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Source: Jan Larsson, Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish Portraits. Stockholm: Swedish Institute, 1986

Born, August 4, 1912, into one of Sweden's most prominent financial and industrial families.

1935, received BS degree in architecture from the University of Michigan.

1935-36, Cape Town, South Africa, trained with Swedish firm that sold building materials.

1936, worked in Haifa, Palestine, branch office of a Dutch bank. In Palestine came into contact with Jews who had fled Nazi Germany. Later that year returned to Sweden.

1937, became partner in and international manager of Koloman Lauer's Sweden-based import/export business, specializing in foodstuffs.

During WWII (before he went to Budapest in 1944) RW made numerous business trips to German-occupied Europe, especially to Hungary. Knew conditions firsthand, especially in Hungary.

Spring 1944, the world had supposedly "awakened" to the meaning of the "Final Solution," and authentic eyewitness accounts of the death camps were getting to the West. Early in 1944, Hungarian Jewish population numbered about 700,000 (the largest "free" Jewish population left in Europe).

March 19, 1944, Germans occupied Hungary and began deporting Jews to death camps.

Embassies of neutral countries began to issue temporary passports to Jews with special ties to those countries. Swedish legation in Budapest convinced Hungarians to treat Jewish holders of such special passports as if they were Swedish citizens. Soon issued 700 such passports and asked Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Stockholm to send more staff.

1944, US established the War Refugee Board (WRB) to save Jews from the Nazis. The WRB learned of Swedish efforts in Budapest and met with prominent Swedish Jews to discuss sending someone to Budapest for a "major rescue mission." Among participants in this discussion was Wallenberg's partner, Kolomon Lauer.

Lauer recommended Wallenberg, pointing out that RW already knew Hungary well and possessed personal qualities that would be needed for the job-he was quick-thinking, energetic, courageous, empathetic. Some objected to RW's youth and inexperience, but soon all approved of him.

By late June 1944, RW appointed first secretary to Swedish mission in Budapest. He requested and received full authority to do whatever he thought necessary to complete his mission.

July 1944, RW arrived in Budapest. Adolf Eichmann and SS had already deported about 400,000 Jews between May 14 and July 8. By time RW arrived there were only about 200,000 Jews left in the capital.

King Gustav V of Sweden wrote to Admiral Miklos Horthy (Hungarian head of state), begging him to stop the deportations, which Horthy did, reluctantly. Germans went along, for reasons no one really understands. Was Heinrich Himmler (head of SS) trying to negotiate with the West? Perhaps he thought he could improve his post-German-defeat position by stopping the deportations.

Legation staff: Minister was Carl Ivar Danielsson; deputy was legation secretary Per Anger (who received the ASHM's Wallenberg Award in 2001). RW became head of a special department charged with helping Jews.

Even before RW arrived, Valdemar Langlet, leader of the Hungarian Red Cross, was helping the Swedes with this work; rented buildings in name of the Red Cross, naming them such things as "Swedish Library," "Swedish Research Institute," so they could be used to hide Jews.

RW very unconventional: used bribery, threats of blackmail, which at first shocked Swedish diplomats, who came around when he began to get results.

RW's protective passports ("Schutz-Pass") played to German and Hungarian weakness for "external symbolism." Used Swedish colors and national symbols. Hungarians eventually let him issue 4,500 of them. Had no value under international law, but Wallenberg bullied the Hungarian authorities into honoring them.

In fact, Wallenberg and the Swedish legation issued more than 3 times this many passports. Late in the war, as chaos increased, he issued very simple, mimeographed forms of these, which bore only his signature, and they were effective nonetheless.

RW "hired" Hungarian Jews as staff members, which freed them from wearing the yellow Star of David. Eventually the Swedish legation "employed" 340 people in this manner.

August 1944, Admiral Horthy dismissed pro-German head of state and situation of Jews improved. Diplomatic pressures of various sorts-orchestrated and amplified by RW-cost Eichmann his position of responsibility for the "final solution" in Hungary.

October 15, 1944, Horthy announced that he was seeking a separate peace with the Soviet Union (the Red Army was bearing down on eastern Hungary relentlessly). The Germans immediately seized Hungary and deposed him in favor of leader of Hungarian Nazis (Arrow Cross), Szalasi. Eichmann returned with a free hand to resume his efforts to exterminate Jews.

Protective passports declared invalid. But through his friendship with Baroness Elizabeth Kemeny, the wife of the Hungarian foreign minister, RW got his reinstated.

RW began to expand the number of "Swedish houses." He had more than 30 such in Pest (there were two large Jewish ghettos in Pest) where Jews could shelter. Soon 15,000 people were living in them. Soon the Soviets were besieging Budapest, and 700 people were living in the Swedish legation.

Other neutral diplomatic missions also began to issue protective passports and create "safe houses" for Jewish refugees.

November 20, 1944, Eichmann began death marches of Jews to concentration/death camps outside Hungary, in Austria and Germany. RW tried rescue Jews from these columns by threats and bribery, distribute food, medicine, and protective passports.

Eichmann began shipping out Jews on trains again. RW undertook desperate efforts to get protective passports to people in boxcars, so he could then demand the release of Jews holding the passports.

Toward end of '44, Wallenberg moved his operation to Pest. Roving Arrow Cross bands threatened and actually massacred groups of Jews. What may have helped RW was that the Germans, the Arrow Cross, and the Hungarian police distrusted each other and could not cooperate.

RW found a powerful ally in Pal Szalay, a Hungarian police official and Arrow Cross member, who helped RW protect Jews.

In the second week of January 1945, RW learned that Eichmann about to massacre Jews in the larger of the two Pest ghettoes. Wallenberg threatened the German military commander with ensuring his postwar execution as a war criminal unless he stopped massacre-which he did, at the last minute.

Mid-January 1945 , the Red Army was in control of eastern Hungary and in effective control of Budapest, though it had not yet entered the city. 97,000 Jews were alive in the two Pest ghettos, and a total of 120,000 Hungarian Jews (of an original 700,000 who were alive when RW arrived in Budapest) had survived extermination attempts.

January 17, 1945, RW disappeared on his way to visit Soviet military headquarters in Debrecen, Hungary, east of Budapest.

Later, Soviets claimed RW died in a Soviet prison on July 17, 1947. But many witnesses have claimed that he lived long after that date.

Why would RW have wanted to contact Soviet authorities?

· Wanted explain his humanitarian work, especially his economic relief plan for surviving Jews.

· Soviets lacked sympathy for Jews and probably did not understand someone who'd risked so much for them. Russians were traditional and enthusiastic anti-Semites.

Why would Soviets arrest him?

· Probably thought he had some ulterior motive; suspected him of being US agent?

· Very skeptical of his contacts with Germans.

· Soviets also suspicious of Swiss and their efforts to save Jews and arrested two Swiss legation workers and transported them to the USSR (though Swiss were able to get them back).

The Swedes were at first not very active in his behalf:

· Soviet deputy foreign minister wrote to Swedish ambassador in Moscow that Soviet military authorities were protecting him.

· Soviet ambassador to Sweden told RW's mother he was in good hands in USSR.

· March 8, 1945, Soviet-controlled Hungarian radio reported that RW had been murdered by the Arrow Cross or the Gestapo. Many people assumed he was dead.

Many observers have concluded that immediately after the war Sweden could have negotiated RW's release but missed its chance (Larsson, Raoul Wallenberg, p. 13).

February 6, 1957, after repeated Swedish inquiries, Soviets announced location of a document that said RW had died on July 17, '47. Both people mentioned in the document had died in '53, so it could not be corroborated.

But much testimony by people who served in Soviet prisons that RW lived at least through the '50s.