Raoul Wallenberg's Square

Raoul Wallenberg – Born on 4 August 1912 in Lidingö, died probably in 1947 in the USSR. A Swedish diplomat, architect by education, graduated from the University of Michigan in 1935. 

He was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations medal by the Yad Vashem Insitute for his aid to Hungarian Jews facing extermination by Nazi Germany during World War II. In July 1944 he took the position of a secretary in the Swedish embassy in Budapest, where, together with his colleagues, he saved around 10 thousand Jews from death, by, among other things, providing them with Swedish passports. He employed 300-400 people as embassy workers. Wallenberg also set up a contact network for Jews, and organised healthcare and food distribution. Moreover, he took care of establishing children's homes and nursing homes for the elderly. In January 1945, as the front line was getting closer, he left Budapest. En route he was stopped by Soviet soldiers and taken away to Russia on espionage charges. To this day the place and circumstances of this death remain unknown. Wallenberg's actions, financed mainly by the Americans, coupled with the efforts of the Apostolic Nunciature in Budapest, the Swedish and International Red Cross, and the embassies of neutral countries, led to saving around 100 thousand Jews.