Raoul Wallenberg in his Budapest office with his Jewish co-workers in November 1944.
Overview
- Caption
- Raoul Wallenberg in his Budapest office with his Jewish co-workers in November 1944.
Pictured from left to right are: Dannonbergt, Hugo Wohl, Klein (behind), Forgacs (with V-neck sweater), and Paul Hegedus. Behind are Tibor Vandor and Dr. Otto Fleishmann. - Photographer
- Thomas Veres
- Date
-
November 1944
- Locale
- Budapest, [Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun] Hungary
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Thomas Veres, Photo by Thomas Veres
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
Thomas Veres
Copyright: Exclusively with source - Published Source
- Lost Hero: The Mystery of Raoul Wallenberg - Werbell, Frederick E. - McGraw-Hill
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Raoul Wallenberg (1912-c.1947), Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest in the period between July 1944 and January 1945. Born into an aristocratic Swedish banking family, Raoul led a life of privilege. During his college years he studied architecture at the University of Michigan, but ultimately went to work for the family. In 1936 he spent six months at the Holland Bank, a branch of the family bank, in Haifa, Palestine. There he came into contact with Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution for the first time. Upon his return to Sweden he became an executive of an import-export firm headed by an Hungarian Jew that conducted business in Central Europe. During the early years of World War II, Wallenberg led a lively social life and otherwise appeared indifferent to world events, but there was an inner restlessness about him that seemed to be seeking an outlet. That outlet was found in the rescue of Hungarian Jewry. In the spring of 1944, the Swedish government (along with other neutral governments and organizations) was asked by the newly established U.S. War Refugee Board to help protect the Jews of Hungary, who in the wake of the German occupation, were in imminent danger of deportation to death camps. The Swedes delegated this task to Wallenberg, who was appointed First Secretary of the Swedish legation in Budapest. In addition to a diplomatic passport, he was given a large sum of money from the World Jewish Congress and War Refugee Board and carte blanche to use whatever methods necessary to effect the rescue of Hungarian Jewry. By the time Wallenberg arrived in Budapest on July 9, 1944, the Hungarian government had just halted the deportations begun in March. With the steady advance of the Soviet army, the puppet regime seemed eager to dissociate itself from the Nazis and polish its image in the international community. However, Adolf Eichmann continued to press hard to bring the Final Solution to the Jews of Budapest. Wallenberg wasted no time when he got to the capital and quickly became known for his unconventional methods and seeming fearlessness. After learning from Carl Lutz and others about the use of the Schutzbriefe (diplomatic protective passes), Wallenberg applied to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry for authority to use them. When permission was granted for only 1,500, he bribed officials to increase the figure to 15,000. Similarly, he sliced through bureaucratic complications to set up an extensive network of hospitals, daycare centers and soup kitchens for Jews under his protection. By early October Wallenberg was convinced that the situation was under control and that he could return to Stockholm. However, on October 15, a dramatic reversal took place as a result of the Arrow Cross coup and installation of the fascist Szalasi government. Deportations were resumed, the Schutzbriefe were revoked, and gangs of Arrow Cross hoodlums roamed the streets beating up Jews. In November Eichmann organized a series of death marches of Jews from Budapest to the Austrian border. Wallenberg reacted immediately. By dangling the possibility of Swedish diplomatic recognition as bait, he got the new government to revalidate the Schutzbriefe. He also played a key role in the establishment of the International Ghetto, a series of 31 buildings in which more than 30,000 Jews were concentrated under the protection of the neutral legations and the Red Cross. Using the money at his disposal he organized a paid staff of over 300, including medical personnel for two hospitals. Wallenberg repeatedly appeared at the railroad station in Budapest to distribute Schutzbriefe to Jews assembled for deportation, who he then escorted to a convoy of diplomatic cars parked nearby. When the death marches began, Wallenberg followed the columns of Jews in his car and handed out hundreds of Schutzbriefe during rest stops. These Jews were then sent back to Budapest. In the last weeks of the war, when he heard that the retreating Germans intended to blow up the central ghetto and its nearly 70,000 Jewish residents, Wallenberg rushed to the office of the garrison commander and threatened to have him prosecuted for war crimes if he carried out the plan. Wallenberg's life was under constant threat and rumors spread that the SS and Arrow Cross were engineering an "accident" to eliminate him without violating his diplomatic immunity. In the end, however, he was captured by the Russians rather than by the Germans and their collaborators. On January 17, 1945, a few days after the liberation of Pest, Wallenberg set out for Debrecen under Soviet military escort to see the Russian commander, Marshal Malinovsky, about a plan for the rehabilitation of the Jewish community. He was never seen again, and no explanation was ever proffered for his arrest. In 1957 the Soviets officially announced that Wallenberg had died from a heart attack in 1947 at Moscow's Lubianka prison, but no evidence was provided. When the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous came into existence in 1963, Wallenberg became one of the first rescuers to be officially recognized by Yad Vashem.
[Sources: Paldiel, Mordecai. The Path of the Righteous, KTAV, Hoboken, NJ, 1993; Saul, Eric. "Visas for Life" exhibition, February 2000]
Thomas Veres (1923-2002), Hungarian Jewish photographer who during the final months of the German occupation of Budapest in World War II, served as the official photographer of Swedish diplomatic rescuer, Raoul Wallenberg. Thomas was the son of Paul and Berta (Lang) Veres. He had an older brother, Paul, who married an American and immigrated to the US in 1939. Thomas was raised in Budapest, where his father owned a photography studio and served as the official photographer for the Hapsburg monarch and subsequently for the Hungarian regent, Admiral Miklos Horthy. Paul Veres was recognized as the leading photographer of the Hungarian aristocracy, and as such, he and his family were exempted from anti-Jewish regulations that began to be imposed in the late 1930s. Thomas, who decided he wanted to become a photographer at the age of fifteen, learned his trade by watching his father. When he was sixteen or seventeen, his father started sending him to the palace in his stead to photograph Horthy's newly appointed cabinet ministers. Among the Veres' clients in Budapest were several foreign consulates, including the Swedish legation. In 1942 or 1943 Per Anger, second secretary at the Swedish legation, called in the Veres' to photograph his family. The Angers had purchased a new Leica camera and Thomas was engaged over a period of several weeks to instruct Mrs. Anger in its use. Following the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, Paul Veres utilized his connections with the Swedes to secure passports for himself and his family. He also used his influence to make sure that when his son Thomas was called up for the Hungarian labor service he was drafted not as a Jew, but as an Hungarian. Thomas entered the labor service on April 7, 1944 and was sent to the town of Miskolc, where he remained until August. At that time his unit was transferred back to Budapest, where they were put to work in a factory producing ammunition boxes. When the Arrow Cross party assumed control of the Hungarian government on October 15, word came down that Thomas' unit would be transferred to Germany. With the help of his captain, with whom he enjoyed a strong friendship, Thomas was able to escape from the labor battalion before the transfer took place. He then returned to his parents home, where his father informed him about their Swedish documents. This gave Thomas the idea of turning to Per Anger for help in evading arrest by the Arrow Cross. On the morning of October 17, 1944 Thomas made his way to the Swedish legation, where hundreds of people were waiting outside in the hopes of obtaining protective documents. Against all odds, Thomas reached a policeman guarding the entrance to the building and asked him to deliver the message to Per Anger that Thomas Veres wanted to see him. Thirty minutes later an announcement was made over the loud speaker instructing everyone to leave the premises with the exception of Thomas Veres. Thomas was then ushered into Anger's office. After hearing his story, Anger introduced him to Raoul Wallenberg, who immediately hired Thomas to be his official photographer. Much of his time was spent taking photographs for protective documents that the legation issued by the thousands. But on November 28, Thomas was called upon for the first time to document what was happening to the Jews of Budapest. On that day he was instructed by Wallenberg to meet him at the Jozsefvarosi train station, a freight depot on the outskirts of Budapest. Thomas arrived to find the station completely surrounded by Hungarian gendarmes. Claiming he was a Swedish diplomat, Thomas gained entry and found himself in the midst of a deportation action. Wallenberg, who was there with his car and driver, had set up a table where he sat with his black ledger instructing the Jews to get into line to show him their documentation. When Wallenberg spotted Thomas he walked over to him and whispered instructions to take as many photos as possible. Thomas then slid into the back of Wallenberg's car, cut a slit in his scarf with a penknife and fit the lens of his camera through the hole. He then got out and walked through the station as calmly as possible snapping photographs. At one point an old friend who was among the deportees recognized him and called out his name. Thomas walked over to him, grabbed him by the collar and yelled, "You dirty Jew, get over there," pointing toward Wallenberg's line, and gave him a kick in the pants. Several hundred Jews had been pulled out of the crowd of deportees when Wallenberg sensed that the Nazis were losing patience, and he quickly instructed the new "Swedes" to walk back to Budapest. The next day was a repeat of the first, and Thomas arrived at the station with his camera already hidden in the folds of his scarf. This time, while photographing Thomas walked to the other side of the train, where he climbed onto an already loaded car that had been closed but not yet padlocked. After successfully prying the door open, he urged the deportees to jump down quickly and run to the line where Wallenberg was distributing passes. Just as Wallenberg was finishing up and instructing the newly documented "Swedes" to march back to town, an Hungarian gendarme spotted Thomas and yelled at him to stop. Wallenberg and his driver quickly got into their car, drove to the other side of the train, opened the car door, instructed Thomas to jump in and sped out of the station. During the next several weeks Wallenberg fought a constant battle with the Nazis and Hungarians to keep the 30,000 Jews living in protected houses from being transferred to the central ghetto or raided by Arrow Cross bands. At the beginning of January 1945 during the Soviet bombardment of Budapest, Thomas was living in the offices of the Swedish legation on Ulloi Street together with scores of others. On the night of January 8, 1945, the Ulloi Street building was raided by a group of Arrow Cross thugs. Thomas and the others were about to be marched to their execution along the banks of the Danube River when Wallenberg appeared with a truckload of Budapest police and demanded the release of the "Swedes." He had been notified of the raid by an undiscovered switchboard operator working upstairs in the building. Four days later, just prior to the end of the fighting, the apartment building in which Thomas' parents were living was raided by Arrow Cross members who had come to confiscate the hidden stocks of food belonging to the Zserbo confectionery that was stored in the building's cellar. All of the residents, Jews and non-Jews alike, were marched out of the building and shot into the Danube. Upon hearing the news of the raid Thomas went to see Wallenberg, who was then hiding in the vault of a nearby bank. It was at this last meeting that Wallenberg informed him of his intention to go to Debrecen to meet with the newly established provisional government, and invited Thomas to accompany him. Thomas declined because he still hoped to find his parents alive. A few days later Wallenberg was arrested by the Soviet NKVD and was never heard from again. Thomas remained in Hungary after the war and immigrated to the US in 1956.
[Sources: Veres, Thomas. Oral history with Raye Farr, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 22 June 1992; Veres, Tom, "Raoul Wallenberg's Last Days in Budapest," Guideposts, January 1992, pp.14-19.]
- Record last modified:
- 2012-10-02 00:00:00
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