Raoul Wallenberg: The Story of the Angel of Budapest

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, while acknowledging the darkness that descended upon Europe, the barbarism that enveloped nations aspiring to culture, and the human evil that broke all boundaries, it is worthwhile to also recognize the points of light. Those who maintained humanity despite everything, the angels who risked their lives to save others. Among them all, few saved as many as Raoul Wallenberg—or paid such a high price for their actions.

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish marketer who became disillusioned with his work towards the end of World War II. He felt he was engaged in trivial matters while the world was in turmoil around neutral Sweden. He wanted to help the victims of the Nazis. In May 1944, the opportunity he had been waiting for arrived. His business partner, a Jew who had fled Hungary, suggested Wallenberg for a diplomatic mission in Nazi-occupied Hungary. At the time, Sweden was asked by the United States to strengthen the diplomatic team in Sweden to try and rescue the Jews. Wallenberg, claimed his partner Lauer, was the ideal candidate: he was multilingual, brilliant, and creative, and knew how to remain calm in a crisis.

Although the Nazis only occupied Hungary in March 1944, they swiftly set about the task of exterminating the Jewish community. In May, the deportation of Jews to extermination camps began, and by the time Wallenberg arrived in Budapest in July, 400,000 Hungarian Jews had already been annihilated. The man overseeing the project to annihilate Hungary's Jews was infamous: Adolf Eichmann.

But Eichmann was not the only outsider who arrived in Budapest. In July, as mentioned, Wallenberg arrived, immediately positioning himself as the arch-rival to the blood-thirsty Nazi official. Raoul Wallenberg had not grown up in the foreign ministry nor was he interested in diplomatic protocols. He found in Budapest a ghetto with 200,000 Jews steeped in despair, and promptly sprang into action. 

Per Anger, Raoul Wallenberg's assistant, tells about Wallenberg:

Even before Wallenberg arrived, the Swedish embassy began issuing quasi-certificates of protection to Jews: documents that held no real legal weight but appeared impressively official, including a declaration that the bearer was permitted entry into Hungary. Wallenberg refined this method. He designed the document to appear even more formal and binding, and commenced the distribution of 'Wallenberg passports,' as they soon became known, among the Jews of the ghetto.

The Hungarian Nazi party, holding official power, soon expressed opposition. The new Swedish envoy was too ambitious: they allowed him to issue 1,000 passports, but he was not satisfied and continued to press until he obtained permission to issue 4,500 passports. But even this did not satisfy him: in secret, he issued more than three times as many passports. In his attempt to save lives, every act of deception was justified in his eyes. "He amazed us with his unconventional methods," admitted his assistant, Per Anger, "but soon it became clear that this was the right approach".

Rescue Everywhere

In October 1944, the efforts to exterminate the Jews in Hungary intensified. The Red Army was slowly but surely approaching Hungary, and the Germans knew their days were numbered. At the very least, they wanted to complete the final solution. Wallenberg sprang into action. He began establishing the 'Swedish Houses,' renting buildings and adorning them with Swedish flags and posters announcing 'The Swedish Library' to mark them as neutral Swedish territory. In these houses, Jews could find refuge: owing to the principle of diplomatic immunity, the Nazis could not enter without permission from the Swedish embassy. About 15,000 found shelter in these buildings.

Other diplomats in Hungary learned from Wallenberg and tried to emulate his methods, but none matched his dedication to the cause. When the government announced that the Swedish passports were no longer valid, for instance, he launched a campaign to persuade those close to the foreign minister to revalidate the passports. And even when Jews were already captured by the Nazis, he did not despair. Agnes Mandel Adachi, one of his Jewish aides, recounts: "Raoul followed the deportees (to Auschwitz) all the way to the Austrian border. On one occasion, his assistant, Per Anger, was with him, and Raoul had a large black book in hand. On the way to the train station, he stopped and began shouting at the Nazis in German, he spoke perfect German... 'How dare you take our people, they are all under my protection,' and then he shouted towards the deportees: 'All the people holding documents I issued should turn around.' Among the deportees was one of my good friends. She thought—what can happen? They will kill us anyway".

The friend decided to turn around, despite not holding any document. Her mother and sister did the same. Wallenberg ordered them onto a truck. Then he opened the book and started reading names at the pace of a machine gun.

"People picked up on the idea," says Agnes. "Those who could still walk, walked towards the truck, whether their name was called or not. He brought back to Budapest a thousand people, to the protected houses. On the way back Per Anger asked him: "Raoul, I didn't know we had a book with all the names. When did you do this?" And Raoul started laughing hysterically and said: "When I do it, I'll show you," "and he opened the black book and there wasn't a single name. Nothing".

Testimony of survivor Vera Goodkin:

Jews loaded onto trains thought their fate was sealed, but Wallenberg thought otherwise. He exploited the Germans' ignorance of the Hungarian language to collect Hungarian language documents—insurance policies, driver's licenses, and protective passports whose details were yet to be filled—and reach the train stations. There he would walk onto the tracks, call to people and announce 'he has the documents they forgot to take'. When people claimed ownership of the documents granting them protection, the Germans were convinced. Reading the documents they could not; Wallenberg knew how to conduct himself authoritatively, compelling even the Germans to treat him with respect. Even when he climbed into train cars of deportations to grant protective passports to passengers, they didn't dare shoot him.

When the Germans wanted to quickly massacre Jews, they didn't bother to wait for trains, but took them to the Danube River. They would tie every three Jews together and shoot the middle one, causing all three to fall into the semi-frozen river.

On the third day of the Danube executions, Wallenberg arrived with a team of embassy aides. The Germans had already left, and the river was full of shot people. But Raoul did not give up. "Who knows how to swim well?" he asked. Agnes, his Jewish aide, and three other men claimed they could swim well. Wallenberg led them to the other bank, out of sight from the Hungarian police. The four aides entered the icy waters and began pulling people out. Meanwhile, Wallenberg arranged vehicles with medical staff to wait for the rescued survivors, stunned and cold. Fifty people were saved this way, at the very last moment.

End of the War, End of Freedom

Wallenberg saved about 20,000 Jews through passports, safe houses, and his various rescue activities, but he saved nearly four times as many Jews by the end of the war. In January 1945, even Adolf Eichmann had to admit he had insufficient time to send the remaining Jews to Auschwitz before Germany would be forced to surrender. Therefore, he planned to massacre the large ghetto of Budapest. Fortunately, Wallenberg heard of the plan in time—and thwarted Eichmann once again. He approached the commander of the German forces in Hungary, General August Schmidthuber, warning him that if he committed a massacre of the Jews, he would consider him responsible and personally ensure he would be hanged as a war criminal. Schmidthuber knew defeat was near and lent an ear. He intervened and prevented the massacre.

Raoul Wallenberg

Two days later, Russian troops entered Budapest. To the surviving Jews, they brought hope and salvation, but to Wallenberg, they brought the end of freedom. The Russians requested him to accompany them to their main headquarters in Debrecen. Wallenberg and his driver headed there, escorted by a Russian guard. Neither was seen again. The last to see him were his friends at the protected Swedish houses, where he stopped on his way to Debrecen to say goodbye. "I don't know if I am going with the Russians as a guest or a prisoner," he said, but also expressed hope of soon returning to Budapest—a hope that never materialized.

Seventy years later, and still no one knows what became of Raoul Wallenberg. Extensive international investigations and inquiry committees have yielded nothing. The Russians insisted Wallenberg died in a Russian prison in 1947, but evidence has accumulated from people who met him in prison years later. It appears the Soviets suspected him of espionage and imprisoned him accordingly, but it is unclear when he died in prison and under what circumstances. To this day, the fate of Wallenberg remains a mystery.

Raoul Wallenberg is today a symbol of humanism around the world, and his name is commemorated in countless places, institutions, and honors. But his true legacy is the hundred thousand Jewish lives he snatched from the jaws of death and carried to safety. "I can never return to Sweden without knowing within myself that I did everything a man can to save as many Jews as possible," Wallenberg wrote during his time in Hungary. He never returned to Sweden—but he undoubtedly knew, deep down, that he did everything possible.