Raoul Wallenberg 1944 Budapest
Raoul Wallenberg was born on August 4,1912 in Walpole, Lidingö, Sweden to a member of one of the countries most prominent banking families. His father, Raoul Oscar Wallenberg, was a naval officer and a cousin of Jacob and Marcus Wallenberg, two of Sweden's best-known financiers (often referred to as "the Swedish Rockefellers), and industrialists during the 1920's & 30's
Shortly after his birth, his father passed away and his mother, Maj Wising Wallenberg remarried Fredrick von Darriel in 1918. Wallenberg's grandfather, Gustav Wallenberg, took care of his education while he was growing up, fully intending young Raoul would carry on the tradition of his family as highly respected bankers, diplomats, and politicians. By the age of 20, the young Wallenberg was already proficient in English, French, German and Russian.
In 1930, Raoul Wallenberg graduated with top grades in Russian and drawing. Upon completing army service in 1931 he then traveled to the USA to study architecture at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Wallenberg devoted most of his time to study and he graduated early, completing his curriculum in under the typical four year time frame.
Raoul Wallenberg was born on August 4,1912 in Walpole, Lidingö, Sweden to a member of one of the countries most prominent banking families. His father, Raoul Oscar Wallenberg, was a naval officer and a cousin of Jacob and Marcus Wallenberg, two of Sweden's best-known financiers (often referred to as "the Swedish Rockefellers), and industrialists during the 1920's & 30's
Shortly after his birth, his father passed away and his mother, Maj Wising Wallenberg remarried Fredrick von Darriel in 1918. Wallenberg's grandfather, Gustav Wallenberg, took care of his education while he was growing up, fully intending young Raoul would carry on the tradition of his family as highly respected bankers, diplomats, and politicians. By the age of 20, the young Wallenberg was already proficient in English, French, German and Russian.
In 1930, Raoul Wallenberg graduated with top grades in Russian and drawing. Upon completing army service in 1931 he then traveled to the USA to study architecture at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Wallenberg devoted most of his time to study and he graduated early, completing his curriculum in under the typical four year time frame.
Wallenberg in his University days -->
After graduating from UMICH with top honors and the recipient of a scholastic award bestowed only the individual with the most impressive academic record. Wallenberg wrote his grandfather: "When I now look back upon the last school year, I find I have had a completely wonderful time."
In 1935, he received his bachelor degree of Science in Architecture and returned to Sweden. But the market for architects was small in Sweden, so his grandfather sent him to Cape Town, South Africa, where he practiced at a Swedish firm selling building materials. Shortly after, his grandfather arranged a new job for him at a Dutch banking office located in Haifa.
It was in Palestine he first met Jews that had escaped Hitler's Germany and learned of their plight. He then left Haifa and returned to Sweden in 1936 to resume his interest in European business. Through family connections and associates, Raoul was introduced to Kálmán Lauer, a Hungarian Jew and then director of a Swedish based import and export company specializing in food and delicacies.
The two men became friends and Wallenberg made numerous trips to Hungary, where he visited Lauer's family in Budapest. Over the ensuing years and via constant business related trips throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, Wallenberg quickly learned to navigate the German bureaucratic apparatus. A skill that was to prove invaluable in the years to come.
By 1938 Anti-Semitism was on the rise in Hungary and Wallenberg became increasingly concerned about the plight of the Jewish community. Hungary under the regency of Miklós Horthy passed a series of anti-Jewish measures that restricted their professions, reduced the number of Jews in government jobs, and prohibited intermarriage.
Lauer found it increasingly difficult to travel to Hungary, and Wallenberg became his trusted representative. Wallenberg soon learnt Hungarian, and from 1941 made frequent travels to Budapest Within a year, Wallenberg was a joint owner and the international director of the company.
On 17 April 1943, Horthy visited Hitler at Klessheim Castle to discuss the terms on which Hungary would remain in the war. The Hungarian regent was reproached by the Nazis for a racial policy towards the Jews they believed was much to lenient.
Miklós Horthy then responded: " Having deprived the Jews of nearly every means of getting a living, he could not beat them to death”.
At this Joachim von Ribbentrop emphatically declared that they must either be killed off or sent to concentration camps. So began the destruction of the Jews of Hungary.
By July 1944, with the actions against the Jews in full swing, the Hungarians and the Germans had deported nearly 440,000 Jews from Hungary, almost all of them to the Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the SS killed approximately 320,000 of them upon arrival and deployed the rest at forced labour in Auschwitz and other camps.
Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/wallenberg.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
