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Sale 101
Lot 143
Wallenberg, Raoul - Certificate of Protection for a Jew Which Asks That He Not Be Forced to Wear the Yellow Star. Rare typed document signed "R Wallenberg" as Secretary of the Royal Swedish Embassy, one page, tan paper, 11¾ x 8½", Budapest, August 31, 1944. At upper left, in German, is "Royal Swedish Embassy"; a stamp with the same information is to the left of the signature. The body of the letter is in Hungarian and is addressed to The Central National Alien Control [i.e., Migration] Office in Budapest. Professional repair on verso to vertical fold, small paper loss at center of upper and lower margins, else fine. In translation, the document says:
"We have the pleasure to inform you that the Royal Swedish Embassy in Budapest has issued a protective passport for Mr. Jenö Radványi who thus is to be considered a Swedish citizen.
The Embassy kindly asks you to release him from the obligation of wearing the yellow star. The Embassy verifies that the reciprocity regarding Sweden referred to in the aforementioned decree is valid. With great reverence / R Wallenberg / On behalf of the Swedish Ambassador / Secretary of the Royal Swedish Embassy."
Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg (1912-47?) saved many thousands of Hungarian Jews. He had studied architecture in the United States in the 1930s, then established himself as a businessman in Sweden. He was recruited by the US War Refugee Board (WRB) in June 1944 to travel to Hungary to do what he could to assist and save Hungarian Jews. He was given diplomatic status as first secretary to the Swedish legation arrived in Budapest on July 9, 1944.
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. By July 1944, the Hungarians and the Germans had deported nearly 440,000 Jews from Hungary, most of them to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where approximately 320,000 of them were killed upon arrival, and the remaining 200,000 Jews in Budapest were intended for deportation.
Upon his arrival in Budapest, Wallenberg began to issue certificates of protection. He used Swedish funds and funds from the U.S. War Refugee Board to establish hospitals, nurseries and a soup kitchen, and he designated more than 30 "safe" houses. These establishments formed an international ghetto which was reserved for Jews and their families holding certificates of protection from a neutral country.
When Soviet forces liberated Budapest in February 1945, more than 100,000 Jews remained, mostly because of the efforts of Wallenberg and his colleagues in the Swedish legation and diplomats from other neutral countries, such as Carl Lutz, the consul general in the Swiss legation, and Italian businessman Giorgio Perlasca, who posed as a Spanish diplomat.
Wallenberg disappeared after being seen in the company of Soviet officials on January 17, 1945. He may have died on July 17, 1947, while imprisoned by Soviet authorities at the infamous Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, but the date and circumstances of his death have never been clarified. In October 2016, 71 years after his disappearance, Swedish officials formally declared Wallenberg legally dead. On November 26, 1963, Yad Vashem recognized Raoul Wallenberg as Righteous Among the Nations. In 1987 he was awarded honorary Israeli citizenship. He was also awarded honorary American citizenship by the United States Congress. Estimate $10,000 - UP
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