Hungary

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.

Skymning i Budapest

En berättelse om kampen för liv i andra världskrigets slutskede i staden där nazisterna lyckades inte genomföra sitt mål att förinta judarna. Detta är också berättelsen om några av de största svenska hjältarna under 1900-talet, Raoul Wallenberg. Läs mer om Skymning i Budapest>

Gellert Kovacs

Gellert Kovacs has worked on the Raoul Wallenberg project between 2009-2012. He has receiver of funds from the Swedish foreign ministry for research around the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and his contacts in Hungary. He researched for 6 months in Hungarian…

Holocaust victims, heirs sue 5 Hungarian banks at US court

“MTI writes that a group of Holocaust survivors and heirs filed a lawsuit in Chicago on Thursday against several banks, including banks based in Hungary, demanding compensation of more than 2 million dollars. According to the plaintiffs, the National Bank…

My testimony

Susan Winter Memory in Budapest (english)

Susan Winter Memory in Budapest (hungarian)

I will attempt to write down what happened to me and my family between 1944-1945. I am not sure I will succeed because I don’t know what are my own memories and what I recall because of what others told me.

On March 19, 1944 the Germans entered Hungary, rather Budapest, where I lived with my parents and grandparents. The same morning my father went to Eastern Train Terminal (Keleti P‡lyaudvar) to buy tickets for my mother and I to go to Di—szeg, which is today part of Romania, but at the time belonged to Hungary. He thought that it may be easier to survive in a small place than in a large city.

04. Hungary 1933-1944

Hungarys Relationship To NS-Germany: In 1933 Hungary looked twords Germany for direction, Hitler was chancellor. The Trianon Peace Treaty saw Hungary lose two thirds of its territory and up 60% of its population. In 1920 Admiral Miklos Horthy was elected…

05. Jews in Hungary

History Of The Jews In Hungary till 1933 In the third century Jews lived in the region we know now as Hungary. Following the first world war and the resultant collapse of the monarchy coupled with the effects of the…

09. Wallenberg Appointed to Diplomatic Corp.:

Raoul Wallenberg proposed some new demands. The prime minister agreed to his demands. Wallenbergs appointment to the Diplomatic Corp. Filled him with pride: “When a Wallenberg is chosen to serve his country abroad, it is his duty to live up…

10. Raoul Wallenberg In Budapest

Arrival in Budapest On the 9th of July 1944 Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest. First he informed himself about previous Swedish measures taken to help the Jews. 650 Jews who had a strong bond to Sweden, were given passports. These…

Raoul Wallenberg’s Unexplored Intelligence Connections In Hungary

To fully untangle the complex relationships between the diverse factions of the Hungarian underground and Allied intelligence during the last months of World War II will take years of research. But new information is emerging daily and with it have come details which offer important opportunities in the ongoing investigation of the fate of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Wallenberg disappeared in the Soviet Union in January 1945, after having helped to protect thousands Jews of Budapest from Nazi persecution. Soviet era claims that Wallenberg had died of a heart attack in a Moscow prison in July1947 or that he was executed have never been fully substantiated.