The Real Wallenberg Story
By Paul A. Levine
Why does the world so fervently remember Raoul Wallenberg? Every piece of information about him that surfaces, like the recent Russian announcement that he was executed more than 50 years ago by the KGB, spawns renewed speculation about the mysterious circumstances of his disappearance. Are we fascinated by Wallenberg because of his life, because he was a man who did remarkable things during a time of extreme crisis, or because of the riddle of his fate? Had he never vanished while in Soviet hands, had he returned to Stockholm to live to a ripe old age, would he still inspire our reverence? Wallenberg is undeniably a hero of the Holocaust for his efforts on behalf of Jews in Budapest during World War II. But his deeds and his stature have been distorted by time and the mists of myth that have surrounded him since his arrest by the Soviets in 1945 and the lingering questions about the truth and the manner of his death. In more than 10 years of conducting research on him and Swedish diplomatic efforts to save Jews during the war, I have seen how Wallenberg's acts have been glorified over time. And as a teacher of Holocaust history, I know that this tendency to mythologize can prevent a real understanding of the moral importance of his mission and its historic example. The popular story of Raoul Wallenberg has the Swedish government sending the young diplomatic novice to Budapest to save the Jews of Hungary at the behest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Wallenberg is supposed to have confronted Adolf Eichmann and his henchmen and stopped them from rounding up and deporting the nation's Jews. He is described as having been personally responsible for the security of Budapest's more than 200,000 Jews, and as having directly rescued the more than 70,000 who cowered in that city's ghetto. Commonly associated with his memory is the iconic figure of 100,000 - the number of Jewish lives he is said to have saved through his personal actions. Romantic as it sounds, little of this confusing narrative, according to available historical documentation, is exactly true. Although Wallenberg accomplished much, he was but one link in an established chain of Swedish diplomacy working to save Jews. After November 1942, when the Nazis deported almost half of Norway's Jews to the Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland, Sweden began extending diplomatic protection to many Jewish individuals and families throughout Europe, often forestalling their deportation. Swedish diplomats in Budapest had been trying to help Jews in Hungary before the country's occupation by its German "ally" in March 1944. By the time Wallenberg arrived, Eichmann had already struck at the Jewish population of the Hungarian countryside. In some seven murderous weeks beginning in mid-May 1944, the Germans and their Hungarian collaborators deported more than 435,000 Jews to Poland, up to 12,000 a day to Auschwitz. Budapest's neutral diplomats could do nothing to stop this well-organized machinery of death. It was Miklos Horthy, head of Hungary's rump government, who finally ordered the transports stopped on July 7, once he understood what Eichmann was doing, and thus saved Budapest's Jews from deportation. Wallenberg arrived two days later. On Oct. 15, the Hungarian fascist party, the Arrow Cross, overthrew Horthy, and Eichmann had another opportunity to go after Budapest's Jews. Shortly before this, Wallenberg had written his mother to say he would soon return to Stockholm. But now, he chose to remain in Budapest and help those Jews he could. Over the next three months, he launched into action. It is important to understand that he was able to act to the extent he did because his diplomatic status gave him a measure of protection and freedom of action. Diplomatic practice gave him the "working space" he needed to perform his tasks. Memorably, he expanded this space. Often leaving the safety of his embassy, he crisscrossed Budapest trying to save Jews from Arrow Cross thugs. He threatened, pleaded and argued with Hungarian and German officials. Armed with both real and false Swedish identification papers he went to train stations and elsewhere, insisting that Jews with his papers were Swedish citizens. It is his constant visibility in these efforts, as well as during the Nazis' "death marches" of Jews toward the Austrian border in November and December 1944, that made its mark on survivors and lingers in their memories. Wallenberg's efforts surely saved dozens, even hundreds. But the fact is that, while he saved some Jews from the transports, he couldn't stop the trains from leaving with others. Nor did Wallenberg "save" the Budapest ghetto. Many accounts maintain that he threatened German SS Gen. August Schmidthuber and cowed him into backing down from a planned attack. But the documentation available does not support this. Eyewitness testimony indicates that Schmidthuber himself decided at the last minute not to go through with the assault. The truth is that the Holocaust wasn't perpetrated by "devils," but by real men who chose to do what they did. Similarly, Wallenberg wasn't an "angel of rescue," nor a saint, but a very real man who, unlike so many others, chose to help. Even at considerable risk to his own life, he used his diplomatic status and organizational skills to aid as many individuals as he could. Remembering Raoul Wallenberg in his real context is essential to honoring him and others like him. Even well-intentioned inaccuracy can harm memory, and nowhere is accuracy in memory more important than in regard to the Holocaust. Yet more and more people today talk about the Holocaust while understanding frightfully little about how it actually happened. This growing gap between history and memory reduces our understanding of the event and thus the lessons we try to draw from it. If we remember Wallenberg incorrectly, if we exaggerate his actions because of his tragic fate, we do not enlarge him and his example; we diminish his memory and the positive choices he made. Paul Levine is assistant professor of history in the program for Holocaust and genocide studies at Sweden's Uppsala University and is writing a book about Raoul Wallenberg. He contributed this essay to The Washington Post.
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