Equipped with two rucksacks, an overcoat and a revolver, Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest on 9 June, 1944 to enlist in saving the Jews of the capital targeted for deportation.

What can a single person undertake against the aggressive Nazi machinery holding half of Europe in thraldom with the Hungarian military and police apparatus at its service? Everything. He can save people.

Raoul Wallenberg was born in 1912 to a prominent and wealthy Swedish family. He travelled extensively: to Turkey, Italy, South Africa, Palestine and the United States, where he studied architecture. Ultimately, however, he chose to become a businessman.

He joined an export-import business run by the Hungarian emigrant Dr. Kálmán Lauer, travelling all over German-occupied Europe as the firm´s representative. In the course of these business trips, he visited Budapest as well.

Following Hungary´s occupation by the Germans in the spring of 1944, news reaching the outside world of the Jewish population´s tragedy became increasingly ominous. At the behest of the most diverse forces: the Swedish foreign ministry, the US ambassador to Sweden and the United States´ War Refugees Board, Wallenberg was entrusted - on the advice of Lauer - with the organization of a rescue mission to Budapest. Apart from the abovementioned, American Jewish charitable organizations, such as The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JOINT), undertook to finance the operation.

The then 31 year-old Wallenberg readily accepted this extremely dangerous assignment. He embarked on his mission of his own free will, with unquestioning faith in the good cause, full of confidence.

He spent six months - perhaps the most tragic six months of Hungary´s history - as the Swedish Embassy´s second-secretary, as head of the embassy´s humanitarian operations.

He cast in his lot with the Jews´ struggle for survival, fought in their race against time. Raoul Wallenberg did not use traditional diplomacy. The war to safeguard the lives of those destined for annihilation he waged with unconventional methods. When necessary, he obtained the release and relative safety of his charges by bribery and threats of blackmail; when it sufficed, by cajolery, persuasion and promises. He arrived on the scene at railway stations and at the border point of Hegyeshalom; he made his presence felt at the ˝safe houses˝, the ghetto. He was everywhere, where help was needed. And hopeless situations, as well as the number of people in imminent danger of their lives, abounded during those months.

In nothing but his overcoat, Wallenberg confronted the armed-to-the-teeth Nazi and Arrow Cross thugs. His commanding presence and the aura emanating from his charismatic personality made his enemies oblivious to the fact that he was just as vulnerable as his protégés.

How many people did Wallenberg save during his mission to Budapest? Some speak of a few thousand, others - with quite some exaggeration - of no less than a hundred thousand. According to the Swedish humanitarian action´s records, dated 16 January, 1945, Swedish protection extended to approximately fifty buildings and eight thousand individuals. The success of Wallenberg´s activities, however, must not be relegated to the number of lives saved. He himself regarded his task primarily as the restoration of the Jews´ numbed instinct of self-preservation. In his report of 29 July, 1944 he wrote: ˝Somehow one must reawaken most of the Jews from the apathy evinced towards their fate. One must eradicate their impression of being forgotten. The Swedish king´s message was very useful in this respect. The mere fact that the Swiss and Swedish embassies received the Jews, listened to them and recorded their particulars, perked up not only those concerned, but also those willing to help.˝

In the midst of intense rescue operations during the Arrow Cross terror, Wallenberg was reflecting on the state of post-war Hungary. He formulated these thoughts in writing:

˝My colleagues and I decided that once events come to a head, we will pull out of the humanitarian action led by the Swedish embassy, and organize an exceptionally dynamic, mobile and comprehensively fast-acting private group… This would be not only a philanthropic, but also an economic organization.˝

He carried with him his plan with details of his intended involvement in the task of reconstruction on that fateful 17 January, 1945, the day after Hungary´s liberation from the Nazi yoke, when his colleagues last set eyes on him accompanied by a Soviet officer and two Soviet soldiers. Wallenberg was heading for Debrecen to confer with the Provisional National Government and the Soviet High Command about the tasks of the country´s reorganization. ˝I don´t know, whether I am a guest or a prisoner˝ - he exclaimed on taking leave.

He never arrived in Debrecen, nor did he return to his home and his loved ones. His further fate remains unresolved, shrouded in the mists of legends.

For those, who got to know and respect him during the months of shared horrors, it seemed unbelievable that Wallenberg, the hero of modern myths, should have been taken prisoner by the Soviets.

The Soviet government issued two statements regarding the fate of Wallenberg. On 18 August, 1947, deputy minister for foreign affairs, Vyshinsky responded as follows to a petition addressed to Stalin, in which more than a million Swedish citizens asked for Wallenberg´s repatriation:

˝Raoul Wallenberg is not in the Soviet Union. True, the Soviet Foreign Ministry received a brief report on 14 January, 1945… that Wallenberg had been sighted in Benczur street…[but] the Soviet officer, who made the report, can no longer be located… Presumably Wallenberg has lost his life during the fighting in Budapest, or has been captured by Szálasi´s followers.˝

After Stalin´s´ death, in reply to a letter of request by the Swedish ambassador to Moscow, foreign minister Andrei Gromyko gave the following information on 6 February, 1957:

˝Raoul Wallenberg died in the Moscow Lubyanka prison of cardiac failure on 17 July, 1947… Wallenberg´s detention in prison, as well as the incorrect information about him supplied by certain former leaders of the security organs to the Soviet Union´s Foreign Ministry over a period of years, was a result of Abakumov´s criminal activities. As Abakumov´s actions violated Soviet laws, thereby causing serious damage to the Soviet Union, he was executed in line with the verdict of the Soviet Union´s Supreme Court. The Soviet Union hereby expresses its sincere apologies for what happened and its sincere sympathy to the Swedish government, as well as to Raoul Wallenberg´s family.˝

The family, friends and admirers of Wallenberg have not resigned themselves to his death. His figure crops up every so often in one of the lagers of the gulag, in one of the prisons of the Soviet Union. Someone or other always turns up, who has seen him, or talked to someone, or knows of someone who has met him.

Raoul Wallenberg would be ninety-two this year, but for us he will always remain ageless. His young, graceful figure lives on in our hearts.