This attitude is also reflected in the way Raoul Wallenberg organized his large rescue mission in Budapest in the autumn of Given his international background and his pluralistic personal attitude it was after all not very surprising that Wallenberg accepted the difficult and dangerous task.
As a temporary Swedish diplomat, he was set to lead a joint Swedish American rescue operation to save what was left of Hungarian Jewry — the approximately Jews that remained in Budapest. Raoul Wallenberg was not the only neutral diplomat in the Hungarian capital that autumn, not the only one committed to extraordinary efforts for the persecuted Jews. But one thing that distinguished Wallenberg, besides the huge size of his organization, was once again his attitude.
He built a businesslike organization with impressive practical efficiency, dealing with all the logistics following the higher purpose — to save as many Jews as possible. In the end of , they had over 30 houses in the international ghetto to administer and at least around 10 people to provide daily with food and other necessities.
They handled everything, from heating, broken windows and cooking for 1 people at the time to deliveries from several food supplies, Raoul and his organization even opened a Swedish Hospital in the International Ghetto, with around forty doctors. The work was permeated with his uncompromising humanistic approach.
He did not have the attitude of a Swedish diplomat giving a generous helping hand to the poor Hungarian Jews. Among the coworkers that Raoul Wallenberg had in his organization in the end, nearly all were recruited among the Hungarian Jews who had received Swedish protective papers. He would applaud those who fulfilled these important tasks, but personally he would most likely do the same choice as in With his actions and his attitude — his moral courage — he would have shown the importance of not being a bystander when basic democratic values are challenged, when evil reveals itself, gains power and uses it.
He would most certainly tell us that when tens of thousands of people are fleeing from absolute evil, political declarations and emotional speeches are needed, but never enough, no matter how beautifully worded they are.
What is needed is action, you have to organise, and deliver. The legacy of Raoul Wallenberg is more important than ever. And the key element and the takeaway from his actions is to be found in his inclusive and pluralistic attitude.
His example teaches us to be persistent in never accepting any attempts to divide our societies. It teaches us to never capitulate to any evil viral social media campaign designed to increase polarization between groups. Each person is a symphony of identities. Our lives are rich because each of us contains multitudes. Pluralists believe in integration, not separation. If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences.
This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again. Wallenberg was selected to be that envoy. He was an ideal choice, as he was sympathetic to the plight of European Jews, could speak Hungarian and German and was familiar with Budapest.
In July , Wallenberg, then 31 years old, arrived in Budapest. These passports allowed their bearers shelter under the domain of the Swedish crown, protecting them from deportation.
Wallenberg also established dozens of safe houses that served as hideouts for thousands of Jews. He ordered that the Swedish flag be flown over these houses, thus converting them into official Swedish embassy annexes and shielding their inhabitants from the Nazis.
Wallenberg employed his financial resources to buy off German officials. He created cells of spies who provided him with information about the goings-on within the Budapest police department and the Hungarian fascist political establishment.
He also personally rescued Jews from the deportation trains. As the trains were about to leave Budapest, Wallenberg appeared at the rail yard and handed out Swedish papers to all those onboard whom he could physically reach. Then he argued that all those holding papers should be let off the trains. Wallenberg accomplished all this while in great personal danger. On at least one occasion, during the fall of , Eichmann tried to have him assassinated by attacking his car.
However, Wallenberg was not in the vehicle at the time of the attack. Despite such pressure, Wallenberg persisted in his efforts to thwart the Nazis. He even challenged Eichmann directly, suggesting to him during a face-to-face exchange that the Germans were destined to lose the war and might as well surrender. In December , the Soviet military began a siege of Budapest. On January 17, , Wallenberg and his driver, Vilmos Langfelder, began a journey to Debrecen, located miles east of Budapest, where the Soviets and a provisional Hungarian government were headquartered.
The exact purpose of the trip is unknown, although one possibility is that Wallenberg wanted to discuss how to protect the Jews from pro-Nazi Hungarian thugs once the Red Army left the country. However, along the way to the meeting, Wallenberg and his driver were taken into custody by Soviet forces. What happened to the two men next remains a mystery, as they were never seen or heard from again by the outside world.
In , Andrei Vyshinsky , the Soviet deputy foreign minister, announced that Wallenberg was not in the Soviet Union and suggested he had possibly died during the Russian effort to seize Budapest.
The paperwork never was handed over to the Swedish authorities, nor was any explanation given as to why Wallenberg had been incarcerated. Recently, a group of international Wallenberg experts launched a new international research project, the Raoul Wallenberg Research Initiative RWI , coordinated by long-time researcher Susanne Berger. The group convened a Raoul Wallenberg International Roundtable anchored in the repository of the experience and expertise of the scholars, in order to develop, in Susanne Berger's words, "a blueprint for solving the Wallenberg case [ Most important, this group is seeking justice for Raoul Wallenberg — which has been denied all these years — to unlock the secrets of history so that we, and particularly his long-suffering family, can finally learn the truth about this disappeared Hero of Humanity and personification of moral courage and action.
For us, "there should be no other choice. About Raoul Wallenberg. A beacon of light At times like these, the evil in the world can feel overwhelming and it can be tempting to cede to despair, aggravating the problem of the international community as a bystander to atrocity and injustice. Indeed, Wallenberg's heroism embodied and symbolized the universal lessons of the Holocaust, with their contemporary international resonance and importance for our time: The dangers of forgetting — the responsibility to remember; The dangers of state-sanctioned cultures of hate and incitement — the responsibility to prevent; The dangers of indifference and inaction — the responsibility to act; The dangers of impunity — the responsibility to bring war criminals to justice; The dangers of mass atrocities — the responsibility to protect: The dangers of la Trahison des Clercs — the responsibility to speak truth to power; The dangers of race and anti-Semitism — the responsibility to confront and combat.
A Hero of Humanity This disappeared Hero of Humanity — whom the UN called "the greatest humanitarian of the 20th Century" — demonstrated that one person can make a difference, that one person can resist evil and prevail. For example: First, in the distribution of schutzpasses — diplomatic passports conferring protective immunity on their recipients — and in the establishment of safe houses conferring diplomatic sanctuary on their inhabitants.
Raoul Wallenberg is credited with saving 50, Jews by these means alone. His deeds affirmed and validated the principle of diplomatic immunity — the remedy of diplomatic protection — a foundational principle of international law and model of the diplomatic capacity to save lives.
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