The Germans who formed an underground resistance movement to stop Hitler's genocide had obvious motives: they lived inside Germany and had direct access to information about secret plans for the Holocaust, and had direct opportunities to do something to stop it. Thousands of Jewish Germans and Jewish Poles were saved by men like Oskar Schindler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Max Kolbe.
Raoul Wallenberg, however, wasn't a German, and didn't live in Germany. His decision to rescue Jews, a decision which cost him his life, is therefore significant. His "special mission" to Budapest saved thousands of Jewish Hungarians. The President of the United States remarked about Wallenberg:
He came from a prominent family, but he chose to help the most vulnerable. He was a Lutheran, and yet he risked his life to save Jews. “I will never be able to go back to Stockholm,” he said, “without knowing inside myself I’d done all a man could do to save as many Jews as possible.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that
It is important to recall not just the Holocaust's horrors, but also its heroes: bearers of witness like Jan Karski; rescuers like Wallenberg and Schindler; writers like Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel; and resistors like the Danes and the righteous of many nations who hid and saved many thousands of their Jewish neighbors.
Who was this Swedish Lutheran, who studied in United States, and wound up in Hungary? His development included spending time at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He traveled extensively in Africa. He also traveled in Israel, and after a stay near the Sea of Galilee, he described his experiences in a letter:
The next morning we went swimming in the lake, which is situated a couple of hundred feet below sea level and is the one on which Jesus walked.
Elsewhere in Israel, he wrote about how he spent his reflective time:
Sundays, I usually take a walk up Mount Carmel (where the Carmelite fathers originated) and admire the view.
These travel experiences gave him a global perspective, and his later activities in saving the lives of others takes on a special significance in light of his time spent in Israel.
The details of Wallenberg's efforts, which saved thousands of Jews, have been recorded in detail; great mystery, however, surrounds his final disappearance and death, presumably at the hands of Soviet intelligence officers. What is clear, however, is that his character was a spiritual and powerful one, motivating and enabling him to undertake his special mission to Budapest.
