# data[].attributes.body
Raoul Wallenberg was born in Stockholm Sweden, on August forth 1912. He went to America to study business in the 1930's. b He later established a business career.

# data[].attributes.body
He was recruited to the War Refugee Board (WRB). In June 1944 He traveled to Hungary. The Swedish government gave him diplomatic status. And he was tasked to assist and save Jews.

# data[].attributes.body
On March 19, 1944, German forces occupied Hungary. They forced a pro-German government. This new government continued the war and started deporting Jews.

# data[].attributes.body
Raoul started issuing certificates of protection to jews, protected by Sweden. He set up hospitals, nurseries, and soup kitchen. He also help build around 30 safe houses for jew.

# data[].attributes.body
As the Soviets started to invade Poland the Jews had to start marching east. These marches were deadly and Nazis shot people who fell behind. Wallenberg personally saved people from these death marches many times.

# data[].attributes.body
Other diplomats also helped. Carl Lutz a Swedish diplomat put over 50,000 Jews under protection of Switzerland.

# data[].attributes.body
Raoul was last seen with soviet soldiers as they invaded Budapest. He was detained because he suspected to be a spy. Wallenberg was arrest and was sent to Soviet jail. No one knows what happened to him but he was declared dead in 2016.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Story of Raoul Wallenberg | Righteous Among the Nations | Yad Vashem

# data[].attributes.body
One of the few honorary US citizens. There are only 8 and others include Winston churchill, and Mother Teresa.

He was the first honorary citizen of Australia. He also has a tree named after him near the Holocaust memorial in jerusalem.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Background

Raoul Wallenberg was born on August 4, 1912, in Stockholm, Sweden.

After studying in the United States in the 1930s and establishing himself in a business career in Sweden, Wallenberg was recruited by the US War Refugee Board (WRB) in June 1944 to travel to Hungary. Given status as a diplomat by the Swedish legation, Wallenberg's task was to do what he could to assist and save Hungarian Jews.

Wallenberg Arrives in Budapest

Assigned as first secretary to the Swedish legation in Hungary, Wallenberg arrived in Budapest on July 9, 1944. Despite a complete lack of experience in diplomacy and clandestine operations, he led one of the most extensive and successful rescue efforts during the Holocaust. His work with the WRB prevented the deportation of thousands of Hungarian Jews.

Hungary had been an ally of Germany, but German defeats and mounting Hungarian losses led Hungary to seek an armistice with the western Allies. To forestall these peace feelers, German forces occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944, and forced the Hungarian head of state, Miklos Horthy, to appoint a pro-German government under Dome Sztojay. The Sztojay government was prepared not only to continue the war but also to deport Hungarian Jews to German-occupied Poland. Shortly after the occupation, Hungarian officials began to round up Hungarian Jews and to transfer them into German custody.

By July 1944, the Hungarians and the Germans had deported nearly 440,000 Jews from Hungary, almost all of them to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the SS killed approximately 320,000 of them upon arrival and deployed the rest at forced labor in Auschwitz and other camps. Nearly 200,000 Jews remained in Budapest; the Hungarian authorities intended to deport them as well, in compliance with German requests.

Rescue Activities

With authorization from the Swedish government, Wallenberg began distributing certificates of protection issued by the Swedish legation to Jews in Budapest shortly after his arrival in the Hungarian capital. He used WRB and Swedish funds to establish hospitals, nurseries and a soup kitchen, and to designate more than 30 "safe" houses that together formed the core of the "international ghetto" in Budapest. The international ghetto was reserved for Jews and their families holding certificates of protection from a neutral country.

After the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross movement seized power with the help of the Germans on October 15, 1944, the Arrow Cross government resumed the deportation of Hungarian Jews, which Horthy had halted in July before the Budapest Jews could be deported. As Soviet troops had already cut off rail transport routes to Auschwitz, Hungarian authorities forced tens of thousands of Budapest Jews to march west to the Hungarian border with Austria. During the autumn of 1944, Wallenberg repeatedly-and often personally-intervened to secure the release of those with certificates of protection or forged papers, saving as many people as he could from the marching columns.

Wallenberg's colleagues in the Swedish legation and diplomats from other neutral countries also participated in rescue operations. Carl Lutz, the consul general in the Swiss legation, issued certificates of emigration, placing nearly 50,000 Jews in Budapest under Swiss protection as potential emigrants to Palestine. Italian businessman Giorgio Perlasca posed as a Spanish diplomat. Closely assisted by Laszlo and Eugenia Szamosi, Perlasca issued to many Jews in Budapest certificates of protection for nations whose interests neutral Spain represented and established safe houses, including one for Jewish children.

After the Liberation of Budapest

When Soviet forces liberated Budapest in February 1945, more than 100,000 Jews remained, mostly because of the efforts of Wallenberg and his colleagues.

Wallenberg was last seen in the company of Soviet officials on January 17, 1945, as the Red Army besieged Budapest. He was presumably detained on suspicion of espionage and subsequently disappeared. A Soviet government report in 1956 suggested that Wallenberg had died on July 17, 1947, while imprisoned by Soviet authorities at the infamous Lubyanka Prison in Moscow. Subsequent eyewitness sightings of Wallenberg in the Soviet penal system after 1947 have called this statement into question, and the exact date and circumstances of Wallenberg's death may never be clarified. In October 2016, 71 years after his disappearance, Swedish officials formally declared Wallenberg legally dead.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Raoul Wallenberg and the Rescue of Jews in Budapest

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Raoul Wallenberg was born on August 4, 1912, in Stockholm, Sweden. After studying in the United States in the 1930s and establishing himself in a business career in Sweden, Wallenberg was recruited by the US War Refugee Board (WRB) in June 1944 to travel to Hungary.

# data[].attributes.body
Never postpone until tomorrow what you can postpone until the day after

# data[].attributes.body
I encounter one example after another of how relative truth is.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Journey - Don't Stop Believin' (Escape Tour 1981: Live In Houston)