he had died in prison of a heart attack in 1947, but he was reported seen at later dates. In 1991 Soviet authorities released KGB records that, although they did not contain proof that Wallenberg was dead, appeared to confirm that he had died in 1947, most likely by execution. He was made an honorary U.S. citizen in 1981.

Bibliography

See J. Bierman, Righteous Gentile (1981), K. Marton, Wallenberg: Missing Hero (1982, repr. 1995).

Wikipedia: Raoul Wallenberg
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Raoul Gustav Wallenberg

Wallenberg passport photo from June 1944
Born August 4, 1912(1912-08-04)
Lidingö Municipality, Sweden
Died presumed July 17, 1947 (aged 34)
presumed Soviet Union
Alma mater University of Michigan
Occupation Diplomat
Parents Raoul Oscar Wallenberg
Maria "Maj" Sofia Wising

Raoul Wallenberg (August 4, 1912 – July 17, 1947?)[1][2][3] was a Swedish humanitarian who worked in Budapest, Hungary, during World War II to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. Between July and December 1944, he issued protective passports and housed Jews, saving tens of thousands of Jewish lives.[4]

His death has long been a source of dispute with the former Soviet Union denying knowledge of Wallenberg's fate. On January 17, 1945, he was arrested in Budapest by the Soviets after they wrested control of the city from the Germans, and was reported to have died in March. In 1957, the Soviets claimed that Wallenberg had actually died of a heart attack in 1947 at the age of 35. There had been reports, however, from prisoners in the same facility, that he was seen alive long past 1947. In 1991, Vyacheslav Nikonov was assigned by the Russian government to find out the truth; he concluded that Wallenberg did indeed die in 1947, executed while a prisoner at Lubyanka.[5]

Wallenberg has been honored numerous times. He is an honorary citizen of the United States, Israel, Canada, and Hungary; Yad Vashem designated him one of the Righteous Among the Nations; monuments have been dedicated to him; and streets named after him throughout the world. A Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States was created in 1981 to "perpetuate the humanitarian ideals and the nonviolent courage of Raoul Wallenberg" and gives out the Raoul Wallenberg Award to that end.

Contents

Early life

Wallenberg as a young boy

Wallenberg was born in Kappsta, Lidingö (near Stockholm) where his maternal grandparents, professor Per Johan Wising and his wife Sophie Wising, had built a summer house in 1882. His paternal grandfather, Gustaf Wallenberg, was a diplomat, and envoy to Tokyo, Constantinople, and Sofia.

His parents, who married in 1911, were Raoul Oscar Wallenberg (1888–1912), a Swedish naval officer who died of cancer three months before his son was born, and Maria "Maj" Sofia Wising (1891–1979). In 1918, his mother married Fredrik von Dardel (d. 1979); they had a son, Guy von Dardel,[6] and a daughter, Nina Lagergren.

In 1931, Wallenberg went to study architecture at the University of Michigan in the United States. In college, he learned to speak English, German and French.[7] He used his vacations to explore America. Despite the wealth of the Wallenberg family, he worked at odd jobs in his free time, including at a World's Fair.

On his return to Sweden 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.[8] Between 1935 and 1936, he was employed in a minor position at a branch office of the Holland Bank in Haifa.[8] He returned to Sweden in 1936 and obtained a job in Stockholm with the help of his uncle and godfather, Jacob Wallenberg, at the Central European Trading Company,[9] an export-import company trading between Stockholm and central Europe, owned by a Hungarian Jew, Kálmán Lauer.

Working in Hungary

See also: History of the Jews in Hungary

In 1938, Hungary, under the regency of Miklós Horthy, passed a series of anti-Jewish measures restricting professions, reducing the number of Jews in government jobs, and prohibiting intermarriage. Lauer found it increasingly difficult to travel to Hungary, and Wallenberg became his trusted representative. Wallenberg soon learned Hungarian, and from 1941 made frequent travels to Budapest.[10] Within a year, Wallenberg was a joint owner and the International Director of the company.[8]

In April and May 1944, when the loss of the war was a foregone conclusion, the Germans and their Hungarian accomplices began the mass deportation of Hungarian Jews, at the rate of 12,000 per day.[11] The persecution of the Jews in Hungary soon became well known abroad, unlike the full extent of the Holocaust. In late spring 1944, George Mantello publicized what is now called the Wetzler-Vrba Report. World leaders Churchill, Roosevelt and others worked to assist Horthy in stopping the deportations.[12]

In spring 1944, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent Iver Olsen to Stockholm as an official representative of the American War Refugee Board. He was looking for someone willing and able to go to Budapest to organize a rescue program for the Jews.[13] Olsen believed that Wallenberg was the right man.[7]

Diplomat in Budapest

On July 9, 1944, Wallenberg travelled to Budapest as the First Secretary to the Swedish legation in Budapest. Together with fellow Swedish diplomat Per Anger,[14] he issued "protective passports" (German: Schutz-Pass), which identified the bearers as Swedish subjects awaiting repatriation and thus preventing their deportation. Although not legal, these documents looked official and were generally accepted by German and Hungarian authorities, who sometimes were also bribed.[10] The Swedish legation in Budapest also succeeded in negotiating with the Germans so 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.[8]

Historic frontpage 1947, the "man in the leather coat" an employee on the Swedish Embassy en:Karoly Szabo

With the money raised by the board, Wallenberg rented 32 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.[7]

Sandor Ardai, one of the drivers working 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.[15]

At the height of the program, over 350 people were involved in the rescue of Jews.[16] Sister Sára Salkaházi was caught sheltering Jewish women and was killed by members of the Arrow Cross Party. Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz also issued protective passports from the Swiss embassy in the spring of 1944; and Italian businessman Giorgio Perlasca posed as a Spanish diplomat and issued forged visas.[17]

Barbara Smit, the daughter of Lolle Smit, a Dutch spy working for the British MI6, also assisted Wallenberg and, according to her son, had a romance with him.[18]

Wallenberg started sleeping in a different house each night, to guard against being captured or killed by Arrow Cross Party members or by Eichmann's men.[19] Two days before the Russians occupied 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.[8][10]

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.[20]

Detention by the Soviet Union

The Soviet Red Army closed in on Budapest in early 1945, and on January 17, 1945, Wallenberg was called to Marshal Rodion Malinovsky's headquarter in Debrecen on suspicion of being a spy for the United States and that the War Refugee Board was engaged in espionage.[21][22][23] Wallenberg's last recorded words were, "I'm going to Malinovsky's ... whether as a guest or prisoner I do not know yet."[24] In 2003, a review of wartime Soviet correspondences indicated Vilmos Böhm may have provided Wallenberg's name to Stalin as a person to detain.[25]

Information about Wallenberg after his detention is mostly speculative, though there were many witnesses who claim to have met him during his imprisonment.[26]

Wallenberg was transported by train from Debrecen, through Romania, to Moscow.[23] The Soviets may have moved him to their capital in hopes of exchanging him for defectors in Sweden.[27] 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 held 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 1945. On March 1, 1945, Richter was moved from his cell and never saw Wallenberg again.[28][29]

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 had been killed by the Arrow Cross Party or the Gestapo. Sweden's foreign minister, Östen Undén, and its ambassador to the Soviet Union, Staffan Söderblom, wrongly assumed that they were dead.[8] In April 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.[7] Söderblom met with Molotov and Stalin in Moscow on June 15, 1946. Söderblom, still believing Wallenberg to be dead, ignored talk of an exchange for Russian defectors in Sweden.[30][31]

Death

On February 6, 1957, the Soviets released a document dated July 17, 1947, which stated "I report that the prisoner Wallenberg 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 Wallenberg 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."[32] The document was signed by Smoltsov, then the head of the Lubyanka prison infirmary, and addressed to Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov, the Soviet minister of state security.[2][28] 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.[33][34]

In 1991, Vyacheslav Nikonov was tasked by the Russian government to investigate Wallenberg's fate. He concluded that Wallenberg did indeed die in 1947, executed while a prisoner in Lubyanka.[5]

In Moscow 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.[21][35] Pavel Sudoplatov claimed that Raoul Wallenberg was poisoned by Grigory Mairanovsky.[36] In 2000, Russian prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov signed a verdict posthumously rehabilitating Wallenberg and his driver, Langfelder, as "victims of political repression".[37] A number of files pertinent to Wallenberg were turned over to the chief rabbi of Russia by the Russian government in September 2007.[38] They will be housed at the Museum of Tolerance in Moscow, scheduled to open in 2008.[38]

Disputes regarding his death

Several former prisoners have claimed to have seen Wallenberg after his reported death in 1947.[39] In February 1949, former German Colonel Theodor von Dufving, a prisoner of war, provided evidentiary statements concerning Wallenberg. While in the transit camp in Kirov, en route to Vorkuta, 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."[32]

Renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal also searched for Wallenberg and collected several testimonies. For example, British businessman Greville Wynne, who was imprisoned in the Lubyanka prison in 1962 for his connection to KGB defector Oleg Penkovsky, stated he talked to, but could not see the face of a man who claimed to be a Swedish diplomat.[40] Efim (or Yefim) Moshinsky claims to have seen Wallenberg on Wrangel Island in 1962.[41][42] An eyewitness asserted that she had seen Wallenberg in the 1960s in a Soviet prison.[43] During a private conversation about the conditions of detention in soviet prisons at a party reception in the mid-1970s, a KGB general is reported to have said that "conditions could not be that harsh, given that in Lubyanka prison there is some foreign prisoner who had been there now for almost three decades.[40] The last reported sightings of Wallenberg were by two independent witnesses who said they had evidence that he was in a prison in November 1987.[44]

A Swedish-Russian working group was set up in 1991 on Guy von Dardel's initiative[45] to search 11 separate military and government archives from the former Soviet Union for information about Wallenberg's fate.[23][46][47] Raoul Wallenberg's brother, Professor Guy von Dardel,[6] a well known physicist, retired from CERN, is dedicated to finding out his half-brother's fate.[48] He travelled to the Soviet Union about fifty times for discussions and research, including an examination of the Vladmir prison records.[49] Over the years, Professor von Dardel has compiled a 50,000 page archive of interviews, journal articles, letters, and other documents related to his quest to understand the fate of his brother.[50] 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.[51] Wallenberg's niece, Ms. Louise von Dardel, is the main activist in the family and dedicates much of her time to speaking about Wallenberg and lobbying various countries to help uncover information about her uncle.[51]

Show trial in 1953

For more details on this topic, see State Protection Authority#1953 Wallenberg show trial preparations in Hungary.

In 1953 the Hungarian State Protection Authority (Hungarian: Államvédelmi Hatóság or ÁVH) initiated a show trial to prove that Wallenberg had not been moved to the Soviet Union in 1945, but was the victim of cosmopolitan Zionists. This was part of Stalin's anti-Zionist campaign.

In April 1952, Miksa Domonkos, László Benedek and Lajos Stöckler, three leaders of the Jewish community in Budapest, were kidnapped by ÁVH officials to extract confessions.[52] Two purported eyewitnesses – Pál Szalai and Károly Szabó – were also arrested and interrogated using torture.

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.[53] The show trial was to be held in Moscow. However, 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.[52][54]

Family

Raoul's mother and stepfather both committed suicide by overdosing on pills two days apart in 1979. Their daughter Nina Lagergren, Raoul's half-sister, attributed their suicide to their despair about never finding Raoul.[55]

Nina's daughter, Nane Maria Lagergren, married Kofi Annan.[3][8]

Honors

Wallenberg was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1948 by more than 50 qualified nominators[56] and in 1949 by a single nominator[56] (At that time, the prize could technically be awarded posthumously, but the idea of such awards was controversial).[57][58]

Australia

In Melbourne, there is a small memorial in honour of Wallenberg at the Jewish Museum Holocaust and Research Centre; a monument dedicated to him on the corner of Princess Street and High Street, Kew; and a tree and memorial seat at St Kilda Town Hall. The Australian Centre for Clinical Neuropharmacology in Melbourne adopted the name 'The Raoul Wallenberg Centre' on the occasion of Raoul Wallenberg's 89th Birthday. In Sydney there are a Raoul Wallenberg garden and sculpture in Woollahra, and a statue inside the Jewish Museum of Australia. Comemmorative trees have been planted in front of federal Parliament and in many other locations.[59]

Canada

Wallenberg became the first Honorary Citizen of Canada in 1985;[60] and January 17, the day he disappeared, was declared Raoul Wallenberg Day in Canada.[61]

Numerous memorials, parks, and monuments honouring Wallenberg can be found across Canada including Raoul Wallenberg Corner in Calgary, Raoul Wallenberg Park in Saskatoon, Parc Raoul Wallenberg in Ottawa, Ontario, and a memorial behind Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Montreal, where a bust of Wallenberg and a caged metal box (styled as a barbed-wire gate) stand beside each other.[citation needed]

Germany

There are streets named after Wallenberg in both east and west Berlin. A Wallenberg-Straße (named in 1967) is in the western district of Wilmersdorf,[1] while Raoul-Wallenberg-Straße with a station of the S-Bahn (named in 1992) is in the eastern district of Marzahn.[2]

Hungary

In Budapest, where Wallenberg worked, he was made an honorary citizen in 2003. There are a number of sites honoring him, including 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.[62]

Israel

Wallenberg was granted honorary citizenship by Israel in 1986 and was honored at the Yad Vashem memorial as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, recognizing non-Jews who saved Jews from the Holocaust.[63] There are many tributes to Wallenberg in Israel, such as at least five streets.[64] Along one such street in Tel Aviv, there is since 2002 a statue identical to one in Budapest (see below), made by sculptor Imre Varga.[65]

Russia

There is a memorial to his fame in the courtyard of the Russian Rudomino Library of Foreign Languages in Moscow and an educational institute in Saint Petersburg carries his name.[66]

Sweden

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 then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and his wife Nane Maria Annan (Wallenberg's niece). It is an abstract memorial depicting people rising from the concrete, accompanied by a bronze replica of Wallenberg's signature.[67] At the unveiling, King Carl XVI Gustaf said Wallenberg is "a great example to those of us who want to live as fellow humans."[68] 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."[69]

There is also a memorial to Wallenberg in Göteborg, near Hagakyrkan (Haga Church). Again, Kofi Annan attended the unveiling ceremony.

United Kingdom

There are Raoul Wallenberg memorials at Great Cumberland Place in London outside of the Western Marble Arch Synagogue. On separate occasions in the 1990s and 2000s, Queen Elizabeth II and Charles, Prince of Wales paid tribute to Wallenberg at the Western Marble Arch site. A separate memorial stands near the Welsh National War Memorial in Alexandra Gardens, Cardiff.[citation needed]

United States

Wallenberg was made an Honorary Citizen of the United States in 1981,[70] the second person to be so honored by Congress, after Winston Churchill. (Unlike Churchill, neither of Wallenberg's parents had been born in the United States.) In 1985, the portion of 15th Street, SW, in Washington, D.C., on which the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum sits, was renamed Raoul Wallenberg Place by Act of Congress.[71][72]

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."[73]

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 Kraitz. Kraitz’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.[74] Another memorial is in front of the Art and Architecture building at the University of Michigan, where he received his architecture degree in 1935.[75]

Other places named after Wallenberg include Raoul Wallenberg Traditional High School in San Francisco, and the PS 194 Raoul Wallenberg School in Brooklyn, New York.

Gallery

Statue of Raoul Wallenberg, Wallenberg st., Tel-Aviv, Israel.

Place Raoul Wallenberg, Montreal

Memorial at Great Cumberland Place, London

Sign commemorating Wallenberg in Budapest

Monument in Stockholm

Raouls briefcase in bronze with the initials R W set up on the doorstep to the summer house (summer house foundation still exists) at Kappsta, Lidingö, where Raoul Wallenberg was born. The setts comes from Budapest.

Köszönöm, a monument at the University of Michigan in honor of its alumnus.

One of the memorials in Budapest

Awards in his name

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."[76]

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.[77]

See also

References

  1. ^ The date of death is based on a letter turned over to his family by the Soviets in 1957 and is disputed by some.
  2. ^ a b German's Death Listed; Soviet Notifies the Red Cross Diplomat Died in Prison.; New York Times; February 15, 1957; Retrieved on February 14, 2007
  3. ^ a b "Raoul Wallenberg". Notable Names Database. http://www.nndb.com/people/744/000111411. Retrieved 2007-02-12. 
  4. ^ "Yad Vashem database". Yad Vashem. http://www1.yadvashem.org/search/index_search.html. Retrieved 2007-02-12. "who saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest during World War II ... and put some 15,000 Jews into 32 safe houses." 
  5. ^ a b Jonathan Brent. Inside the Stlain Archives'. Atlas and Co, 2008
  6. ^ a b Actions done by Raoul Wallenberg's brother, Guy von Dardel
  7. ^ a b c d Schreiber, Penny. "The Wallenberg Story". http://www.wallenberg.umich.edu/college.html. Retrieved 2007-02-14. 
  8. ^ a b c d e f g "Raoul Wallenberg". Jewish Virtual Library. 2007. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/wallenberg.html. 
  9. ^ The company name is sometimes translated as the "Mid-European Trading Company"
  10. ^ a b c Lester, Elenore and Werbell, Frederick E.; The Last Hero of Holocaust. The Search for Sweden's Raoul Wallenberg.; New York Times Magazine; March 30, 1980, Sunday; Retrieved on February 14, 2007
  11. ^ The Holocaust Chronicle PROLOGUE: Roots of the Holocaust, page 526
  12. ^ Winston Churchill, in a letter to his Foreign Secretary dated July 11, 1944, wrote "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...." "Winston Churchill's The Second World War and the Holocaust's Uniqueness", Istvan Simon.
  13. ^ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Holocaust Encyclopedia; Retrieved on January 27, 2007
  14. ^ Garger, Ilya (September 2, 2002). "Milestones: Died. Per Anger.". Time (magazine). http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501020909-346286,00.html. Retrieved 2007-02-13. 
  15. ^ "The Wallenberg Effect". The Journal of Leadership Studies. http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/readings/wallenberg.htm. Retrieved 2007-02-15. 
  16. ^ "Wallenberg Legacy". Raoul Wallenberg International Movement for Humanity. http://www.rwallenberg-int.org/Programs/RW_Lesson_Secondary_2006/CHAPTER_4.htm. Retrieved 2007-02-14. 
  17. ^ Raoul Wallenberg and the rescue Mission "Budapest Jews“ 1944/45 Light in the darkness, By Christoph Gann, retrieved 2008-09-19. Gann is the author of Raoul Wallenberg: So Viele Menschen Retten Wie Moglich (Germany, 2002). ISBN 3423308524
  18. ^ "Clues surfacing in Wallenberg disappearance / WWII hero may have had ties to White House; other data to be released". Associated Press. April 27, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24339683/wid/7279844//. Retrieved May 17, 2009. 
  19. ^ "Final Report of the War Refugee Board from Sweden". http://raoulwallenberg.org/who/who.html. Retrieved 2007-02-14. 
  20. ^ "Lantos's list". Jerusalem Post. http://info.jpost.com/C001/Supplements/Shoah/hol_LantosList.html. Retrieved 2007-02-15. "Born in Hungary in 1928 to assimilated Jewish parents, he escaped from a forced-labor brigade, joined the resistance and was eventually, with his later-to-be-wife Annette, among the tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews rescued by the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg." 
  21. ^ a b LaFraniere, Sharon; Moscow Admits Wallenberg Died In Prison in 1947. Washington Post; December 23, 2000
  22. ^ "Jews in Hungary Helped by Swede". The New York Times; April 26, 1945, Thursday; Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
  23. ^ a b c "Report of Swedish Russian Working Group" (PDF). http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/04/11/39/37b7322e.pdf. Retrieved 2007-02-13. 
  24. ^ "Well Taken Care Of". Time; February 18, 1957; Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
  25. ^ "Soviet double agent may have betrayed Wallenberg"; Reuters; May 12, 2003; Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
  26. ^ See Braham, Randolph (2004): Rescue Operations in Hungary: Myths and Realities, East European Quarterly 38(2): 173-203.
  27. ^ Wallenberg fate shrouded in mystery; CNN; January 12, 2001; Retrieved on February 14, 2007
  28. ^ a b Rachel Oestreicher Bernheim (1981). "A Hero for our Time". http://www.raoulwallenberg.org/who/hero.html. Retrieved 2007-02-12. 
  29. ^ "Raoul Wallenberg, Life and Work". New York Times. September 6, 1991. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/06/world/soviet-turmoil-kgb-chief-to-let-agents-break-silence-about-wallenberg-s-fate.html. Retrieved 2007-02-12. "The K.G.B. promised today that it would let agents break their vow of silence to help investigate the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who vanished after being arrested by the Soviets in 1945." 
  30. ^ "The Last Word on Wallenberg? New Investigations, New Question". http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=848917&ct=1053043. Retrieved 2007-02-12. 
  31. ^ "Stuck in Neutral: The Reasons behind Sweden's passivity in the Raoul Wallenberg case" (PDF). http://www.raoul-wallenberg.asso.fr/wallenberg_res/berger/stuck_25oct05.pdf. Retrieved 2007-02-12. 
  32. ^ a b Chronology - Who is Raoul Wallenberg? - The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States. Retrieved 2008-09-19
  33. ^ Soviets Give Kin Wallenberg Papers. New York Times; October 17, 1989; Retrieved on February 14, 2007
  34. ^ "Raoul Wallenberg, Life and Work". http://www.osa.ceu.hu/guide/rip/1/a.html. Retrieved 2007-02-12. 
  35. ^ Cause of Death Conceded. Time (magazine); Monday, August 7, 2000
  36. ^ Vadim J. Birstein. The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story of Soviet Science. (p.138) Westview Press (2004) ISBN 0-813-34280-5
  37. ^ Russia: Wallenberg wrongfully jailed; CNN; December 22, 2000; Retrieved on February 14, 2007
  38. ^ a b "Moscow releases Wallenberg files". JTA. 2007. http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/104393.html. Retrieved 2007-07-29. 
  39. ^ Search for Swedish Holocaust hero; BBC; Monday, January 17, 2005
  40. ^ a b Alan Levy: Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File. London, Robinson, 2003.
  41. ^ Rosenfeld, Harvey (2005). Raoul Wallenberg: The Mystery Lives On. iUniverse. p. 164. ISBN 0595355447. http://books.google.com/books?id=eFDNcB4NGdQC. 
  42. ^ Moshinsky, Efim (1987). Raoul Wallenberg Is Alive! The Amazing Autobiography of the KGB Officer Who Arrested Him In 1945. Jerusalem: Rescue Publishing. 
  43. ^ December 1993 interview by investigator Marvin Makinen of the University of Chicago. Makinen examined prison records and found additional evidence which seemed to possibly corroborate this. Scholars run down more clues to abiding Holocaust mystery By Arthur Max and Randy Herschaft, Associated Press, April 28, 2008.
  44. ^ Keller, Bill (August 28, 1990). "Soviets Open Prisons and Records to Inquiry on Wallenberg's Fate". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1D71439F93BA1575BC0A966958260. Retrieved 2007-02-13. 
  45. ^ Report of the Swedish-Russian Working Group, Stockholm 2000, p. 15
  46. ^ Missing in Action: Raoul Wallenberg; Jerusalem Post
  47. ^ Excerpt from 1993 working group session
  48. ^ List of von Dardel's actions
  49. ^ mwm_adk_rpt.PDF
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  51. ^ a b Ms. Louise von Dardel's February 2005 talks in the Knesset and the Jerusalem Begin Center and her interviews at the time to Israel TV English news, Jerusalem Post, VESTY (Russian) and Makor Rishon (Hebrew). Also, numerous conversations with Ms. Louise von Dardel
  52. ^ a b Interview with István Domonkos, son of Miksa Domonkos, who died after the show trial preparations (Hungarian)
  53. ^ Kenedi János: Egy kiállítás hiányzó képei (Hungarian)
  54. ^ Hungarian Quarterly (Hungarian)
  55. ^ Holocaust Hero's Parents Committed Suicide in Despair Yahoo News, March 2, 2009
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  57. ^ http://nobelprize.org/nomination/nomination_facts.html
  58. ^ http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/gandhi/index.html
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  62. ^ "Tributes in Hungary". http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/?en/wallenberg/tributes/world/651.htm. Retrieved 2007-02-12. 
  63. ^ "Visiting Yad Vashem: Raoul Wallenberg". Yad Vashem. 2004. http://www1.yadvashem.org/visiting/temp_visiting/temp_index_wallenberg.html. 
  64. ^ Wallenberg Tributes Around The World - Israel The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. Retrieved 2008-09-24
  65. ^ Monument dedicated to Raoul Wallenberg was inaugurated in Tel Aviv - The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
  66. ^ "Institute of Special Education and Special Psychology in St-Petersburg". http://wallenberg.ru/content/view/12/27. Retrieved 2009-02-01. 
  67. ^ Tributes in Sweden International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. Retrieved 2008-09-19
  68. ^ Stockholm monument of Second World War hero defaced International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. Retrieved 2008-09-19
  69. ^ "Tributes in United Kingdom". International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/?en/wallenberg/tributes/world/659.htm. Retrieved 2007-02-12. 
  70. ^ "Honorary Citizens of the United States". U.S. Senate official site. http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/three_column_table/HonoraryCitizens_US.htm. Retrieved August 1, 2009. 
  71. ^ Raoul Wallenberg Place The Historical Marker Database. Retrieved 2008-09-19
  72. ^ Verified in an 1989 edition. (Guinness Rekordbok 1989, Bokförlaget Forum Stockholm Sverige, 1988)
  73. ^ "Holocaust Hero Honored on Postage Stamp". United States Postal Service. 1996. http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/?en/wallenberg/tributes/philately/3368.htm. 
  74. ^ "Raoul Wallenberg Playground". New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=7321. 
  75. ^ "Sculptor’s Campus Works Celebrate Humanitarian Ideals, Growth and Change"
  76. ^ "The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States". The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States. 2007. http://raoulwallenberg.org. 
  77. ^ "Wallenberg Medal and Lecture". The Wallenberg Endowment. 2007. http://www.wallenberg.umich.edu. 

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Did you mean: Raoul Wallenberg (Swedish statesman/stateswoman & businessman/businesswoman), Adolf Wallenberg, Knut Agathon Wallenberg, Victor Wallenberg, Wallenberg (family name)


 

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