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Sep 5, 2003

"His only authority was his own courage. Any officer could have shot him to death. But he feared nothing for himself and committed himself totally. It was as if his courage was enough to protect himself from everything." --Tom Lantos, on Raoul Wallenberg

He Gave His Life for Others

He climbed aboard boxcars filled with people and would handout scores of protective passes, then jump from the train and demand that those with Swedish "protection" be allowed off the trains. He built safe houses to keep them away from danger. He would leverage his Swedish diplomat status to alter the course of humanity. In 1944, Raoul Wallenberg saved tens of thousands of Jews in Hungary when Hitler had ordered all 400,000 of them to be sent to concentration camps. Two years later, at the age of 34, he was captured by the Russians and is said to have died of a heart attack. Wallenberg is a man without a grave but maybe that's because he lives on in the hearts of many.