Ingrid Carlberg’s book RAOUL WALLENBERG: The Biography has 3 parts: the early years; Budapest heroism; and the family’s post-war attempts to get him home. I have concentrated on the first two parts, backed up by Jan Larsson’s journal article. And from my mother in law who lived in Budapest in 1944-5; she would have loved this book.
Raoul Wallenberg (1912-?) was born near Stockholm. The family had been leading bankers and diplomats for many years. His father was a naval officer and a cousin of two of Sweden’s best-known C20th financiers and industrialists. But dad died just before the baby’s birth.
After compulsory military service, in 1931-5 Raoul studied architecture the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Then grandpa sent him to Cape Town to train in a Swedish building materials firm. Finally grandpa arranged another job at a Dutch bank in Haifa where Wallenberg met German Jewish exiles for the first time.
After returning to Sweden in 1936, Wallenberg went into international trade. Through the Wallenberg network of business world links, he was introduced to a Hungarian Jew, Koloman Lauer, who ran a Swedish based food import-export firm. Wallenberg spoke fluent Swedish, Russian, English and German, and could travel freely around Europe, so he was a perfect business partner for Lauer. Wallenberg was soon a major shareholder and the international manager of the Hungarian firm, making frequent trips to Hungary.
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Wallenberg successfully used every technique available to him, including forged documents, bribery and blackmail. Yet in Jan 1945 friends urged Wallenberg to seek shelter, especially since the Hungarian Arrow Cross were searching for him. He had been responsible for saving the lives of 30-40,000 Hungarian Jews.
In Jan, Wallenberg approached the advancing Soviet troops, saying he was the Swedish chargé d’affaires for the parts of Hungary liberated by the Soviets. En route to Soviet military headquarters in Debrecen, Wallenberg stopped at the Swedish houses, to say goodbye for the last time.
In the end Wallenberg had to place his faith in the Russians; thankfully the Soviet troops did heroically free 100,000+ Jews in the sealed Budapest ghetto.
**
When reports showed that Wallenberg had disappeared, the Russians first claimed he’d been murdered by the Hungarian Arrow Cross. Later the Russians admitted that he’d been swallowed up by the Moscow prison system in 1945. Worse still, the Swedish government did not help the Wallenberg family get their son returned to Sweden, and they stopped the Wallenberg story appearing in Swedish newspapers. Sofar the Russian files have not yet been opened to historians :(
Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Memorial, erected 1953, stands to the Jews murdered by German, Hungarian and Ukrainian and other Fascists. The Avenue of the Righteous has 600 trees planted to honour the memory of Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews. Wallenberg is the best known hero there. In 1981 the late Raoul Wallenberg was declared an honorary citizen of the USA, Canada in 1985, Israel in 1986 and Australia in 2013.
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Raoul Wallenberg (1912-?) was born near Stockholm. The family had been leading bankers and diplomats for many years. His father was a naval officer and a cousin of two of Sweden’s best-known C20th financiers and industrialists. But dad died just before the baby’s birth.
After compulsory military service, in 1931-5 Raoul studied architecture the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Then grandpa sent him to Cape Town to train in a Swedish building materials firm. Finally grandpa arranged another job at a Dutch bank in Haifa where Wallenberg met German Jewish exiles for the first time.
After returning to Sweden in 1936, Wallenberg went into international trade. Through the Wallenberg network of business world links, he was introduced to a Hungarian Jew, Koloman Lauer, who ran a Swedish based food import-export firm. Wallenberg spoke fluent Swedish, Russian, English and German, and could travel freely around Europe, so he was a perfect business partner for Lauer. Wallenberg was soon a major shareholder and the international manager of the Hungarian firm, making frequent trips to Hungary.
Wallenberg’s diplomatic passport, 1944
Photo credit: Stockholm Jewish Museum
Beginning in 1941 Hungary had joined forces with Germany, against the Soviet Union. When the Germans lost the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, Hungary wanted to follow Italy’s example and ask for a separate peace. At that point, Hitler summoned the Hungarian Head of State, Miklós Horthy, and demanded solidarity with Germany.
By early 1944 Hitler’s plan to annihilate the entire Jewish population in German-occupied countries was finalised. Only Hungary still had its 700,000 Jewish residents alive! Then the Fascists started putting Jews from the Hungarian rural areas into deportation trains to Polish death camps.
USA's government-backed War Refugee Board/WRB wanted to send an emissary, under Swedish diplomatic cover, to save Hungary’s Jews. The choice of Raoul Wallenberg as the WRB’s emissary proved inspired. In June 1944 he wrote to the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, asking for decision-making independence from Budapest’s Swedish ambassador. Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson and King Gustav V agreed!
Even before Wallenberg arrived, the head of Swedish Red Cross Valdemar Langlet was assisting the Swedish Legation. Langlet rented buildings for the Red Cross and named the buildings Swedish Library or Swedish Research Institute. They were then used as hiding places for Jews.
Horthy hadn't started deportations of Budapest Jews, but the city's residents knew that their deaths would follow. Many of them sought help from the embassies of neutral states who did issue temporary passports to Jews who already had special ties with these countries. But it was too few, and too late. Wallenberg personally intervened to secure the release of bearers of protection documents from the columns of marching people.
Horthy received a letter from Swedish King Gustav V in Mar 1944 with an appeal to stop Jewish deportations. Horthy bravely attempted to assure that justice prevailed and the deportation trains were cancelled. Horthy even discussed making peace with the Allies, to halt the inevitable assault from the East.
By early 1944 Hitler’s plan to annihilate the entire Jewish population in German-occupied countries was finalised. Only Hungary still had its 700,000 Jewish residents alive! Then the Fascists started putting Jews from the Hungarian rural areas into deportation trains to Polish death camps.
USA's government-backed War Refugee Board/WRB wanted to send an emissary, under Swedish diplomatic cover, to save Hungary’s Jews. The choice of Raoul Wallenberg as the WRB’s emissary proved inspired. In June 1944 he wrote to the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, asking for decision-making independence from Budapest’s Swedish ambassador. Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson and King Gustav V agreed!
Even before Wallenberg arrived, the head of Swedish Red Cross Valdemar Langlet was assisting the Swedish Legation. Langlet rented buildings for the Red Cross and named the buildings Swedish Library or Swedish Research Institute. They were then used as hiding places for Jews.
Horthy hadn't started deportations of Budapest Jews, but the city's residents knew that their deaths would follow. Many of them sought help from the embassies of neutral states who did issue temporary passports to Jews who already had special ties with these countries. But it was too few, and too late. Wallenberg personally intervened to secure the release of bearers of protection documents from the columns of marching people.
Horthy received a letter from Swedish King Gustav V in Mar 1944 with an appeal to stop Jewish deportations. Horthy bravely attempted to assure that justice prevailed and the deportation trains were cancelled. Horthy even discussed making peace with the Allies, to halt the inevitable assault from the East.
A Swedish Schutz-Pass/protective passport
identifying this Hungarian woman as a Swedish citizen
August 1944
Hitler occupied Hungary, and the Fascist Arrow Cross seized power in March 1944. The new government resumed the deportation of Hungarian citizens on trains to the extermination camps. Note that the Hungarian Nazis were feared at least as much as the German Nazis. [Post-war, all Arrow Cross commanders bar one were executed].
When Wallenberg arrived in Budapest in July 1944, time was running out. As first secretary of the Swedish diplomatic mission with few resources, he quickly built up a team of helpers. Luckily his office was in the same building as the American Embassy. The WRB rescue mission was an initiative from American authorities, created as an unofficial cooperation with the neutral Swedish government.
Under Adolf Eichmann, the Germans had already deported 400,000+ Jews in freight trains; there were only c200,000 Jews left in the capital. Eichmann’s plans to exterminate Hungarian Jews were relentless. So Wallenberg issued Swedish schutz-pass/protection certificates to enable Hungarian Jews to claim immunity from persecution as “foreign citizens". He intervened in Nazi and Arrow Cross raids to save Jews from transportation to the death camps. He rented buildings and made them Swedish territory, to give hiding spaces.
When conditions were desperate, Wallenberg issued a simplified version of his protective Swedish passport, a mimeographed page with his signature! The new Hungarian Nazi government immediately announced that all protective passports were invalid. But Baroness Elizabeth Liesel Kemény, wife of the foreign minister, allowed Wallenberg to get his protective passports reinstated. As the freight cars full of Jews stood in the railway station, he heroically climbed on top of them, ran along the roof of the cars and handed bundles of protective passports to the occupants. He then demanded that those Jews who received his protective passports be allowed to leave the train!
When Wallenberg arrived in Budapest in July 1944, time was running out. As first secretary of the Swedish diplomatic mission with few resources, he quickly built up a team of helpers. Luckily his office was in the same building as the American Embassy. The WRB rescue mission was an initiative from American authorities, created as an unofficial cooperation with the neutral Swedish government.
Under Adolf Eichmann, the Germans had already deported 400,000+ Jews in freight trains; there were only c200,000 Jews left in the capital. Eichmann’s plans to exterminate Hungarian Jews were relentless. So Wallenberg issued Swedish schutz-pass/protection certificates to enable Hungarian Jews to claim immunity from persecution as “foreign citizens". He intervened in Nazi and Arrow Cross raids to save Jews from transportation to the death camps. He rented buildings and made them Swedish territory, to give hiding spaces.
When conditions were desperate, Wallenberg issued a simplified version of his protective Swedish passport, a mimeographed page with his signature! The new Hungarian Nazi government immediately announced that all protective passports were invalid. But Baroness Elizabeth Liesel Kemény, wife of the foreign minister, allowed Wallenberg to get his protective passports reinstated. As the freight cars full of Jews stood in the railway station, he heroically climbed on top of them, ran along the roof of the cars and handed bundles of protective passports to the occupants. He then demanded that those Jews who received his protective passports be allowed to leave the train!
Hungarian Jews rescued from deportation trains by Wallenberg,
Nov 1944
Photo credit: US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Wallenberg successfully used every technique available to him, including forged documents, bribery and blackmail. Yet in Jan 1945 friends urged Wallenberg to seek shelter, especially since the Hungarian Arrow Cross were searching for him. He had been responsible for saving the lives of 30-40,000 Hungarian Jews.
In Jan, Wallenberg approached the advancing Soviet troops, saying he was the Swedish chargé d’affaires for the parts of Hungary liberated by the Soviets. En route to Soviet military headquarters in Debrecen, Wallenberg stopped at the Swedish houses, to say goodbye for the last time.
In the end Wallenberg had to place his faith in the Russians; thankfully the Soviet troops did heroically free 100,000+ Jews in the sealed Budapest ghetto.
**
When reports showed that Wallenberg had disappeared, the Russians first claimed he’d been murdered by the Hungarian Arrow Cross. Later the Russians admitted that he’d been swallowed up by the Moscow prison system in 1945. Worse still, the Swedish government did not help the Wallenberg family get their son returned to Sweden, and they stopped the Wallenberg story appearing in Swedish newspapers. Sofar the Russian files have not yet been opened to historians :(
Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Memorial, erected 1953, stands to the Jews murdered by German, Hungarian and Ukrainian and other Fascists. The Avenue of the Righteous has 600 trees planted to honour the memory of Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews. Wallenberg is the best known hero there. In 1981 the late Raoul Wallenberg was declared an honorary citizen of the USA, Canada in 1985, Israel in 1986 and Australia in 2013.
The Raoul Wallenberg memorial
Linköping, Sweden.