Preview

Raoul Wallenberg

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
803 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg and the Holocaust The Holocaust and the extermination of over 6 million Jews during World War II is one of the most tragic and perplexing scars in the world’s history. What could bring human beings to ruthlessly eradicate other humans? Why didn’t more people recognize the atrocities and why was so little done so late? In the face of almost overwhelming odds, the story of Raoul Wallenberg, “Angel of Mercy”, stands apart. In what has been described as the most dramatic life-saving operation of the war, he directly or indirectly rescued over 100,000 Hungarian Jews; Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish hero activist, chose to make a difference during the Holocaust. Born in Lidingo, Sweden in 1912, Raoul Wallenberg’s upbringing and career set him on a path that would eventually intersect with wartime Europe and German-occupied Hungary. Raoul Wallenberg’s parents came from prominent Swedish families: his father’s family was diplomats, and his mother’s father was a prominent neurologist. Very likely, Raoul Wallenberg was raised with a sense of duty and service to country. Raoul Wallenberg’s dream was to be an architect, and he travelled to the US to study and complete his degree at the University of Michigan. With limited work in Sweden for an architect, in 1936 Raoul Wallenberg’s career eventually landed him with Koloma Lauer, a Hungarian Jew who owned a Swedish-based export-import company. Raoul Wallenberg travelled to Europe, learned the Hungarian language, and soon became indispensable to the company. In 1942, he became joint owner and International Director for the company’s mid-European trading operations. This was wartime Europe, and Raoul Wallenberg was able to experience German bureaucracies and occupation first-hand. Signed into existence by FDR in January 1944 to “rescue the victims of enemy oppression who are in imminent danger of death”, the American War Refugee Board could not have found a more effective leader for the Hungarian


Bibliography: Daccord, Tom, prod. “WWII.” Best of History. Ed Tech Teacher, 3 Oct. 2010. Web. 8 Nov. 2010. . Harris, Bruce, prod. “Raoul Wallenberg.” More or Less: Heroes and Killers of the 20th Century. Bruce Harris, 28 June 2008. Web. 8 Nov. 2010. . Lewicki, Mats. “Raoul Wallenberg.” The Official Raoul Wallenberg Site. The Raoul Wallenberg Committee, 2005. Web. 8 Nov. 2010. . Lyman, Darryl. Holocaust Rescuers: Ten Stories of Courage. Berkley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 1999. Print. Collective Biographies. Schreiber, Penny. “The Story of Raoul Wallenberg.” The Wallenberg Endowment. The Regents of the University of Michigan, 2010. Web. 8 Nov. 2010. .
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Prisoner B 3087 By Alan Gratz
    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Prisoner B 3087 By Alan Gratz

    Prisoner B-3087 written by Alan Gratz and inspired by Jack and Ruth Gruener is arguably one of the greatest WWII Novel ever written on a true story. Yanek is a ten-year-old Jewish boy who grew up in Kraków, Poland. He had a passion for entertainment and one day wanted to go to America to pursue his acting career. When Hitler took over Germany, he conspired for the death and slavery of Jew’s because they were blamed for all that was wrong in the world such as the Depression, and Germany’s loss of World War 1. In no way was this really their faults but Hitler needed someone to blame.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Irena Sendler's Role In The Holocaust
    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Irena Sendler's Role In The Holocaust

    The word ‘holocaust,’ comes from the Greek words ‘holos’ (whole) and ‘kaustos’ (burned), and was used to describe a Jewish sacrificial offering that was burned on an altar. Unfortunately, after 1945, the word took on a more gruesome meaning: the massacre of 6 million Jews by the German Nazis in our second World War. There were many heroes during the Holocaust, but the one that stood out the most was my hero, Irena Sendler. Irena Sendler played a crucial role in securing the safety of many Jewish children through her courageous actions, ideas, and efforts as a humanitarian and social worker who worked in the Polish underground.…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Nat Turner Book Summary
    • 1261 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Nat Turner Book Summary

    Stephen Oates, in a creative and interesting way, brings us an accurate portrayal of an extraordinary fictional character, in a very real and extraordinary time in our country’s history.…

    • 1261 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Donald L. Niewyk's Argumentative Analysis
    • 1452 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Donald L. Niewyk's Argumentative Analysis

    Donald L. Niewyk’s fifth and sixth chapters both deal more with outside perspectives and outside reactions than it does with those who were persecuted. The fifth chapter, “Bystander Reactions,” offers four different arguments as to why bystanders acted they way they did during the Holocaust. The sixth chapter, “Possibilities of Rescue,” discusses three different viewpoints on what foreign governments could have done to prevent the Holocaust. These two chapters conclude Niewyk’s book The Holocaust and wrap up the final sequence of events surrounding the Holocaust and the camps.…

    • 1452 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Duckwitz Research Papers
    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Duckwitz Research Papers

    During the Nazi trade of Lithuania a German Sergeant, Anton Schmid, disobeyed his superior officers and saved 250 Jewish man, females, and children. In Buchenwald a four-year-old-fashioned lad, Joseph Schleifstein, survived the horrors of the KZ cantonment, covert from the Nazis until liberation. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been quell by the Nazis. At the end of a seven-Time back-breaking trip in the inactive of hiems, the SS guards completely situation the two assurance cattle-cars with their earthling freight at the gates of Brunnlitz. - Louis Bümound. It seems as though there is no beau of human thing, no play of humankind, to lighten that mysterious annals. In Auschwitz the missionary Jane Haining reject to deny her goats and showed herself to be a saintling. In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the hostility. She was murdered in the qualifier chambers. “Oh, bless you so much. Emilie Schindler was just in time to suspend the SS camp commandant from emit the train…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Holocaust Investigative Essay: Paralleled Universe
    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Holocaust Investigative Essay: Paralleled Universe

    During the late 1930’s the world was contaminated by the Second World War and the Holocaust. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Holocaust is defined as follows: “a sacrifice wholly consumed by fire.” During the Holocaust, the Nazis, under the command of Adolf Hitler, liquidated over six million Jews. There is one Jewish survivor whose story especially touched my heart and changed my attitude towards life for the better. This amazing woman is Krystyna Chiger. Krystyna and her family escaped the Nazi liquidation by living in sewers for fourteen months (qtd. in “The Girl in the Green Sweater” 5). Accordingly, thorough assessments of my personal experiences according to the life lessons of Krystyna Chiger descriptively visualize the Holocaust and its everlasting impact on society.…

    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Agnes Tennenbaum: A Holocaust Survivor
    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Agnes Tennenbaum: A Holocaust Survivor

    Beginning in 1933, the horrible event known as the Holocaust took place. Many Jews were taken from their homes and thrown into concentration camps. It took many years for people across the world to find out the ugly truth that was going on. A man named Hitler, which was known as a savior in many people’s eyes, was now known as the man who was responsible for taking the lives of a huge number of Jews. The purpose of this paper is to give information on what happened during the holocaust, to talk about a brave survivor of this event, and how this survivor was liberated from such a terrible situation.…

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Why Did Hitler Tell Them We Remember Essay
    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Why Did Hitler Tell Them We Remember Essay

    Bachrach, Susan. Tell Them We Remember: The Story of the Holocaust. New York: Little Brown & Company,…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Michael Bornstein
    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Michael Bornstein

    Michael Bornstein experienced a life much different than ours. He suffered, persevered, and overcame all the obstacles that stood in his way. When he began his lecture, he talked about his story, and his family’s story. He was born in the ghetto around 1940 and only knew a life after war. His dad was an accountant, and his mom and grandma had little to no education. During his beginning of life, the ghetto (Zarki) was changing from an community to a close community. The dad was the president of a Jewish committee but was also the in between person with the police. As the ghetto became stricter the dad would collect money to hand out 600+ visa’s to save lives of the other Jews, and would bribe other officers to stop sending people to death camps.…

    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Night By Elie Wiesel Analysis
    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Night By Elie Wiesel Analysis

    More than six million Jews were killed in World War II, with over two million of those killed, being children. The Jews were targeted in a mass genocide by the Nazis’, who ultimately were defeated, but not because of what they were doing to the Jews but because the allied forces were able to stop the Germans military advance. Elie Wiesel, author of Night, a biographical account of the Holocaust, does a skillful job in his narrative, showing us how hard it was for people to grasp the unbelievable possibility of what the Nazis were doing to the Jews. We have to regularly remind ourselves of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust so that we are never lulled into believing that people couldn’t do something…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Who Is Raoul Wallenberg?
    • 1357 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Who Is Raoul Wallenberg?

    Their stories of the Nazi persecutions affected him deeply. Perhaps because he had a very humane attitude to life and because he owned a drop of Jewish blood (Raoul's grandmother's grandfather was a Jew by the name of Benedicks whom arrived to Sweden by the end of the 18th century). Wallenberg returned to Sweden from Haifa in 1936 and resumed his old interest for business. Through his cousin Jacobs' good contacts in the business world, Raoul was eventually brought together with Koloman Lauer, a Hungarian Jew, who was the director of a Swedish based import and export company specializing in food and delicacies.…

    • 1357 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Raoul Wallenberg
    • 1275 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Raoul Wallenberg

    Growing up, there is a label on each and every person, and on that label, there are expectations. Every single plant, animal, thing, human has to meet the expectations placed upon their label. Whether they like it or not, this label, and these expectations stay with them their whole life. Good, bad, smart, athletic, and so on. What they have been pre-described, shapes their life, for the better or worse, and just like any other time, the time during the Holocaust much was the same. However, the expectations that were placed on every single human, country, and government did not seem to be met. Every one of them all had the same excuse. “We did not…

    • 1275 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Examples Of Dehumanization And Elie Wiesel
    • 236 Words
    • 1 Page

    Examples Of Dehumanization And Elie Wiesel

    The tragedy we know today as the Holocaust has set the mark for horrific events that followed, and to come. This catastrophe is one of the greatest examples of dehumanization, and Elie Wiesel offers his first hand account of the disaster to educate people on what took place during this time. Wiesel shares with his audience the brutality, and hatefulness of the Nazis and their followers. He presents his readers with multiple instances of people being stripped of their rights, and humanity. In correlation with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a number of rights have been broken or cease to exist.…

    • 236 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A berlin Diary
    • 508 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A berlin Diary

    The main character Christopher Isherwood is painted as an observer, recording the occurrences around him in the city of Berlin. He says at the beginning of the story, “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.” This is ironic as Isherwood conveys to the audience the details that a camera could not reveal. He shows the atmosphere and beliefs of Pre-Nazi Germany through his descriptive inciting of the senses, “Young men calling their girls. Standing down there in the cold, they whistle up at the lighted windows of warm rooms where the beds are already turned down for the night,” this quote highlights Isherwood’s use of the sense of sound, “the extraordinary smell in this room when the stove is lighted and the window shut… a mixture of incense and stale buns,” it is evident that the previous quote was referring to one's sense of smell and finally “ Here at the writing table, I am confronted by a phalanx of metal objects - a pair of candlesticks shaped like entwined serpents, an ashtray from which emerges the head of a crocodile, a paper knife copied from a Florentine dagger, a brass dolphin holding on the end of its tail a small broken clock.” The use of the literary devices throughout the previous quotes draws the reader to gather together the physical surroundings as components of the overriding metaphor of safes. This metaphor captures the idea of a decline in wealth, security and even hope, the image of a “bankrupt middle class” that Isherwood was trying to portray of the city of Berlin in the nineteen-thirties.…

    • 508 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Text
    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Text

    When Benny was sent overseas in the autumn of 1941 his father, Mr. Garber, thought that if he had to give up one son to the army, it might as well be Benny who was a quiet boy, and who wouldn’t push where he shouldn’t; and Mrs. Garber thought: “my Benny, he’ll take care, he’ll watch out;” and Benny’s brother Abe thought “when he comes back, I’ll have a garage of my own, you bet, and I’ll be able to give him a job.” Benny wrote every week, and every week the Garbers sent him parcels full of good things that a Jewish boy should always have, like salami and pickled herring and shtrudel. The food parcels were always the same, and the letters — coming from Camp Borden and Aldershot and Normandy and Hol­ land — were always the same too. They began — “I hope you are all well and good” — and ended — “don’t worry, all the best to everybody, thank you for the parcel.”…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics