Raoul Wallenberg

Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (1912 – c. 1947) was a Swedish diplomat and architect who led one of the most daring and successful rescue operations of the Holocaust. In July 1944, with the backing of the US War Refugee Board and the Swedish government, Wallenberg was sent as special envoy to Budapest, where Adolf Eichmann was deporting thousands of Hungarian Jews daily to Auschwitz.

Wallenberg designed elaborate official-looking Swedish protective passports (*Schutz-Pässe*) that identified the bearer as Swedish subjects awaiting repatriation. He purchased thirty-two buildings in Budapest, declaring them extraterritorial Swedish safe houses, providing shelter and medical care for up to 35,000 people. He personally climbed onto trains bound for Auschwitz, pulled Jews off, and physically blocked Arrow Cross execution squads. Following the Soviet capture of Budapest in January 1945, Wallenberg was arrested by Soviet SMERSH counter-intelligence and disappeared into the Gulag system, designated an Honorary Citizen of the United States, Canada, and Israel.