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| Today in History | |
| 2008-01-17 | |
| Raoul Gustav Wallenberg (born August 4, 1912, exact date of death is disputed) was a Swedish diplomat and a member of the influential Wallenberg family. In the later stages of World War II, he worked tirelessly and at great personal risk to save many thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust. He was later arrested by the Soviets who suspected him of being a spy; the circumstances of his death while in their custody are still a matter of great controversy. According to the Israeli organization Yad Vashem, Wallenberg is credited with personally saving the lives of many thousands of Hungarian Jews. Using nothing much more than a typewriter and a lot of nerve. One story credits him with either threatening or persuading a German general to ignore orders from Adolf Hitler to destroy the ghettos and kill the remaining inhabitants in the last desperate days before Budapest's liberation. If true, the number of people saved by Wallenberg's actions would rise to about 100,000. When the Russians finally took over, they found 97,000 Jews living in Budapest's two ghettos. In total, roughly 204,000 of the pre-war population of about 800,000 Hungarian Jews survived. Wallenberg was arrested by the Soviet Red Army on January 17, 1945 as they entered Budapest, probably on suspicion of being a spy for the United States. To this day, the U.S. government refuses to either confirm or deny this. He was taken to the Lubyanka in Moscow with his driver Langfelder. Wallenberg was then transferred to Lefortovo prison in another part of Moscow for two more years.
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| Posted by:Mike |