October 23, 1944:
- "In Budapest, Swedish consul Raoul Wallenberg and Swiss consul Carl Lutz continue to issue protective documents to Jews, partly in response to a decree that Jews in Hungary who are of foreign nationalities or those holding foreign passports will be exempt from forced labor."
- Raoul Wallenberg
"The determined, energetic efforts of young Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from certain death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
"Sent to Budapest by the Swedish Foreign Ministry, Wallenberg worked to save the city's remaining 200,000 Jews from planned deportations in July 1944.
He issued thousands of special Swedish Embassy-stamped 'protective passports' to Hungarian Jews.
Armed with funds supplied by the War Refugee Board, Wallenberg also bought property in Budapest, which he turned into 'safe houses' for those rescued from transports.
In organizing a network of hundreds of young Jewish agents, he managed the distribution of food and medicine to Jews taking refuge in those shelters.
"Using bluff and diplomatic credentials, Wallenberg even pressured the SS into turning over to him some prisoners already on board deportation trains.
As Adolf Eichmann initiated the death marches of thousands of Jews toward the Austrian border, Wallenberg pursued the departing columns, winning the release of many of those in possession of the Swedish passports.
In early 1945, as the Soviet Army neared Budapest, he dissuaded the SS commander from carrying out an ordered massacre of Jews still in the city.
"After Budapest's liberation, Wallenberg disappeared, presumably arrested by the Soviets on espionage charges. His fate remains a mystery."