Raoul Wallenberg

Raoul Wallenberg
Passport photo from June 1944.
Born	(1912-08-04)August 4, 1912 Lidingö Municipality, Sweden
Died	presumed July 17, 1947(1947-07-17) (aged 34) presumed Soviet Union
Alma mater	University of Michigan
Occupation	Diplomat
Parents	Raoul Oscar Wallenberg & Maria "Maj" Sofia Wising

Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (August 4, 1912 – July 17, 1947?^[1][2][3][4]) was a Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He is widely celebrated for his successful efforts to rescue tens of thousands to about one hundred thousand Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust from Hungarian Fascists and the Nazis during the later stages of World War II. While serving as Sweden's special envoy in Budapest between July and December 1944, Wallenberg issued protective passports and sheltered Jews in buildings designated as Swedish territory saving tens of thousands of lives.^[5]

On January 17, 1945,^[6] during the Siege of Budapest by the Red Army, Wallenberg was detained by Soviet authorities on suspicion of espionage and subsequently disappeared. He was later reported to have died on July 17, 1947, while imprisoned by communist authorities, and KGB secret police in the Lubyanka, a building located in Moscow, Russia, housing both the KGB headquarters and its affiliated prison. The motives behind Wallenberg's arrest and imprisonment by the Soviet government, along with questions surrounding the circumstances of his death and his possible ties to US intelligence, remain mysterious and are the subject of continued speculation.^[7]

Due to his courageous actions on behalf of the Hungarian Jews, Raoul Wallenberg has been the subject of numerous humanitarian honors in the decades following his presumed death. In 1981, U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos, himself one of those saved by Wallenberg, sponsored a bill making Wallenberg an Honorary Citizen of the United States. He is also an honorary citizen of Canada, Hungary, Australia and Israel.^[8] Israel has also designated Wallenberg one of the Righteous among the Nations. Monuments have been dedicated to him, and streets have been 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".^[9] It gives the Raoul Wallenberg Award annually to recognize persons who carry out those goals. A postage stamp was issued by the U.S. in his honour in 1997. On July 26, 2012, he was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress "in recognition of his achievements and heroic actions during the Holocaust."^[10]

Early life

Wallenberg was born in 1912 in 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, Istanbul and Sofia.

His parents, who married in 1911, were Raoul Oscar Wallenberg (1888–1912), a Swedish naval officer, and Maria "Maj" Sofia Wising (1891–1979). His father died of cancer three months before he was born, and his maternal grandfather died of pneumonia three months after his birth. His mother and grandmother, now both suddenly widows, raised him together.^[11] In 1918, his mother married Fredrik von Dardel;^[12] they had a son, Guy von Dardel,^[13] and a daughter, Nina Lagergren.

After high school and his compulsory eight months in the Swedish military, Wallenberg's paternal grandfather sent him to study in Paris. He spent one year there, and then, in 1931, he matriculated at the University of Michigan in the United States to study architecture.^[11] Although the Wallenberg family was rich, he worked at odd jobs in his free time and joined other young male students as a passenger rickshaw handler at Chicago's Century of Progress.^[14] He used his vacations to explore the United States, with hitchhiking being his preferred method of travel. About his experiences, he wrote to his grandfather saying, "When you travel like a hobo, everything’s different. You have to be on the alert the whole time. You’re in close contact with new people every day. Hitchhiking gives you training in diplomacy and tact."^[15]

Raoul was aware of his one-sixteenth Jewish blood, and proud of it. Professor Ingemar Hedenius (one of the leading Swedish philosophers) recalls a conversation with Raoul dating back to 1930, when they were together in an army hospital during military service:

.. We had many long and intimate conversations. He was full of ideas and plans for the future. Although I was a good deal older - you could choose when to do your service - I was enormously impressed by him. He was proud of his partial Jewish ancestry and, as I recall, must have exaggerated it somewhat. I remember him saying, 'A person like me, who is both a Wallenberg and half-Jewish, can never be defeated'.^[16]

He graduated from university in 1935, but upon his return to Sweden, he found his American degree did not qualify him to practice as an architect. Later that year, his grandfather arranged a job for him in Cape Town, South Africa, in the office of a Swedish company that sold construction material. After six months in South Africa, he took a new job at a branch office of the Holland Bank in Haifa.^[17] 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,^[18] an export-import company trading between Stockholm and central Europe, owned by Kálmán Lauer, a Hungarian Jew.

World War II

Beginning in 1938, the Kingdom of Hungary, under the regency of Miklós Horthy, passed a series of anti-Jewish measures modeled on the so-called Nuremberg Race Laws enacted in Germany by the Nazis in 1935. Like their German counterparts the Hungarian laws focused heavily on restricting Jews from certain professions, reducing the number of Jews in government and public service jobs, and prohibiting intermarriage. Because of this, Wallenberg's business associate, Kalman Lauer, found it increasingly difficult to travel to his native Hungary, which was moving still deeper into the German orbit, becoming a member of the Axis Powers in November 1940 and later joining the German-led invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Out of necessity Wallenberg became Lauer's personal representative, traveling to Hungary to conduct business on Lauer's behalf and also to look in on members of Lauer's extended family who remained in Budapest. He soon learned to speak Hungarian, and from 1941 made increasingly frequent travels to Budapest.^[19] Within a year, Wallenberg was a joint owner and the International Director of the company.^[17] In this capacity Wallenberg also made several business trips to Germany and Occupied-France during the early years of World War II. It was during these trips that Wallenberg was able to closely observe the Nazis' bureaucratic and administrative methods, knowledge which would prove quite valuable to him later.^[20]

Meanwhile, the situation in Hungary had begun to deteriorate as the tide of the war began to turn decisively against Germany and its allies. Following the catastrophic Axis defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad (in which Hungarian troops fighting alongside German forces suffered a staggering 84% casualty rate) the regime of Miklos Horthy began secretly pursuing peace talks with the United States and the United Kingdom. Upon learning of Horthy's duplicity, Hitler ordered the occupation of Hungary by German troops in March 1944. The Wehrmacht quickly took control of the country and placed Horthy under house arrest. A pro-German puppet government was installed in Budapest, with actual power resting with the German military governor, SS-Brigadefuhrer Edmund Veesenmayer. With the Nazis now in control, the relative security from the Holocaust enjoyed by the Jews of Hungary came to an end. In April and May 1944 the Nazi regime and its accomplices began the mass deportation of Hungary's Jews to concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Poland. Under the personal leadership of SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann, who would later be tried and hanged in Israel for his major role in the implementation of the Nazis' Final Solution, deportations took place at a rate of 12,000 individuals per day.^[21]

Recruitment by the War Refugee Board

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, a detailed account of the operations of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp written by two recent escapees.^[22] Following the report's publication, the administration of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt turned to the newly created War Refugee Board (WRB) established as a result of activism by the "Bergson Group" led by Hillel Kook and later by Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr and team in search of a solution to the humanitarian crisis in Hungary. In spring 1944, President Roosevelt dispatched US Treasury Department official Iver C. Olsen to Stockholm as a representative of the WRB. Olsen was tasked specifically by the President with finding a way to aid the Hungarian Jews. This, however, was not the sole reason for Olsen being posted to Sweden. In addition to his duties with the WRB, Olsen was also secretly functioning as the chief of currency operations for the Stockholm branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the United States' wartime espionage service.^[23]

In search of someone willing and able to go to Budapest to organize a rescue program for the nation's Jews,^[24] Olsen established contact with a relief committee composed of many prominent Swedish Jews led by the Swedish Chief Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis to locate an appropriate person to travel to Budapest under diplomatic cover and lead the rescue operation.^[20] One member of the committee was Wallenberg's business associate Kalman Lauer.

The committee's first choice to lead the mission was Count Folke Bernadotte, the vice-chairman of the Swedish Red Cross and a member of the Swedish Royal Family. When Bernadotte's proposed appointment was rejected by the Hungarians, Lauer suggested Wallenberg as a potential replacement.^[20] Olsen was introduced to Wallenberg by Lauer in June 1944 and came away from the meeting impressed and, shortly thereafter, appointed Wallenberg to lead the mission.^[15] Olsen's selection of Wallenberg was initially met with objections from some US officials who doubted his reliability, in light of existing commercial relationships between businesses owned by the Wallenberg family and the German government. These differences were eventually overcome and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs agreed to the American request to assign Wallenberg to its legation in Budapest as part of an arrangement in which Wallenberg's appointment was granted in exchange for a lessening of American diplomatic pressure on neutral Sweden to curtail their nation's free-trade policies toward Germany.^[25]

Mission to Budapest

When Wallenberg reached the Swedish legation in Budapest in July 1944, the campaign against the Jews of Hungary had already been underway for several months. Between May and July 1944, Eichmann and his associates had successfully deported over 400,000 Jews by freight train. Of those deported all but 15,000 were sent directly to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in southern Poland.^[20] By the time of Wallenberg's arrival there were only 230,000 Jews remaining in Hungary. Together with fellow Swedish diplomat Per Anger,^[26] he issued "protective passports" (German: Schutz-Pass), which identified the bearers as Swedish subjects awaiting repatriation and thus prevented their deportation. Although not legal, these documents looked official and were generally accepted by German and Hungarian authorities, who sometimes were also bribed.^[19] The Swedish legation in Budapest also succeeded in negotiating with the German authorities so that the bearers of the protective passes would be treated as Swedish citizens and be exempt from having to wear the yellow badge required for Jews.^[17]

Valdemar Langlet [lan’lé] (December 17, 1872 in Lerbo, Sweden – October 16, 1960 in Stockholm) was a Swedish publisher, and an early Esperantist. With his wife Nina Borovko-Langlet in Budapest, he is credited with saving many Jews from the Holocaust, by providing Swedish documents saying that people were waiting for Swedish nationality. Raoul Wallenberg was inspired by Langlet and used the same method to save Jewish people when he came to Budapest. In 1965, Valdemar and Nina Langlet were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

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.^[15]

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.^[27]

At the height of the program, over 350 people were involved in the rescue of Jews.^[28] 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.^[29] Berber Smit (Barbara Hogg), the daughter of Lolle Smit (1892–1961), director of N.V. Philips Budapest and a Dutch spy working for the British MI6, also assisted Wallenberg. According to her son, she had a romance with him.^[30] Smit's other daughter, Reinderdina Petronella (1922–1945), died on 18 August 1945 in Bucharest.

Wallenberg started sleeping in a different house each night, to guard against being captured or killed by Arrow Cross Party members or by Adolf Eichmann's men.^[31] Two days before the Soviet Army occupied Budapest, Wallenberg negotiated with both Eichmann and Major-General Gerhard Schmidthuber, the supreme commander of German forces in Hungary. Wallenberg bribed Arrow Cross Party member Pál Szalai to deliver a note in which Wallenberg persuaded the occupying Germans to prevent a Fascist plan to blow up the Budapest ghetto and kill an estimated 70,000 Jews and 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.^[17][19]

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.^[32]

Disappearance

On October 29, 1944 elements of the 2nd Ukrainian Front under Marshal Rodion Malinovsky launched an offensive against Budapest and by late December the city had been successfully encircled by Soviet forces. Despite this the German commander of Budapest, SS Lieutenant General Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, refused all offers to surrender, setting in motion a protracted and bloody siege of Budapest. At the height of the fighting, on January 17, 1945, Wallenberg was called to General Malinovsky's headquarters in Debrecen to answer allegations that he was engaged in espionage.^[33][34][35] Wallenberg's last recorded words were, "I'm going to Malinovsky's ... whether as a guest or prisoner I do not know yet."^[36] Documents recovered in 1993 from previously secret Soviet military archives and published in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet show that an order for Wallenberg's arrest was issued by Deputy Commissar for Defence (and future Soviet Premier) Nikolai Bulganin and transmitted to Malinovsky's headquarters on the day of Wallenberg's disappearance.^[37] In 2003, a review of Soviet wartime correspondences indicated that Vilmos Böhm, a Hungarian politician who was also a Soviet intelligence agent, may have provided Wallenberg's name to the NKVD as a person to detain for possible involvement in espionage.^[38]

Information about Wallenberg after his detention is mostly speculative; there were many witnesses who claim to have met him during his imprisonment.^[39] Wallenberg was transported by train from Debrecen, through Romania, to Moscow.^[35] The Soviet authorities may have moved him to Moscow in the hope of exchanging him for defectors in Sweden.^[40] Vladimir Dekanozov notified the Swedish government 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, formerly 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.^[11][41]

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.^[17] 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.^[15] Söderblom met with Vyacheslav 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.^[42][43]

Death

On February 6, 1957, the Soviet government 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 or heart failure. 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."^[44] 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][11] In 1989, Wallenberg's personal belongings were returned 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.^[45][46]

In 1991, Vyacheslav Nikonov was charged by the Russian government to investigate Wallenberg's fate. He concluded that Wallenberg died in 1947, executed while a prisoner in Lubyanka.^[47] He may have been a victim of the C-2 poison (carbylamine-choline-chloride) tested at the poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services.^[48]

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.^[33][49] General Pavel Sudoplatov claimed that Raoul Wallenberg died after being poisoned by Grigory Mairanovsky, a notorious NKVD assassin.^[50] In 2000, Russian prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov signed a verdict posthumously rehabilitating Wallenberg and his driver, Langfelder, as "victims of political repression".^[51] A number of files pertinent to Wallenberg were turned over to the chief rabbi of Russia by the Russian government in September 2007.^[52] The items were slated to be housed at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow,^[52] which opened in 2012.^[53]

Disputes regarding his death

Several former prisoners have claimed to have seen Wallenberg after his reported death in 1947.^[54] 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."^[44]

Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal 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.^[55] Efim (or Yefim) Moshinsky claims to have seen Wallenberg on Wrangel Island in 1962.^[56][57] An eyewitness asserted that she had seen Wallenberg in the 1960s in a Soviet prison.^[58]

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".^[55]

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.^[59] John Farkas was a resistance fighter during WWII and was the last man claiming to have seen Wallenberg alive. Farkas' son has stated that there have been sightings of Wallenberg "up into the 1980s in Russian prisons and psychiatric hospitals."^[60]

Raoul Wallenberg's half-brother, Professor Guy von Dardel,^[61] a well-known physicist, retired from CERN, was dedicated to finding out his half-brother's fate.^[62] He traveled to the Soviet Union about fifty times for discussions and research, including an examination of the Vladimir prison records.^[63] Over the years, Professor von Dardel had compiled a 50,000-page archive of interviews, journal articles, letters, and other documents related to his quest.^[64] In 1991, he initiated a Swedish-Russian working group^[65] to search eleven separate military and government archives from the former Soviet Union for information about Wallenberg's fate, but were not able to find conclusive information.^[35][66][67] Many, including Professor von Dardel and his daughters Louise and Marie, do not accept the various versions of Wallenberg's death. They continue to request that the archives in Russia, Sweden and Hungary be opened to impartial researchers.

In 2012 Russian lieutenant-general Vasily Khristoforov, head of the Russian Federal Security Service said that the Wallenberg case is still open. He dismissed allegations of a continuing coverup; referring to the legacy Soviet agency from which his department sprang, Khristoforov said: "This is another state and a different special service."^[68]

Show trial in 1953

In April 1952, Hungarian State Protection Authority (Hungarian: Államvédelmi Hatóság or ÁVH) kidnapped Miksa Domonkos, László Benedek and Lajos Stöckler, three leaders of the Jewish community in Budapest, to extract scripted confessions under torture.^[69] Two purported eyewitnesses – Pál Szalai and Károly Szabó ^[70]– were also arrested and interrogated using torture. This was in preparation for a show trial to be mounted in 1953 by the Hungarian ÁVH to prove that Wallenberg had not been moved to the Soviet Union in 1945, but was the victim of cosmopolitan Zionists.^[71]

This was after the Prague Trials or purge, when a group of mostly Jewish Communist leaders were executed in 1952 and at the time when the Soviets were planning a major antisemitic show trial in Moscow, the "Doctors' Plot". They accused mostly Jewish doctors of planning to murder Soviet leaders. Many Soviet Jews were fearful hearing that the Soviet plan was to have massive number of Jews deported to Siberia after likely execution of the doctors.

The idea that the "murderers of Wallenberg"^[72] were Budapest Zionists was primarily supported by Hungarian Communist leader Ernő Gerő, demonstrated by a note sent by him to First Secretary Mátyás Rákosi.^[73] The show trial was to be held in Moscow. But, after the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953 and the execution of Lavrentiy Beria, the AVH stopped preparations for the trial and released the prisoners. Domonkos spent a week in the hospital and died at home shortly afterward, mainly due to the torture he had suffered.^[69] The Soviet doctors were also released after Stalin's death.

Possible connection to US intelligence

In May 1996 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released thousands of previously classified documents regarding Raoul Wallenberg, in response to requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act.^[23] The documents, along with an investigation conducted by the publication US News and World Report, appeared to confirm the long-held suspicion that Wallenberg was an American intelligence asset during his time in Hungary. In addition to Wallenberg's name appearing on a roster found in the National Archives^[74] which listed the names of operatives associated with the CIA's wartime predecessor the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the documents also included a 1954 memo from an anonymous CIA source that identified a Hungarian-exile living in Stockholm who, according to the author: "assisted…in inserting Roul [sic] Wallenberg into Hungary during WWII as an agent of OSS".^[25] Another declassified memorandum written in 1990 by the curator of the CIA's Historical Intelligence Collection William Henhoeffer, characterized the conclusion that Wallenberg was working for the OSS while in Budapest as being "essentially correct".^[23]

More telling was a communique sent on November 7, 1944 by the OSS Secret Intelligence Branch in Bari, Italy which apparently acknowledged that Wallenberg was acting as an unofficial liaison between the OSS and the Hungarian Independence Movement (MFM), an underground anti-Nazi resistance organization.^[75] The OSS message notes Wallenberg's contacts with Geza Soos, a high-ranking MFM leader and further explains that Soos "may only be contacted" through the Swedish legation in Budapest, which was Wallenberg's workplace and also served as the operational center for his attempts to aid the Hungarian Jews. The same message's assertion that Wallenberg "will know if he (Soos) is not in Budapest" is also curious, in that by November 1944 Soos was in hiding and knowledge of his whereabouts would only have been available to individuals closely involved with the MFM.^[76] This conclusion is given further weight by additional evidence ^[76] suggesting that communications from the MFM to US intelligence were transmitted first to Stockholm and then relayed to Washington via Iver C. Olsen, the American OSS operative who initially recruited Wallenberg to go to Budapest in June 1944.

This particular disclosure has given rise to speculation as to whether, in addition to his efforts to rescue the Hungarian Jews, Wallenberg may have also been pursuing a parallel clandestine mission aimed at politically destabilizing Hungary’s pro-Nazi government on behalf of the OSS.^[25] This would also seem to add some credence to the potential explanation that it was his association with US intelligence that led to Wallenberg being targeted by Soviet authorities in January 1945.^[74] Several other humanitarians who had helped refugees during World War II disappeared behind the Iron Curtain in the period 1949/50, several years after Wallenberg’s disappearance. OSS ties may have been of interest to the Soviets, but is not a complete explanation because some of those detained, i.e. Hermann Field and Herta Field, had not worked for the OSS. All of these humanitarians, however, like Wallenberg, had interacted with a large number of anti-fascist and socialist refugees during the War, and this experience was used in the Stalin regime’s factional politics and show trials.^[77]

Family

In 2009, reporter Joshua Prager wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal profiling the long-term toll that Raoul Wallenberg's disappearance had on his family. His mother Maj and his stepfather Fredrik von Dardel spent the rest of their lives searching for their son. They 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 their son. Both Nina and Raoul's half-brother Guy von Dardel established organizations and worked to find their brother or confirmation of his death. At the request of their parents, they were to assume he was alive until the year 2000.^[64]

Nina's daughter, Nane Maria Lagergren, married Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations, and is active in many humanitarian efforts.^[3][17] Another of Wallenberg's nieces, 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.^[78] The extended Wallenberg family remains an influential part of Swedish society as major shareholders in banks and corporations including Saab and Scandinavian Airlines.^[79]

Honours

Wallenberg was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1948 by more than 50 qualified nominators^[80] and in 1949 by a single nominator^[80] At the time, the prize could be awarded posthumously, but the concept of such awards was controversial.^[81][82]

Argentina

In Buenos Aires, there is a monument in honour of Wallenberg at a park. It is a replica of the London monument by Philip Jackson, was unveiled in 1998 and can be seen from the Figueroa Alcorta Avenue, in Recoleta neighbourhood.^[83]

Australia

In Melbourne, a small memorial in honour of Wallenberg stands at the Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre; a monument dedicated to him is on the corner of Princess Street and High Street, Kew; and a tree and memorial seat are 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 are a Raoul Wallenberg garden and sculpture in Woollahra, and a statue inside the Jewish Museum of Australia. Commemorative trees have been planted in front of the federal Parliament and in many other locations.^[84]

Raoul Wallenberg Unit of B'nai B'rith in Melbourne, Australia, together with Max Stern & Co, a leading stamp dealer in Melbourne, and Australia Post, have released a limited edition Raoul Wallenberg Stamp Sheet and Envelope Set to mark the Unit's 25th anniversary in 2010. The Stamp Sheet shows a photo of Raoul Wallenberg together with a brief outline of his life, a monument in honour of Raoul Wallenberg by artist, Karl Duldig, in the Raoul Wallenberg Garden at Kew Junction, Melbourne, and ten 60 cent Australia Post stamps with tabs of Raoul Wallenberg from early childhood to adult soldier. The Envelope has a transparent front to show the Stamp Sheet; a Schutzpass is shown on the back accompanied by an explanation.

To commemorate the Centenary Year, a limited number of the Raoul Wallenberg Stamp Sheet will be stamped with a special Centenary cancellation. These will be available from Raoul Wallenberg Unit of B'nai B'rith in Melbourne from 1 July 2012.

Raoul Wallenberg Unit is requesting clergy around the world to speak about Raoul Wallenberg and his heroic deeds - 'One Person can Make a Difference' - from their pulpits over the weekend 3–5 August 2012 which coincides with the date of his 100th birthday, 4 August 2012.

Raoul Wallenberg Reserve in the neighbourhood of Yokine in Perth was dedicated in honour of Raoul Wallenberg. The small park is located in close proximity to many of Perth's Jewish institutions including a Jewish Day School, aged care facility, community centre, sports club and orthodox synagogue.

Wallenberg was named Australia's first honorary citizen in April 2013, during his centenary year.^[85] Frank Vajda AM was saved by Wallenberg in 1944 from the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party and campaigned for decades for him to be recognised with the award.^[60] A ceremony to mark the occasion was held on 6 May 2013,^[8] and was attended by Governor-General Quentin Bryce AC CVO, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.^[86] Vajda also attended the ceremony, as did the son of WWII resistance fighter John Farkas, who was the last person known to have seen Wallenberg alive.^[60][86] George Farkas described the award as "recognition that some people can do unbelievable good in the face of reprehensible evil".^[60]

Austria

In the 22. district of Vienna a street was named "Raoul-Wallenberg-Gasse".

Canada

Wallenberg was made the first Honorary Citizen of Canada in 1985;^[87] and the government declared January 17, the day he disappeared, as "Raoul Wallenberg Day" in Canada.^[88]

Numerous memorials, parks, and monuments honouring Wallenberg can be found across Canada, including the Raoul Wallenberg Memorial in Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver, 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]} The main entrance to Earl Bales Park in Toronto, Ontario is named Raoul Wallenberg Road.

On January 17, 2013, which marks the 68th anniversary of Wallenberg's arrest by Soviet troops, Canada released a postage stamp in honour of Wallenberg.^[89]

In 2008, the Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto added "Wallenberg" to the name of the school, thus spawning the moniker, Tanebaum CHAT Wallenberg Campus.

Georgia

In the center of Batumi a street was named "Raoul Wallenberg street".

Germany

Streets were named after Wallenberg in both east and west Germany.

Hungary

Budapest named Wallenberg as an honorary citizen in 2003. Several sites honor 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.^[90]

In July 2012, marking 100 years since his birth, Hungary paid tribute to Raoul Wallenberg in a ceremony at Budapest's Holocaust museum marking 100 years since his birth. Zoltan Balog, minister for human resources and social affairs, said that "evil must be rejected."^[91]

Israel

Righteous Among the Nations
The Holocaust Rescuers assisting Jews Righteousness Seven Laws of Noah Yad Vashem
Notable individuals
Archbishop Damaskinos Feng-Shan Ho Carl Lutz Oskar Schindler Irena Sendler Andrey Sheptytsky Klymentiy Sheptytsky Chiune Sugihara Raoul Wallenberg
By country
Albanian Austrian Croatian Danish Underground Lithuanian Norwegian Polish Ukrainian
v t e

Israel granted Wallenberg honorary citizenship in 1986 and honored him at the Yad Vashem memorial as one of the Righteous Among the Nations; this designation recognizes Gentiles who saved Jews from the Holocaust.^[92] Other tributes to Wallenberg in Israel include at least five streets named after him.^[93] On Raoul Wallenberg Street in Tel Aviv, a statue identical to one in Budapest was installed in 2002 (see below), made by the sculptor Imre Varga.^[94]

Russia

A memorial to him stands in the courtyard of the Russian Rudomino Library of Foreign Languages in Moscow, and an educational institute in Saint Petersburg was named after him.^[95]

Sweden

In 2001, a memorial was created in Stockholm to honor Wallenberg. It was unveiled by King Carl XVI Gustaf, at a ceremony attended by then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and his wife Nane Maria Annan, Wallenberg's niece. The abstract sculpture portrays people rising from the concrete, accompanied by a bronze replica of Wallenberg's signature.^[96] At the unveiling, King Carl XVI Gustaf said Wallenberg is "a great example to those of us who want to live as fellow humans."^[97] 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."^[98]

A memorial to Wallenberg was installed in Göteborg, near Hagakyrkan (Haga Church). Kofi Annan attended the unveiling ceremony.

United Kingdom

A Raoul Wallenberg memorial was installed at Great Cumberland Place in London, outside 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]} A bronze briefcase memorial by Gustav Kraitz with the initials RW is located in the garden of the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre near Laxton in Nottinghamshire.

United States

The US Congress made Wallenberg an Honorary Citizen of the United States in 1981,^[99] the second person to be so honored, after Winston Churchill. In 1985, the portion of 15th Street, SW in Washington, D.C. on which the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is located, was renamed Raoul Wallenberg Place by Act of Congress.^[100][101]

In 1997, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor. 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."^[102]

In Manhattan, a monument honoring him was installed on Raoul Wallenberg Walk, named in his honor, across from the headquarters of the United Nations. The Swedish consulate commissioned the piece, created by Swedish sculptor Gustav Kraitz. The sculpture, Hope, is a replica of Wallenberg’s briefcase, a sphere, five pillars of black granite, and paving stones (setts) which were formerly used on the streets of the Budapest ghetto.^[103] Another memorial stands in front of the Art and Architecture building at the University of Michigan, where he received his architecture degree in 1935.^[104]

Places named after Wallenberg include Raoul Wallenberg Traditional High School in San Francisco, the PS 194 Raoul Wallenberg School in Brooklyn, New York, Raoul Wallenberg Avenue in Trenton, New Jersey, and Raoul Wallenberg Blvd in Charleston, South Carolina.

Since 2005, the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation has campaigned to establish October 5 as Raoul Wallenberg Day throughout the United States, as this was the day Wallenberg was awarded Honorary U.S. Citizenship. By 2010, Raoul Wallenberg Day was being observed by the states of Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, West Virginia, and Wyoming.^[105]

Wallenberg was posthumously awarded the Train Foundation's Civil Courage Prize, which recognizes "extraordinary heroes of conscience".^[106]

On July 26, 2012 Wallenberg was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress "in recognition of his achievements and heroic actions during the Holocaust."^[10]

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."^[107]

The University of Michigan awards the Wallenberg Medal annually to outstanding humanitarians who embody the humanitarian values and commitment of its distinguished alumnus. The first Wallenberg Medal was presented in 1990 to Elie Wiesel. The twentieth Wallenberg Medal was awarded in October 2010 to Dr. Denis Mukwege.^[108] 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.

Schools named after him

Argentina

• Raoul Wallenberg Educational Center

Brazil

• The Raoul Wallenberg Integral High School

Canada

• The Anne & Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto Wallenberg Campus
• Wallenberg Academy (formerly Wagar High School), Montreal, Quebec.^[109]

Ecuador

• Raoul Wallenberg Kindergarten & Primary School

Germany

• Raoul-Wallenberg Schule, Dorsten
• Raoul-Wallenberg-Oberschule, Berlin

Hungary

• Raoul Wallenberg Humán Szakközépiskola és Gimnázium

Sweden

• Raoul Wallenberg School Bromma
• Raoul Wallenberg Preschool Bromma
• Raoul Wallenberg Preschool Skövde
• Raoul Wallenberg School Uppsala
• Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (Lund University)

Uruguay

• Raoul Wallenberg Lyceum

USA

• P.S. 194 Raoul Wallenberg School in Brooklyn, New York
• Raoul Wallenberg Traditional High School in San Francisco
• Raoul Wallenberg Avenue, Trenton, New Jersey.

Venezuela

• Raoul Wallenberg Pre-School Educational Unit

Films

A number of films have been made of Wallenberg's life, including the 1985 made-for-television movie Wallenberg: A Hero's Story (1985), starring Richard Chamberlain, the 1990 Swedish production God afton, Herr Wallenberg (Good Afternoon, Mr. Wallenberg), featuring Stellan Skarsgård, and various documentaries,^[110] such as Raoul Wallenberg: Buried Alive (1984), the AFI Award winning Raoul Wallenberg, Between The Lines (1985) and Searching for Wallenberg (2003). He also appears in the Spanish television series El ángel de Budapest and is played by Iván Fenyő. In 2006, the film "Raoul Wallenberg-l'ange de Budapest" (translated by Nigel Spencer as "Raoul Wallenberg: the Angel of Budapest"), featuring relatives and the Winnipeg lawyer still piloting inquiries into his case, was released in Canada and broadcast on the Bravo! network.

Art

He is featured prominently in the work of esteemed painter and Holocaust survivor, Alice Lok Cahana. Her father was saved by Wallenberg.

Operas

• Wallenberg. Opera premiered at the Opernhaus Dortmund on May 5, 2001^{[111][112][113][114][115]}
  • Composer Erkki-Sven Tüür, Libretto of Lutz Hübner
• Raoul. Opera premiered at the Theater Bremen on February 21, 2008^[116][117]
  • Composer Gershon Kingsley, Libretto of Michael Kunze

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Raoul Wallenberg.

• Folke Bernadotte
• Ángel Sanz Briz and Giorgio Perlasca
• Marvin Makinen
• Oskar Schindler
• Henryk Sławik
• Chiune Sugihara
• John Rabe
• Nicholas Winton
• Harald Edelstam
• Aristides de Sousa Mendes
• Raoul Wallenberg International Movement for Humanity (founded by Dr. Vera Parnes)

References

Further reading

• Levine, Paul A. Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Myth, History and Holocaust (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2010)
• Matz, Johan. "Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg's Mission to Hungary in 1944," Journal of Cold War Studies (2012) 14#3 pp 97-148 in Project MUSE

External links

• The Importance of Raoul Wallenberg - a Swedish Human Right Hero at The Global Herald
• Raoul Wallenberg - Righteous Among the Nations - Yad Vashem
• Raoul Wallenberg Center at the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation
• The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
• The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States
• Wallenberg at Michigan - University of Michigan Heritage Project
• Searching for Raoul Wallenberg
• Holocaust Rescuers Bibliography with information and links to a variety of books about Raoul Wallenberg
• University of Michigan Wallenberg Committee
• Public Lecture by Dr Paul Levine 'Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Myth, History and Holocaust' held at the Wiener Library London on 8 March 2010 PODCAST
• Raoul Wallenberg - Holocaust Heroes Budapest Raoul Wallenberg - Holocaust Heroes Budapest
• The International Raoul Wallenberg Essay Competition The official essay competition to Raoul Wallenbergs memory

v t e Civil Courage Prize laureates Annual winners Nataša Kandić (2000) Paul Kamara (2001) Shahnaz Bukhari (2002) Vladimiro Roca (2003) Emadeddin Baghi; Lovemore Madhuku (2004) Min Ko Naing; Anna Politkovskaya (2005) Rafael Marques (2006) Phillip Buck (2007) Ali Salem (2008) Aminatou Haidar (2009) Andrew White (2010) Lydia Cacho; Triveni Acharya (2011) Yu Jie (2012) Posthumous awards Munir Said Thalib Abdul-Latif Ali al-Mayah Dietrich Bonhoeffer Giovanni Falcone Rosemary Nelson Neelan Tiruchelvam Raoul Wallenberg

Authority control WorldCat VIAF: 100383423 LCCN: n79125870 ISNI: 0000 0001 1452 3281 GND: 118628747 SELIBR: 208742 SUDOC: 028206592 NLA: 36507138 NDL: 00845984 NKC: jn20031021019

Persondata
Name	Wallenberg, Raoul
Alternative names
Short description	Diplomat
Date of birth	August 4, 1913
Place of birth	Sweden
Date of death	(presumed) July 16, 1947
Place of death	(presumed)Soviet Union