Raoul Wallenberg

Raoul Wallenberg
Passport photo from June 1944
Born
Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg

(1912-08-04)4 August 1912
Lidingö Municipality, Sweden
Disappeared17 January 1945
Budapest, Hungary
DiedDisputed, possibly 17 July 1947 (aged 34)[note 1][1]
MonumentsList
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
Occupation(s)Businessman and diplomat
Known forRescuing Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust
Abduction and disappearance by Soviet agents
RelativesGuy von Dardel (maternal half-brother)
Nina Lagergren (maternal half-sister)
Nils Dardel (step-uncle)
FamilyWallenberg family (biological father)
AwardsList
Righteous
Among the Nations
By country

Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)[note 1][1] was a Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat, and humanitarian. He saved thousands of Jews in German-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust from German Nazis and Hungarian fascists 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 which he declared as Swedish territory.[2]

On 17 January 1945, during the Siege of Budapest by the Red Army, agents of SMERSH detained Wallenberg on suspicion of espionage, and he subsequently disappeared.[3] In 1957, 12 years after his disappearance, he was reported by Soviet authorities to have died of a suspected myocardial infarction on 17 July 1947 while imprisoned in the Lubyanka, the prison at the headquarters of the NKVD secret police in Moscow. A document released in 2023 as part of The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection indicates that Vyacheslav Nikonov, then an assistant to the head of the KGB, determined as part of a 1991 inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his disappearance that Wallenberg had likely been executed by Soviet authorities in late 1947 as a result of evidence that he may have been associated with people helping not only Jews but also Nazi war criminals escape prosecution.[4] However, there is no conclusive proof of this and his cause and date of death have been disputed ever since, with some people claiming to have encountered men matching Wallenberg's description until the 1980s in Soviet prisons and psychiatric hospitals. The motives behind Wallenberg's arrest and imprisonment by the Soviet government, along with questions surrounding the circumstances of his death and his ties to US intelligence, remain shrouded in mystery and are the subject of continued speculation.[5] In 2016, the Swedish Tax Agency declared him dead in absentia, with the pro forma date of death noted as 31 July 1952.

As a result of his successful efforts to rescue Hungarian Jews, Wallenberg has been the subject of numerous humanitarian honours in the decades following his presumed death. In 1981, US Congressman Tom Lantos, one of those saved by Wallenberg, sponsored a bill making Wallenberg an honorary citizen of the United States, the second person ever to receive this honour. Wallenberg also became an honorary citizen of Canada, Hungary, Australia, the United Kingdom and Israel.[6] In 1963 the Israeli agency Yad Vashem designated Wallenberg one of the Righteous Among the Nations.[7] Numerous monuments have been dedicated to him, and streets have been named after him throughout the world. The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States was founded in 1981 to "perpetuate the humanitarian ideals and the nonviolent courage of Raoul Wallenberg".[8] It gives the Raoul Wallenberg Award annually to recognize persons who carry out those goals. In 2012, Wallenberg was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress "in recognition of his achievements and heroic actions during the Holocaust."[9] Declassified documents have confirmed that Raoul Wallenberg worked with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the CIA.[10][11]

Although some have claimed that Wallenberg was responsible for rescuing 100,000 Jews who survived the Holocaust in Hungary, historians regard that figure as an exaggeration;[12][13][14] Yad Vashem estimates the number of people granted protective paperwork as about 4,500 individuals.[15]


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  1. ^ a b Stockholm, Agence France-Presse in (31 October 2016). "Sweden declares Raoul Wallenberg dead 71 years after disappearance". The Guardian.
  2. ^ "A Swedish Rescuer in Budapest". Yad Vashem. Archived from the original on 21 February 2018. Retrieved 15 April 2018. he saved the lives of tens of thousands of men, women and children by placing them under the protection of the Swedish crown.
  3. ^ "Raoul Wallenberg's arrest order, signed by Bulganin in January 1945 – Searching for Raoul Wallenberg Searching for Raoul Wallenberg". Searching for Raoul Wallenberg. 17 January 1945. Archived from the original on 22 October 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  4. ^ "JFK Assassination Records - 2023 Additional Documents Release" (PDF). United States National Archives. 27 June 1991. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
  5. ^ Nadler, John (19 May 2008). "Unraveling Raoul Wallenberg's Secrets". Time. Budapest. Archived from the original on 12 January 2016.
  6. ^ "Honorary Australian Citizenship to be Awarded to Raoul Wallenberg". Prime Minister's Press Office, Commonwealth of Australia. 15 April 2015. Archived from the original on 30 April 2013. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
  7. ^ "Raoul Wallenberg". Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Retrieved 18 June 2023. On 26 November 1963, Yad Vashem recognized Raoul Wallenberg as Righteous Among the Nations.
  8. ^ "The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States – Our Mission". Raoulwallenberg.org. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  9. ^ "The Library of Congress: Bill Summary & Status 112th Congress (2011–2012) H.R. 3001". 26 July 2012. Archived from the original on 15 December 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2012.
  10. ^ "Declassified Cia Documents Show Wallenberg Was U.S. Spy". Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 8 May 1996. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
  11. ^ "REPORT: WALLENBERG WORKED AS U.S. SPY". Roanoke Times. 5 May 1996. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
  12. ^ Rubinstein, W. D. (2002). The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis. Routledge. p. 194. ISBN 978-1-134-61568-1.
  13. ^ Dietrich, D. J. (2012). "Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest: Myth, History and Holocaust, Paul A. Levine (London and Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell, 2010), xviii + 392 pp". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 26 (1): 144–145. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcs020.
  14. ^ Cherry, Robert (1999). "Holocaust Historiography: The Role of the Cold War". Science & Society. 63 (4): 459–477. ISSN 0036-8237. JSTOR 40403812.
  15. ^ "Raoul Wallenberg". Retrieved 18 June 2023. The protective letter authorized its holder to travel to Sweden or to any of the other country Sweden represented. About 4,500 Jews had these papers, which protected them from forced labor and exempted them from wearing the yellow star.