In Tribute: A HERO FOR OUR TIME
By Rachel Oestreicher Bernheim
 

PROLOGUE

In these dark and cynical times, when there is so very little for mankind to believe in, when the historian and the investigative reporter have trained us to expect the worst of the great, it is little wonder that the world does not quite know what to make of Raoul Wallenberg - or that too many governments have chosen to maintain a shameful silence. Sadly, noble words are robbed of their meaning. We hear him called "righteous Gentile," "hero of the Holocaust," "unsung martyr of World War II." Now and then some scholar addresses himself anew to the question of how and by what means Wallenberg managed to save one hundred thousand lives, or probes the psychosocial impulses which compelled him to forsake wealth and ease and undertake so dangerous a mission. But when we have set down the last pious platitude, made our tallies and pondered his motives, something in Raoul Wallenberg still eludes us. He remains a mystery, as do all pure-souled, whole-hearted, thoroughly moral men. We are left only with the everlasting memory of what he did - and what Raoul Wallenberg did was to fulfill, as none in his time would or could, the terms of the contract which binds each of us to humanity. The Talmud summed up that contract in these words: "Whoever saves a single soul, it is as if he saved the whole world." Therefore we must do more than cling to his memory. We must proclaim to all the nations that Raoul Wallenberg lives, tirelessly champion his cause, tirelessly press for news of his fate - till the day, if it please God, that Raoul Wallenberg returns to us from the long, bitter totalitarian night.

Raoul Wallenberg was born August 4, 1912. His parents came from two of Sweden's most outstanding families, whose members included diplomats, bankers, and bishops of the Lutheran Church, as well as artists and professors. Wallenberg's birth was surrounded by tragedy. His handsome father (after whom he was named), an officer in the Swedish Navy and the sone of the Swedish ambassador to Japan, died after a brief illness at the age of 23 - eight months after his marriage and three months before the birth of his son. Raoul's mother, Maj Wising Wallenberg, was only 21 at the time. Three months after Raoul's birth, his grandfather Wising died suddenly of pneumonia. Many years later, Nina Lagergren, Raoul's half-sister said, "All of a sudden, in that once-happy house, there were two widows and this baby boy." The two bereaved women focused all of their love on the child who, says Nina Lagergren, "gave and received so much love that he grew up to be an unusually generous, loving, and compassionate person." In 1918, Maj Wallenberg remarried. Her second husband, Fredrik von Dardel, was a young civil servant in the health ministry. He later became the administrator of Karolinska, Sweden's largest hospital, world famous for its medical research. Two more children were born to Maj von Dardel, Guy and Nina. Both serve as leaders of the international Raoul Wallenberg effort. Ambassador Gustav Wallenberg, Raoul's grandfather, insisted that Raoul receive an education befitting a member of the Wallenberg family. Accordingly, after high school in Sweden and nine months of compulsory Swedish military service, Raoul was sent to Paris for a year. Then, at his own insistence, he attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he completed the five year program at the School of Architecture in three and one half years. He graduated in 1935, along with his classmate, future President Gerald Ford. When Raoul returned to Sweden, his grandfather insisted that it was time for his to begin studying banking and commerce. This decision was to have far-reaching implications. Raoul's first position was with a Swedish firm in South Africa. In 1936 his grandfather arranged a position for him at the Holland Bank in Haifa, Palestine. There Raoul began to meet young Jews who had already been forced to flee from Nazi persecution in Germany. Their stories affected him deeply.

The article continues on the following pages.