[Written in 2010]
“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.”
U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos
(b. Budapest 01/02/1928 d. Maryland 11/02/2008)
Raoul Wallenberg, 1944
Source: Wikipedia
Prologue
In January 1953, there was a wave of anti-Jewish trials sweeping the Soviet Block. It started with the famous Doctors’ trial in the Soviet Union. Many Jewish doctors were standing trial, accused of making an attempt on Joseph Stalin’s life. Following the Soviet lead, the satellite states had a spate of anti-Semitic court cases too.
On 7 April 1953, early in the morning, ÁVH (the Hungarian secret police) officials kidnapped Miksa Domonkos, László Benedek and Lajos Stöckler, leaders of the Budapest Jewish community. Their alleged crime was that they, as Zionists, soon after the liberation from the Nazis, murdered the Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg. Wallenberg’s collaborators during the War, Pál Szalai and Károly Szabó, were also brought in as witnesses. These people were tortured until they were ready to confess or bear witness to anything.
Stalin died on 5 March 1953 and, fortunately, all these trials died with him. The accused Jews and the “witnesses” were released. Miksa Domonkos died soon after his release from injuries inflicted on him.
Who was this Swedish diplomat?
Wallenberg’s C.V. until 1944
Raoul Gustav Wallenberg was born in Lidingö Municipality, Sweden on 4 August 1912 into one of Sweden’s most prominent banking families. As a teenager, he studied architecture at the University of Michigan. After graduating, bowing to family pressure, he tried his hand at banking. In 1936, Wallenberg gained a position at a bank in Palestine. It was there where his attention was brought to the tragedy engulfing European Jewry. Banking did not suit the young Wallenberg so he decided to look for a situation in some other field. During the early years of World War II, Wallenberg was offered a position in a Stockholm company, specialising in food export and import, owned by Kalman Lauer, a Hungarian Jewish émigré with extensive business connections with Hungary.
The Background to Wallenberg’s Activities
Hitler invaded Hungary on 19 March 1944. Soon after the invasion, the deportation of Hungarian Jews began, the principal destination being Auschwitz-Birkenau, and… certain death.
The Germans started the deportation of Jews from the Hungarian countryside, but their brethren in Budapest knew that it was only a matter of time before their turn would come. In desperation, they sought help from the only source available: the legations of neutral countries. These countries responded by issuing provisional passes for Jews with special connections to their countries. The Swiss Vice-Consul, Carl Lutz, was the first neutral diplomat in Budapest to rescue Jews. He is credited with inventing the Schutzbrief (protective letter) or Schutzpass, for Jewish refugees in Budapest. It was the Swedish legation in Budapest who succeeded in convincing the Germans that the bearers of such provisional passes should be treated as their citizens and be exempt from wearing the yellow Star of David on their chest.
Carl Lutz, 1944
Source: Wikipedia
In a short time, the Swedish legation issued 700 passes, a drop in the ocean compared to the high number of threatened people. Because of these activities, the Legation experienced a shortage of officers and requested staff reinforcements from the Swedish Foreign Office in Stockholm.
Kálmán Lauer, who by this time had made Wallenberg a full business partner, recommended Wallenberg to the War Refugee Board (WRB) of the United States. As neutral citizen with extensive knowledge of Hungary, Wallenberg had much to contribute to WRB activities in Budapest. On 9 July 1944, at the request of the United States and in answer to the Legation in Budapest, the Swedish government sent Wallenberg to Budapest as First Secretary of the Swedish Legation. He headed the department responsible for rescuing Jews. Before the arrival of Wallenberg, the head of the Swedish Red Cross in Hungary, Valdemar Langlet, had assisted the Swedish legation by renting buildings in the name of the Red Cross and placing signs such as “The Swedish Library” and “The Swedish Research Institute” on their doors. These buildings were hiding places for Jews.
Diplomat & Diplomacy
Before leaving for Budapest, Wallenberg demanded full authorisation to deal with whomever he wanted and in whatever way he felt necessary, without first having to obtain ministerial consent. He also demanded the right to send diplomatic couriers not through the usual channels. He was determined to avoid the bureaucracy associated with diplomacy.
In the meanwhile, Adolf Eichmann was laying plans for the complete extermination “in a single day” of the Budapest Jewry. In a report to Berlin, he stated, “the technical details will take a few days.”
Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest, 1944
Source: USHMM
The Swedish establishment shifted to a higher gear in their drive to rescue the Jews of Budapest. The Regent of Hungary, Miklos Horthy, received a letter from the King of Sweden, Gustav V, appealing to the head of state to halt the deportations. Horthy, surprisingly complied. Oddly enough, for some inexplicable reason, the German authorities approved this action and Eichmann could do nothing but wait.
Building on Valdemar Langlet’s work, Wallenberg’s first task in Budapest was to design a Swedish protective pass (the Schutzpass). He realised that official symbols, seals, stamps and other paraphernalia of officialdom impressed both the German and the Hungarian authorities. He had the passes printed in yellow and blue, with the coat of arms of the Three Crowns of Sweden in the middle, and then added the appropriate stamps, seals and signatures. These documents afforded the Hungarian Jews some protection. To start with, he only issued 1,500 passes, but soon he managed to negotiate another 1,000, and, through promises and threats to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, he eventually managed to raise the quota to 4,500 passes. In reality, Wallenberg issued more than three times as many documents. His office employed a staff of several hundred Jewish men and women. Since they worked as Swedish Embassy staff, they were exempt from wearing the yellow mark.
With protective passes in hand, Hungarian Jews were able to enter into the “International Ghetto”. This ghetto, an outgrowth of Valdemar Langlet’s “safe houses”, was comprised of a number of rented houses. Each of these buildings had the Swedish Triple Crown or the emblems of some other neutral country. In addition, not only did Wallenberg secure protective passes and shelter for the Jews, but he also made sure they received food daily. Under Wallenberg’s guidance, hospitals were set up and orphanages established. Caches of food, medicine, and clothes were hidden in different parts of the city.
Raoul Wallenberg and colleagues - Budapest, 1944
Source: Sweden.se
The Rescuer
The Hungarian fascists, the Arrow Cross, with German help, came to power on 15 October 1944 and the deportation resumed.
As the Germans and the Arrow Cross tightly packed the death trains with the cargo of Jews bound for Auschwitz, Wallenberg pushed past the SS guard and scrambled onto the roof of one of the cattle cars. Ignoring shots fired over his head, he reached through the still open door to outstretched hands, passing out dozens of bogus passports that extended Sweden’s protection to the bearers. He ordered everyone with a document off the train and into a waiting caravan of assorted vehicles. The guards looked on, dumbfounded.
Raoul Wallenberg (front, right) handing out passes to prevent deportation of Hungarian Jews - Budapest, 1944.
Source: USHMM
As the Russians pushed toward Budapest, blocking the railroads previously used to deport the Jews, the Arrow Cross invented a new form of deportation, the death march. Jews, freezing and malnourished, marched 20 miles or more a day towards the Austro-Hungarian border. On these marches, the Arrow Cross showed more brutality than the SS, kicking and beating the Jews with rifle butts for amusement. The Arrow Cross staged simulated executions, in which the victims were made to dig their own graves. As always, the Arrow Cross members were stealing whatever possessions the Jews were left with. When a victim was made to undress, they were either beaten to death in front of the others, or put into a barrel, and doused with freezing water until the victim became a block of ice. The deportees than had to file past the barrel so that they could witness the horrible sight.
Wallenberg did his best to alleviate these horrors. As well as provide hope, he would bring food and water. A survivor remembers the death march:
“we were without food, without water, without sanitation. Wallenberg told us he would try to return with safety passes. He also said that he would try to get medical attention and sanitation facilities, and true to his word, soon afterwards some doctors and nurses came.”
Toward the end of 1944, Wallenberg moved his offices from Buda to Pest to be near to the ghettos. In order to save Jewish lives, Wallenberg needed corruptible officials to bribe. He came upon a powerful man, who was a high-ranking police officer and a member of the Arrow Cross (after the war, he was the only Arrow Cross member that was not executed. He was later arrested as a witness to the Zionist plot in 1953. After the October 1956 uprising, he immigrated to America).
It was the second week of January 1945, when Raoul Wallenberg found out that Eichmann planned a total massacre in the Budapest ghetto. Wallenberg sent Szalay to deliver a note to Schmidthuber, Commander-in-Chief for the German troops in Hungary, explaining that Raoul Wallenberg would personally make sure that the General would be held personally responsible for the massacre and that he would hang as a war criminal. The General stopped the planned murders at the last minute.
Two days later, the Russians arrived and found 97,000 Jews still alive in Budapest’s two ghettos. Thanks to Wallenberg, the Swiss consul, Karl Lutz, and other righteous gentiles, 120,000 Jews survived the Nazi extermination in Hungary. Nevertheless, let us not forget the 600,000 that perished!
The Prisoner
In the chaotic days following the Soviet entry to Budapest, Raoul Wallenberg drew up a post-war plan of reconstruction and employment for the returning deportees. Wallenberg took these plans with him to present on the day he left the Swedish Legation on 17 January 1945, visiting the Soviet military headquarters in Debrecen, Eastern Hungary. On his way out of Budapest, under Soviet escort, Wallenberg and his Hungarian driver, Vilmos Lagenfedler, called at the “Swedish houses” to say good-bye. His words were, “I am going to Malinovsky’s... whether as a guest or prisoner I do not know yet.” Wallenberg believed he would be back within eight days. However, he disappeared.
The Russians probably believed that Wallenberg had an ulterior reason for his rescue efforts. Since the Soviets considered all Westerners as spies, he too must have been under suspicion. The Russians could also have been worried about Wallenberg’s contact with the Germans. The Soviets arrested other neutral diplomats too whom they exchanged for Communist prisoners.
According to reliable testimonies, the Russians took Wallenberg and his driver to Moscow where the NKVD (The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) arrested them. Wallenberg and Langfedler were placed in separate cells in the Lubjanka prison, according to eyewitnesses.
In December 1993, investigator Marvin Makinen of the University of Chicago, interviewed an eyewitness who asserted that she had seen Wallenberg in the 1960s in a Soviet prison. Makinen examined prison records and found additional evidence, which seemed to corroborate this. However, according to the Russians, he died in Russian captivity on 17 July 1947. In January 2001, Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson commented, “As long as there is no unequivocal evidence of what happened to Wallenberg – and this is still the case – it cannot be said that Raoul Wallenberg is dead.”
Raoul Wallenberg Memorials in London (left) and Gothenburg (right).
Source: Wikipedia
Conclusion
Raoul Wallenberg is today widely recognised as one of the great heroes of World War II. In recognition of his compassion and selfless sacrifice, over 30 monuments have been raised all around the world. Today there are about 10-15 squares, parks and streets dedicated to him. Five stamps have been issued in his honour. Israel’s Postal Service being the first one. Until today, Sweden, United States, Argentine and Uruguay all have issued Raoul Wallenberg stamps. In October of 1981, the United States of America bestowed on Raoul Wallenberg an honorary citizenship, an honour only given to one other person before, Winston Churchill. In 1985, Raoul Wallenberg was made an honorary citizen of Canada, followed by Israel in 1986 and Budapest in 2003.
Our recognition should also extend to other neutral diplomats who actively saved Jewish lives during the war, such as:
Carl Lutz, Vice Consul of the Swiss Embassy in Budapest,
Angelo Rotta, the Apostolic Nuncio,
Angel Sanz Briz, the Spanish Minister,
Friedrich Born, the Swiss delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross
and many more righteous gentiles.
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