Born to a wealthy Swedish family. Wallenberg left the safety of his home to go to Budapest. Hungary. in the summer of 1944 on a highrisk mission from the American War Refugee Board to save tens of thousands of innocent children. women. and older men. Displaying remarkable courage. Wallenberg printed Swedish passports and passed them out to thousands of Jews. Singlehandedly he approached deportation trains and literally pulled people out of the cattle cars destined for extermination camps. He purchased or rented dozens of buildings. which he then designated Swedish territory. and filled them with the persecuted to protect them from Fascist roundup squads. Through his efforts. Wallenberg saved an estimated 100.000 Hungarian Jews from the "final solution." Neither I. nor my wife. nor our children. nor our grandchildren would be here today If it were not for Raoul Wallenberg. During that whole dark nightmare. no one else directly confronted Nazi cruelty. No one else had the audacity to follow the death marches. to Jump in front of guns leveled at Jews. to pull people off deportation trains. Raoul Wallenberg not only saved 100.000 lives. he saved our faith in humanity. In retrospect. perhaps Wallenbergs greatest contribution is his reminder to us of the human dimension of human rights. We usually define human rights by international treaty: the right to emigrate guaranteed by the Helsinki Final Act. for example. In the. best of worlds. International agreements alone would ensure all peoples basic human rights.
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emigrate Refugee deportation