Sixty-two years ago today the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg was arrested in Budapest. Officially, Wallenberg was the First Secretary to the Swedish legation. In reality, Wallenberg's primary business during the period between July of 1944 and the liberation of Budapest had been to save Hungarian Jews from deportation to Nazi extermination camps.
He managed this by issuing them with bogus "protective passports" that identified the bearer as a Swedish subject awaiting repatriation. When the fake documents failed to influence Nazi functionaries, Wallenberg was not above threatening them with prosecution for war crimes after the war ended. Yad Veshem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial, credits Wallenberg with saving thousands of Hungarian Jews.
The Soviet Army arrested Wallenberg shortly after they entered Budapest. Supposedly, they thought he had been spying for the United States, but no charges were ever published. As for the validity of the accusation, the US government has never confirmed whether or not Wallenberg was a US agent.
Wallenberg was transferred to the notorious Lubyanka prison shortly after his arrest. What happened to him after that is any body's guess. The Soviet government claimed that he died of an illness in 1947, but prisoners in the Soviet gulag system reported seeing him as late as the 1990s.
There is a bitter irony in Wallenberg's fate. He fought tirelessly and at great personal risk by one totalitarian regime, only to be incarcerated by another one. His legacy, however, did not die with him. Wallenberg not only saved thousands -- he inspires millions. As United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said, Wallenberg is a model for us to "act when we can". We may not be able to save numerous lives, but we can all be a force for good in this world.
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