Homework Help: Social Studies: People: Raoul Wallenberg

Raoul Wallenberg - The Missing Hero

Raoul Wallenberg rescued 100,000 Hungarian Jews. He provided them shelter, food, medical care, clothing, and fake Swedish citizenship for their safety. These acts of heroism made him famous and honored by different countries such as Canada, Israel, The United States, and Sweden.

Raoul Wallenberg was part of the Swedish Wallenberg family who were famous bankers and diplomats. They also had a very good connection with the Royal family. Wallenberg was born on August 4, 1912. His parents were Raoul O. Wallenberg, an officer in the Royal Navy who died of cancer three months before Wallenberg the son was born, and Maj W. Wallenberg, who then married Fredrik von Dandel in 1918.

After her first husband’s death, Maj W. Wallenberg asked her father, Gustav Wallenberg, to take care of Wallenberg’s education. He wanted Wallenberg to become a banker just as he was, but Wallenberg had other plans. He wanted to be an architect, and he knew this from a very young age when he first saw a construction site. After graduating and serving in the Royal Navy in 1931, Wallenberg went to study architecture in the University of Michigan in the United States. He graduated with honors and won many educational awards.

When Wallenberg returned to Sweden his grandfather insisted he worked for a few months as a banker in South Africa, and since Wallenberg did not want to disobey his grandfather, he agreed. After six months Gustav Wallenberg suggested a new job in the Bank of Holland, in Haifa, Palestine (now Israel), but Wallenberg decided to reject the offer. He found a Jew who had a European import-export food business and soon became his partner.

The War Refugee Board (WRB), an organization created to help rescue civilians, needed someone to be sent to Hungary, someone who could do something to help the Jewish Population there. Wallenberg’s partner at work, Koloman Lauer, heard of this. He told Wallenberg about it and also recommended him for the job. Wallenberg, thirty-two at the time, loved the idea. When the WRB asked him to go to Hungary he accepted the duty eagerly and was extremely exited. He had many things to take care of in the short time left before he had to leave. By the time the whole mission was planed in detail it was already July 1944, Wallenberg received the authority for the project and supplies, Passports, and shelter for the Jewish refugees.

When Wallenberg first arrived in Budapest he was overwhelmed with the treatment the Jews received. Wallenberg filled his first report for the Swedish Government on July 17, 1944. The two-page report included information about the sealed boxcars, the inhumane population density, and the reduction in size of Hungary's Jewish population as days passed. While Wallenberg modified his steps, the Jews of Hungary thought they had no chance of survival. Once things started falling into place, Wallenberg ordered to tell every Jew in Budapest that help was on the way.

The first thing Wallenberg did was to create a special "Schutz Pass”, one that gave its owner a Swedish citizenship. In reality the pass had no international validity whatsoever, but it dazzled the Germans and Hungarians and that was all that was necessary. He only had permission to print about 1,500 units but through promises and empty threats he managed to increase that number to 4,500. In reality, though he printed more than 15,000 passports.

Then Wallenberg formed 30 safe houses. Those gave the Jewish inhabitants food supplies and medical care. The Swedish flags on the roofs claimed them as Swedish territory. The population quickly reached more than 15,000 inhabitants. Soon other neutral delegations followed his lead and issued their own passes and opened their own secure quarters.

Adolf Eichmann, the chief of the Jewish extermination, started the horrid death marches. Meanwhile, there was Wallenberg handing out passes, food and medicine, and then managed to free those who carried those passes. When trains were transporting Jews, he would again hand out passes to people on them, pushing down packs of passes through every hole in the carts. Adolf Eichmann opposed such actions and ordered the German soldiers to shoot Wallenberg, but they were so impressed by Wallenberg’s bravery that they fired too high on purpose. Wallenberg survived and could then demand the freedom of the possessors of the passes.

In August 1945 Wallenberg heard of a plan to massacre all the remaining Jews in Budapest. He then sent a message to August Schmidt Huber, the commander of the German troops in Hungary, where he said that if they went through with the plan, he would be held personally responsible for it and after the war he would be hanged as a war criminal. The massacre was stopped at the very last moment. Two days later the soviets captured Budapest, and found 97,000 Jews alive in Budapest and 120,000 in all of Hungary. Wallenberg was alone responsible for saving 100,000 of those lives.

Once Soviet troops captured Budapest, in January 1945 Wallenberg was ordered to report to the Soviet army headquarters and was never seen again. The Soviets denied that they had arrested Wallenberg, and insisted for the next several years that they had no knowledge of his whereabouts. Finally, in 1957, under pressure from the Swedish government, the Soviets admitted that Wallenberg had indeed been detained after the war on suspicion of being a spy. However, they insisted, he had died in a Soviet prison on July 17, 1947. The truth of this statement was disputed by Wallenberg’s family, especially in light of reports from former prisoners of war who claimed to have encountered Wallenberg in Soviet prisons in the early 1950s. In the mid-1970s unconfirmed reports surfaced again that Wallenberg was still alive in a Soviet prison. However, despite repeated inquiries the Soviets maintained that Wallenberg had died in 1947.

After the breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the late 1980s, Sweden’s demands for an investigation into Wallenberg’s fate are being addressed, but no conclusive proof has been found. In 1981, to honor the work of Raoul Wallenberg, the United States made him an honorary citizen, an honor previously granted only to Winston Churchill. Israel and Canada did so as well so they could request information of his whereabouts.

To conclude, Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat responsible for the rescue of 100,000 Hungarian Jews during World War II. He impressed the Nazis and annoyed Adolf Eichmann, he gathered and protected he new Swedish residents and gave them food, clothing, and medical care. And yet, the angel of rescue was imprisoned by the Soviets and was never seen again.

Bibliography

Bierman, John. Righteous Gentile. London: Penguin Books, 1989.

Bülow, Louis. Raoul Wallenberg: Angel of Mercy. 1999-2001. The Swedish Institute. 6 April 2001. http://home8.inet.tele.dk/aaaa/Wallenberg.htm.

Handler, Andrew. A man of all connections. London: Praeger, 1996.

Marton, Kati. Raoul Wallenberg. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1995.

Metzlerl, David. Raoul Wallenberg. 12 January 2001. The American Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. 6 April 2001 http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Wallenberg.html.

Michael, and David Winner. Raoul Wallenberg. Harrisburg: Morehouse Publishing, 1990.

Milland, Gabriel. "The BBC Hungarian Service and the Final Solution in Hungary." Historical Journal of Film. August 1998. LookSmart.com 6 April 2001. http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2584/n3_v18/20999028/p1/article.jhtml?term=raoul%2Bwallenberg.

Okzak, Jakub. Raoul Wallenberg. 2 September 1998. Fredrika Bremer Upper Secondary School. 6 April 20001. http://www.fredrika.se/projekt/peace/wallenberg.html.

Rosenfeld, Harvey. Raoul Wallenberg. New York: Holmes & Meier Publishing, 1982.

"Wallenberg, Raoul," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2000. © 1993-1999 Microsoft Corporation.

Outline

1. An Introduction
     a. Thesis statement
     b. Birthplace, date, information about family
2. On the way to Budapest
     a. Needs of WRB
     b. Preparation
     c. Ideas of the Schutz-passes and safe-houses
3. In Budapest
     a. Arriving and 1st impression
     b. Reports, meetings
     c. First steps towards rescue
     d. Advanced developments of the Schutz-passes and safe-houses
4. Afterward and conclusion
     a. Captured by soviets
     b. Prison? Death? Alive?
     c. Citizenship to request information.
     d. Conclusion paragraph
5. Bibliography

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