Raoul Wallenberg: The Heroic Life and Mysterious Disappearance of the Man Who Saved Thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust

720 Pages·2016·13.96 MB·English

by  Ingrid Carlberg

RAOUL WALLENBERG
The Heroic Life and Mysterious Disappearance of the Man Who
Saved Thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust

MacLehose Press
New York • London
© 2015 by Ingrid Carlberg
English translation copyright © 2015 by Ebba Segerberg Introduction © Kofi A.
Annan First published in the United States by Quercus in 2016
Cover design © Phil Yarnall / SMAY Design Cover photographs © Private
archive / Nina Lagergren Part of the cost of this translation has been defrayed by
a subsidy from the Swedish Arts Council, gratefully acknowledged.
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e-ISBN: 978-1-68144-524-3
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To my parents, Sonja and Per Carlberg
In this narrative of Raoul Wallenberg’s life and destiny I have taken great care to
adhere with absolute fidelity to the facts. There are no invented dialogues, and I
have neither added fabricated scenes and details nor made any ungrounded
assumptions about individuals’ motives or emotions.
The Swedish edition of this book was accompanied by 1,705 footnotes. In this
edited English-language edition, those detailed references have been published
online at www.maclehosepress.com/wallenbergnotes. Any reader who is
interested in locating specific information or references for any passages in this
book is welcome to consult the website, or to contact me directly at
www.ingridcarlberg.se.
Be a door half-open
That leads to a place for all
—TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER
CONTENTS
COVER
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
DEDICATION
AUTHOR’S NOTE
EPIGRAPH

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
INTRODUCTION by Kofi A. Annan
PROLOGUE: Djursholm, Autumn
PART I: WHAT MAKES A PERSON?
CHAPTER 1: A Fragile Happiness
CHAPTER 2: Two Widows and a Child
CHAPTER 3: No Millionaire’s Airs
CHAPTER 4: Machine Guns and American Architecture
CHAPTER 5: The Globetrotter
Stockholm, February
CHAPTER 6: On His Own Two Feet
CHAPTER 7: A Military Man with Entrepreneurial Ambition
Bragevägen, November, “Farewell Blues”
CHAPTER 8: The Grocer
Blasieholmen, May
PART II: WHAT MAKES AN ACT HEROIC?
CHAPTER 9: The Encounter in the Elevator
CHAPTER 10: The Assignment
Djursholm, October
CHAPTER 11: Save as Many as Possible
CHAPTER 12: “Your Relation to Sweden is the Kanthal Company”
Buda, June
CHAPTER 13: Savagery
CHAPTER 14: Thirty-one Houses and Ten Thousand Bellies to Fill
Raoul Wallenberg Square, January
CHAPTER 15: “I am a Swede, Son of a Neutral Nation.”
Ostrom utca, Autumn
PART III: WHAT DETERMINES A PERSON’S FATE?
CHAPTER 16: From Protected to Missing
Lefortovo Prison, April
CHAPTER 17: To Behold the Face of God
CHAPTER 18: “No One Is Interested in You”
Donskoy Cemetery, April
CHAPTER 19: A Swede and a Soviet Wall to Break Down
CHAPTER 20: What Will Do as a Half-Truth?
Beside the Lubyanka, April
CHAPTER 21: The Duel of the Professors
CHAPTER 22: The Making of an American Hero
Versailles, Spring
CHAPTER 23: “Goodbye, Mr. Wallenberg”
Stockholm and Moscow
EPILOGUE: Djursholm, Summer 2011
Sources and Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Picture Credits
Index