At the beginning of 1944, Hungary was still relatively spared from deportations in the concentration camps. The country was seen as a stronghold, a protected sanctuary for Jews from all over Europe who fled the Nazis and took refuge there. Everything changed radically in March 1944.
The Group of Five fighting against Adolf Eichmann
Hungary is Germany's traditional ally, but repeated German defeats and the growing number of Hungarian casualties push the country to seek an armistice with the Western Allies and the Soviet Union.
To prevent Hungary from emerging from the war, the German army occupied the country on March 19, 1944. A Nazi government took power, headed by Adolf Eichmann , influential member of the SS, appointed in Hungary to implement the Final Solution…
Jews are deported en masse to Auschwitz under the supervision of Eichmann in charge of organizing the transport. Unfortunately, he accomplished his mission with zeal:in July 1944, more than 400,000 Jews were sent to the death camps. There are still 200,000 left in Budapest, which are still threatened…
Eichmann, whose raison d'être seems to merge with this obsession to annihilate the Jews, strives to organize, despite the imminence of the arrival of the Red Army, the deportation of a maximum of unfortunates that he sends to the gas chambers.
To counter this never-satiated monster, there is an international force, the so-called "Five of Five". He represents neutral countries in Budapest. :Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and the Vatican.
The latter work behind the scenes "to try to snatch as many victims as possible from the hands of the Nazi commandos and their leader. In July 1944, to strengthen the capacity for action of the Group of Five, King Gustav V of Sweden sent a special envoy to Budapest:Raoul Wallenberg .
“We have so much to do, that I work almost day and night”
Born in 1912, Raoul Wallenberg is a 32-year-old Swedish businessman and diplomat from a wealthy family of industrialists. He is sent to Budapest as secretary of the Swedish Legation. His task is "simple":defeat the Final Solution in Hungary by saving as many Jews as possible.
Raoul Wallenberg's physique is hardly Swedish. Of average height, black eyes and jet-black hair, he is not the stereotype. Showing immense courage, he was one of the first to dare to openly oppose the terrible Eichmann.
As soon as he arrived in Budapest, he set to work. Taking his mission very seriously, he bought (with money provided by the War Refugee Board American with whom he collaborates) about thirty buildings enjoying an extraterritorial status, which he places under diplomatic immunity . He puts up falsely official plaques reading "Swedish Library" or "Swedish Research Institute" and hangs countless Swedish flags on facades to lend even more credence to his ruse.
These refuges, which are nicknamed the Houses of Sweden , are mostly located in the international ghetto where the legations of other neutral countries are located. Raoul manages them personally. In the last months of the war, they housed up to 15,000 people , saving them all from certain death.
Wallenberg's privileged position enabled him to issue false papers to a considerable number of Jews. These "safety passports" or "protection passports" identify them as Swedish subjects awaiting repatriation , and prevent them from being deported. These safe-conducts command respect from the Nazis, and Wallenberg insists that their effects be respected:he himself ensures that the persons holding these famous papers are immediately removed from the deportation trains.
A skilled negotiator with a great capacity for persuasion, Raoul knows how to use his immense charisma and his gift of persuasion to intimidate his opponents. He manages to weave a vast network. Relationships that will prove to be indispensable. Because soon, the deportation is accelerating.
In mid-August, while the Jews were enjoying relative peace, the government gave its agreement to the resumption of deportations:the "protected" Jews were separated from the others by housing them in special houses with a yellow star . Taken by panic, the Jews without safety passport besiege the neutral legations, of which that of Sweden. Wallenberg wrote to his mother:"We have so much to do, that I work almost day and night .
The Arrow Cross in power
By mid-September, the threat against the Jews seemed to recede. Wallenberg feels his mission is about to end. The mirage is short-lived. October 15, 1944, the coup d’etat. The Hungarian Nazis known as the "Arrow Cross", the most violent, radical and anti-Semitic party in Hungary, take power, supported by Eichmann. Easily taking control of the army, they replaced the old Hungarian fascist regime, which they considered too "moderate" with regard to the Jews.
We must note the relentlessness of these people:in 1944, the last year of the war, the The Germans are retreating on all fronts, and a man like Eichmann knows very well that the game is lost for the Reich. However, with a stubbornness whose villainy vies with fanaticism, he decides to deport as many Jews as possible in order to exterminate them before the victory of the Allies. Organized crime, systematic genocide then begin the worst race against time:that of the horror that it will be necessary to be able to practice until the very last moment.
During the first twelve hours of the Szalasi government, their leader, the Arrow Cross massacred over 300 Jews across the city. From October 20, the raids begin. In late October, Arrow Cross guards deported 35,000 more Jews, men, women and children. Raids multiply and Jews are transported to the Austrian border in abominable death marches .
"He was so fearless that we were ashamed to be afraid"
Eichmann's race against time provokes another, that of trying to save the lives of as many Jews as possible who are threatened with extermination until the last moments of Hitlerism .
From October 16, 1944, Wallenberg, horrified, continued his activity of manufacturing safety passports. He is risking his life now, and knows it. He does not move without his revolver, changes the plate of his car each time he moves and never sleeps twice in the same place.
Despite the dangers involved, he redoubled his efforts and his protection passports now save a hundred Jews every day from certain death. Edith Wohl , who is part of his entourage in the humanitarian section, recalls:
He gave us courage. He was so fearless that we were ashamed to be afraid. Thanks to him, we have all become a little more optimistic. His way of acting also comforted us:here is an Aryan who did not believe that the Jews were vile and contemptible. He treated us as if we were his equals. It was amazing.
The energy deployed by Wallenberg at the risk of his life commands respect. He secretly and feverishly deals with passport applications, supported by his employees, and sleeps only four or five hours a night. He knows there is an emergency :he has indeed learned that, since his arrival in Budapest, 12,000 Hungarian Jews have been killed every day in the gas chambers of Auschwitz… Adolf Eichmann, under the direct orders of Himmler, ruthlessly pursues the extermination. To save as many lives as possible, Raoul bribes the officers in charge of transporting the Jews, and collects them in the Houses of Sweden as long as there is the least place available.
In his solitary guerrilla warfare against the death squads, Wallenberg's greatest weapon was information :to know which houses the Arrow Cross intended to attack, and in which cellars they had taken the Jews taken in the previous roundups. Members of the regular police, the gendarmerie and even the Arrow Cross provided him with this information, because they were horrified by the anarchy and the terror, because Wallenberg had secured their friendship, because they were afraid trials for war crimes or because they had been bribed.
The information collected allows it to stop certain summary executions on the banks of the Danube, to free Jews from prisons. Foresight, he seeks out the most trusted guards to protect the Houses of Sweden and their occupants.
Its audacity, large and dedicated staff, large financial resources and relationships with key members Arrow Crosses and civilian police made him one of the most powerful men in a city where the traditional centers of power were falling apart.
In December, Wallenberg issued more than 10,000 safety passports, instead of the 4,500 "authorized" by the government. The latter orders a census of the Jews in the International Houses of neutral countries. To ensure the silence of the officials, Wallenberg offers them security passports and it is ultimately the Jews themselves who do the count! The official number? 4,500, of course…
Raoul anxiously awaits the arrival of the Soviet Army. Premonitory, he wrote to his mother at the end of December 1944:“I believe that after the arrival of the Russians, it will be difficult to return home. I don't think I'll be back in Stockholm before Easter... Today, given the events, we can't make any plans... Your Raoul. »
A very mysterious disappearance...
Raoul Wallenberg lives in a permanent state of insecurity. He both prays and dreads the arrival of the Soviets, who take control of the city in the early months of 1945. There are still more than 100,000 Jews in Budapest, mainly thanks to the efforts of Raoul Wallenberg. The latter leaves the city in a climate of apocalypse to go and talk with Marshal Malinovsky (whose headquarters is located a few kilometers from the front), accompanied by his driver and companion in misfortune Vilmos Langfelder , and escorted by three Russian soldiers.
It is likely that the Soviets are not convinced that “Wallenberg came to Budapest for the simple purpose of rescuing Jews. They suspect him of acting for other motives." Spying suspect , Wallenberg is interned and undergoes several interrogations. Then his trace is lost. We will never see him again.
In 1957, after denying that Wallenberg was in their custody, the Soviets announced that the man died of a heart attack in prison on July 17, 1947. For lack of evidence, the mystery remains intact. If in 2016, 71 years after his disappearance, the Swedish authorities officially declared his death, some believe that he was simply murdered by the Soviets or deported to Siberia.
For decades, the descendants of Raoul Wallenberg have been fighting to find out the circumstances of his arrest and death. They claim in vain from the Russian authorities the truth about this affair. In July 2017, they finally turn to justice and file a complaint against the Russian secret services. Their request:the opening of the archives intelligence services. A very slim hope, because the Russian authorities remain "very reluctant to shed light on the crimes of the Soviet era .
Righteous Among the Nations
On August 19, 1953, the Memorial Institute of the Martyrs and Heroes of the Holocaust was created in Jerusalem:Yad Vashem . In 1963, a Commission chaired by a judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Israel was then charged with awarding the title of "Righteous Among the Nations", the highest civil distinction awarded by the Jewish State, to people non-Jews who, at the risk of their lives , helped persecuted Jews during World War II. Wallenberg is obviously decorated posthumously.
Raoul Wallenberg is a true national hero in Hungary, and even more so in Budapest, where his memory remains very much alive today.
Sources
♦ Raoul Wallenberg:The Mystery Lives On 
by Harvey Rosenfeld
♦ The Force of Good 
by Marek Halter
♦ Wallenberg the missing hero 
by Frederick E. Werbell and Thurston Clarke
♦ The Secrets of the Raoul Wallenberg Affair 
by Daniel Pierrejean