Biography
Per Johan Valentin Anger (1913-2002), second secretary at the Swedish legation in Budapest during World War II, who participated in efforts to rescue Hungarian Jews from arrest and deportation. Anger was born in Goteborg, Sweden. He studied law at the University of Stockholm and later at the University of Uppsala. After graduating in November 1939, he was drafted into the army. Soon afterwards, the Swedish Foreign Service offered him a trainee position at their legation in Berlin, which he began in January 1940. Anger was assigned to the trade department, but after the legation received information about an impending Nazi attack on Norway and Denmark, he became involved in relaying intelligence to Stockholm. In June 1941 he returned to Stockholm, where he worked on trade relations between Sweden and Hungary. In November 1942 Anger was sent to Budapest to serve in the position of second secretary at the Swedish legation. Up until the German invasion of Hungary, he focused his attention on Swedish-Hungarian trade, but thereafter became increasingly involved in efforts to aid Hungarian Jewry. Anger proposed the issuing of Swedish provisional passports and special certificates to protect Jews from internment and deportation. After the arrival of Raoul Wallenberg in July 1944, a new, more official looking Schutzpasse [protective pass] was designed to replace the old documents. In the fall of 1944, Anger assisted Wallenberg at the Budapest train station to rescue Jews from deportation actions. On more than one occasion during the death marches of Jews from Budapest to the Austrian border, he drove out along the road with Wallenberg to distribute food to the desperate people. At Hegyeshalom on the Austrian border, he and Wallenberg met with some success in their effort to get some of the Jews released before they were turned over to the German SS. In December 1944, Anger and his colleagues declined offers to be evacuated to Sweden in order to continue their rescue work. On January 10, 1945 Anger met Wallenberg for the last time before the Russians secreted Wallenberg away. Subsequently, the remaining members of the Swedish legation were put into Soviet custody. They were allowed to return to Sweden only in mid-April 1945. After the war, Anger continued his diplomatic career, serving in such posts as Swedish ambassador to Australia and Canada. Soon after his return to Sweden he also initiated efforts to search for Wallenberg, a concern that remained a primary focus in his life. In 1982 Per Anger was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, and in 1995 he was honored with the Hungarian Republic's Order of Merit.
[Source: Metzler, David, "Per Anger," Jewish Virtual Library. www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/anger.html]
