Congressional Gold Medal to Raoul Wallenberg

Tomorrow, August 4, 2012, Sweden celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Raoul Wallenberg, a man whose life of self-sacrifice saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from their extermination camp fate. Tomorrow we also pay tribute to JDCs life saving role in the heroic mission that Wallenberg undertook.

On July 26th 2012 President Obama signed into law a bill bestowing the Congressional Gold Medal on Raoul Wallenberg. A Swedish diplomat who saved as many as 100,000 Jews during the Holocaust by issuing fake Swedish protective passes, Wallenberg risked his life sheltering Jews slated for an inevitable death. “I will never be able to go back to Stockholm,” he said, “without knowing inside myself that I had done all a man can do to save as many Jews as possible.”

The sending of Wallenberg on his special mission was largely supported by JDC. JDC provided $15 million dollars toward the work of the U.S. War Refugee Board, and served as its operating arm.

During the Soviet siege of Budapest in 1945, Wallenberg was detained by Soviet authorities on suspicion of espionage and was never heard from again.