Hungarian Nazi

NOT A ‘NOBODY’: CHOICE OF RAOUL WALLENBERG IN 1944 NOT ACCIDENTAL

A major challenge for researchers in the Raoul Wallenberg case has always been how little original documentation about the young Swedish diplomat survives from his adult life before 1944. Few personal letters or other documents have been preserved.

In particular, such papers would fill in important information about Wallenberg’s personal and professional contacts before he was sent to Hungary in July 1944 on a humanitarian mission to aid its Jewish population. Hungary had been formally allied with Nazi Germany since 1940, but Germany had nevertheless moved to occupy the country on March 19, 1944. In a short few months, almost 500,000 Jews were deported to exterminations camps in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

John Dobai’s testimony

I was born in January 1934 in Budapest and for the first few years I was brought up as a Roman Catholic as my parents converted to Catholicism in the mistaken belief that it would save us from persecution. Many people did the same at the time.

In 1941 my father was sent to a camp in NE Hungary where he, with hundreds of others were made to build airfields etc. and I did not see him for 3 years.