A diplomat and businessman, Wallenberg was appointed legation secretary of the Swedish diplomatic mission in Budapest in June His job was to launch a rescue operation for Jews, and he became head of a special department. In January , Wallenberg was imprisoned by Soviet forces.
His fate remains unknown. Russia claims he died in a Soviet prison on 17 July However, many witness reports suggest he may have been alive much later. In October Wallenberg was declared dead by the Swedish Tax Agency, which registers birth and deaths. His official date of death is 31 July , a date that is purely formal since the authority must choose a date at least five years after his disappearance. By issuing protective passports and creating safe houses, Wallenberg saved tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest.
Once the WRB understood that Sweden was making serious attempts to save Jews in Hungary, it set out to find someone who could launch a major rescue operation in Budapest. Wallenberg was offered the job and accepted. These buildings then served as hiding places for Jews.
The first thing Wallenberg did was to design a protective Swedish passport. German and Hungarian bureaucrats had a weakness for symbology, so he had the passports printed in blue and yellow with the Swedish coat of arms in the center. He furnished the passports with appropriate stamps and signatures. Wallenberg managed to convince the Hungarian Foreign Ministry to approve 4, protective passports. In reality, he issued three times as many.
Toward the end of the war, when conditions were desperate, Wallenberg issued a simplified version of his protective passport that bore only his signature. In the prevailing chaos, even this worked. To achieve his objectives, Wallenberg sometimes had to use unconventional methods, even bribery. His department expanded, and there were several hundred people working there at its peak. On 20 November , Adolf Eichmann instigated a series of death marches, in which thousands of Jews were forced to leave Hungary on foot under extremely harsh conditions.
Wallenberg helped them by distributing passports, food and medicine. In January , the Russians arrived in Budapest. On 17 January, Wallenberg was arrested by Soviet forces. Raoul Wallenberg with his mother, Maj von Dardel. Photo: Private; reproduction: Karl Gabor. Wallenberg as a young man. A Swedish protective passport. Raoul Wallenberg right and staff at the Swedish legation in Budapest, Hungary. Photo: Thomas Veres. Wallenberg was a man who made a difference. Was he executed? Wallenberg was born in , so he would be well over years old today, which makes it essentially certain that he is now dead.
A request was submitted in April to the Swedish fiscal administration to have him officially declared dead unless he reappears before October 14, It seems strange that neither Sweden nor the Western Allies have done anything to solve the mystery. Sweden was a neutral country but it traded extensively with the Third Reich, supplying the industries of Nazi Germany, for example with ball bearings for aviation.
In fact, the Swedish economy depended very heavily on trade with Germany. Towards the end of the war, when the Third Reich was losing, the Allies put tremendous pressure on Sweden to cut off its relations with the country. Following German defeat, Sweden eventually started cooperating with US and Soviet interests, and Raoul Wallenberg's case became part of a political process aimed at re-establishing good relations with the USSR.
Besides, unlike his immediate family, the people in charge of the Wallenberg Empire did not go out of their way to have him freed. Wallenberg nonetheless became an emblematic figure. In , he was named an honorary citizen of the US, a distinction so rare that it had only ever been granted to one other foreigner, namely Sir Winston Churchill. Lydia Ben Ytzhak is an independent scientific journalist. Among other assignments, she produces documentaries, scientific columns, and interviews for France Culture, a French radio station.
Sign in. Articles Infographics Opinions Slideshows Videos. What is the CNRS? Search Sign in Register My account Newsletters. Customize your navigation Select your favorite keywords or themes and create your custom section. Log in Register. Raoul Wallenberg seated at the Swedish legation, with his Hungarian Jewish co-workers in Budapest He provided thousands of Hungarian Jews with Swedish protective passes. Share Share. Seventy-one years after he disappeared in Budapest, the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of Jews from deportation by giving them Swedish papers, was officially declared dead by the government of his country.
For the Soviet authorities, Wallenberg was an ambiguous figure, whom they suspected of having ties with US intelligence. Footnotes 1. Paris Sorbonne. Raoul Wallenberg. Sauver les Juifs de Hongrie, Eds F. Virgili et A. Wieviorka Paris: Payot, Go further. Despite a complete lack of experience in diplomacy and clandestine operations, he led one of the most extensive and successful rescue efforts during the Holocaust.
Hungary had been an ally of Germany, but German defeats and mounting Hungarian losses led Hungary to seek an armistice with the western Allies. To forestall these peace feelers, German forces occupied Hungary on March 19, , and forced the Hungarian head of state, Miklos Horthy, to appoint a pro-German government under Dome Sztojay. The Sztojay government was prepared not only to continue the war but also to deport Hungarian Jews to German-occupied Poland. Shortly after the occupation, Hungarian officials began to round up Hungarian Jews and to transfer them into German custody.
By July , the Hungarians and the Germans had deported nearly , Jews from Hungary, almost all of them to Auschwitz -Birkenau, where the SS killed approximately , of them upon arrival and deployed the rest at forced labor in Auschwitz and other camps. Nearly , Jews remained in Budapest; the Hungarian authorities intended to deport them as well, in compliance with German requests. With authorization from the Swedish government, Wallenberg began distributing certificates of protection issued by the Swedish legation to Jews in Budapest shortly after his arrival in the Hungarian capital.
The international ghetto was reserved for Jews and their families holding certificates of protection from a neutral country. After the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross movement seized power with the help of the Germans on October 15, , the Arrow Cross government resumed the deportation of Hungarian Jews, which Horthy had halted in July before the Budapest Jews could be deported.
As Soviet troops had already cut off rail transport routes to Auschwitz, Hungarian authorities forced tens of thousands of Budapest Jews to march west to the Hungarian border with Austria. During the autumn of , Wallenberg repeatedly—and often personally—intervened to secure the release of those with certificates of protection or forged papers, saving as many people as he could from the marching columns.
Wallenberg's colleagues in the Swedish legation and diplomats from other neutral countries also participated in rescue operations. Carl Lutz, the consul general in the Swiss legation, issued certificates of emigration, placing nearly 50, Jews in Budapest under Swiss protection as potential emigrants to Palestine. Italian businessman Giorgio Perlasca posed as a Spanish diplomat.
Closely assisted by Laszlo and Eugenia Szamosi, Perlasca issued to many Jews in Budapest certificates of protection for nations whose interests neutral Spain represented and established safe houses, including one for Jewish children. When Soviet forces liberated Budapest in February , more than , Jews remained, mostly because of the efforts of Wallenberg and his colleagues.
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