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March 2004

Raoul Wallenberg’s office hired by the Swedish Embassy.

    The history of the Üllői út 2-4,

    1

    When Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest, Per Anger had already been in action in the office disposed in a villa rented by the Swedish Embassy in 2, Minerva street.It is obvious that Wallenberg located his headquarters and started organizing his activity there too. The staff, which was yet relatively small in number, assembled in the second half of July, and had an initiative and leading role in both making the Schutzpasses and administratively organizing as well carrying out the Activity. We remember the members below with comparative accuracy (the order of the list means role-hierarchy in the same time): Hugó Wohl, Dr. Pál Hegedűs, Vilmos Forgács, Dr. Ottó Fleischman, István Engelman, Imre Terner, Iván Székely.
    Office-clerk of the secretariat: countess Erzsébet Nákó, Mrs. Falk Lászlóné, Mariann Bach, Hedda Kátai, Lilla Boros, Tibor Vándor, Pál Forgács.
    Supposedly, besides the above listed people, others also played an important role, but might be missing from the list due to their secondary importance or a lapse of memory.
    The Schutzpass-action leaked out among the threatened Jewry of Budapest, partly as a consequence of the „mole-news” spreading surprisingly fast. When recalling that period of time we shall take into account the fact that the period from the desarming of the Baky-Endre gendarme coup up to the arrow-cross putsch (thus from 20th July to 15th October) was a relatively easier period for the Jewry of Budapest settled in houses, marked with the yellow star. Street raids, leading to deportation had ceased, the limitations to agression to street were taken less severely. Some people took off the yellow star, were circulating without them, and were less afraid of the consequences.