History Day

For the past few months I've been following the progress of a seventh-grade friend of mine, AEG (actually -- one of her favorite words -- she's the daughter of a friend, JSG), laboring over History Day.

It's a more interactive and individualistic exposure to history than the the rote regurgitation of facts from a textbook that my generation was raised on, and one which should hardly have been so novel to me, since, when I asked my own son if he had ever participated, he reminded me with a look of condescending impatience of his award-winning video (twenty years ago) on the architecture of Lynchburg.

Drawing on a specific theme -- this year it's "Debate and Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences" -- the student selects a topic, conducts his own research, and creates a paper, performance, documentary, exhibit, or web site, which must consist of not only a description of an event but also an analysis of it.

Fortunately for AEG, her mother "loves History Day," and, like an eager scuba diver, immersed herself in the uncharted waters from the day the former deposited her bright red informational folder on the kitchen counter, flashed her rosy-cheeked grin, rolled her soulful green eyes, and emitted a silent thought bubble: "What now?"

Adding to the pressure was a daunting family tradition. One brother had earned a ticket to the National Finals by assuming the persona of Isaac Stern speaking and performing at Carnegie Hall. Another would have followed in his wake had he not, in a stunning burst of honesty, nobly admitted never having read the entire Uncle Tom's Cabin novel upon which his original one-man docudrama was based.

If one learns nothing else, it's how to follow directions, since the rules for History Day are both extensive and exhaustive -- at least twenty-five depending on the format, specifying such minutia as exhibit size, time limits, type size, and page-numbering.

Entries must clearly relate to the theme and possess historical importance -- thus eliminating one of my favorite debates, the struggle for baseball free agency. They must include a title page, an annotated bibliography identifying primary and secondary sources (the difference between which I did not learn until high school), and a 500-word process paper.

As many as four students may team up; having always been suspicious of group study, I'm pleased to see that all of them "must be involved in research and interpretation," although I'm not sure how this is monitored, other than by the Honor System.

Parents are permitted to help in the one area their children could most help them: typing.

After several days of diplomacy, debate, and anxiety, AEG, whose popularity makes her a much sought-after coworker, decides to take the solo route, loath to reject and disappoint any of the classmates clamoring for her many talents, particularly theatrics. Besides, she has a resourceful partner already -- her enthusiastic mother.

The next order of business is to select a topic. While I'm not sure if originality is permissible, certainly the proffered list of about eighty includes a surfeit of juicy possibilities. The art is to find one broad enough to be significant yet restrictive enough to be manageable, given its inherent constraints.

As we peruse the titles -- I've been enlisted as a consultant -- some fail the first test, carrying too little weight (The Purchase of Alaska, Setting Silver/Gold Standards of 1896, The Pure Food and Drug Act, The Release of Francis Gary Powers), while others don't pass the second, too expansive in detail and implications for a seventh-grader to explicate adequately (The Federal Reserve Act, Brown v. Board of Education, The Six-Day War, Diplomacy at Versailles 1919).

Scrolling down, I'm startled by two, then three, Holocaust-related suggestions -- Finding Guilt: Judgment at Nuremberg; Debating the Final Solution: Wannsee; and Raoul Wallenburg: Negotiating for Lives.

"Raoul Wallenberg. Do you know who he was?" I inquire of mother and daughter, who stare at me like two lovely deer caught in the headlights. "He saved thousands of Jews during World War II. You can look him up on my blog -- and lots of other places." In fact, he had surfaced a few months ago when I was researching a Sphex Club paper on America's feeble response to the Holocaust.

"Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish businessman who volunteered to go to Budapest, Hungary, in 1944 under the auspices of President Roosevelt's War Refugee Board. Most accounts credit him with rescuing 100,000 Jews from deportation and certain death."

A little googling piques their interest and confirms my report. Further discussion leads us all to the conclusion that here is a topic ideally suited to the parameters of History Day.

The Holocaust is the signature genocide of a century that witnessed too many of them. In researching it, AEG will be exposed not only to its unrelenting horror -- the subjugation and extermination of an isolated ethnic group -- but also to a redeeming display of heroism against overwhelming odds.

This is diplomacy of the highest order, yet conducted at a frenzied pace, in a surreal environment, as Wallenburg negotiates for human lives, employing a wide variety of techniques, occasionally legitimate, more often bogus: bargaining, threatening, posturing, lying, falsifying documents.

A secondary theme emerges, simplistic yet powerful: how one man, by choosing to act, forcefully, courageously, selflessly, can make a difference, belying the professed helplessness and vacuous rhetoric of the establishment.

Finally, since History Day seeks to invigorate what might otherwise be dry recitations of the past, the appropriate mode of presentation is self-evident: the testimonial, or personal revelation, whether by letter, journal, or oral narrative, of a Holocaust victim who owes her survival to Raoul Wallenberg.

And so, after providing some essential background material, let me assume the role of a triumphant seventh grader and submit my own version of her History Day production, while reassuring my faithful readers that she has indeed completed hers, in a succinct 500 words compared to my own habitually lengthy exposition.

Born in 1912, Raoul Wallenberg was heir to a long line of Swedish statesmen, bishops, diplomats, militarists, and financiers. (Morse, p. 362) His father having died three months before his birth (his mother later remarried), he fell under the tutelage of his paternal grandfather, Gustav, ambassador to Japan and later Turkey. Raoul acquiesced to his grandfather's wish that he pursue a career in commerce, but only after earning a degree in architecture at the University of Michigan. A classmate there remembered him as "a talented yet modest person who showed great insight in finding simple solutions to complex problems." (Bierman, p. 21)

With his grandfather's influence, he found work selling building materials, timber, and chemicals in Cape Town, Africa -- where one partner described him as a "splendid organizer" whose "ability to carry on negotiations has been made use of to the fullest" -- and later in Haifa, Palestine -- where he encountered a number of young Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. (Bierman, pp. 23-24)

Gustav died in 1937, granting the young man a greater degree of independence. He went to work for a Jewish refugee in the import-export business who needed "a reliable Gentile who could travel freely in Europe and the Nazi-occupied countries." It was on such business trips to France, Germany, and Hungary that Wallenberg witnessed the brutal effects of Nazi anti-Semitism. (Bierman, p. 26)

His friends at the time have testified that he was appalled by the horror he saw and "frustrated by his inability to do anything about it." One said "he seemed depressed. I had the feeling he wanted to do something more worthwhile with his life." He told his half-sister he wanted to emulate Pimpernel Smith, the absent-minded professor who rescued dozens of victims from the Nazis in the film of the same name. (Bierman, pp. 27-29)

By the spring of 1944, Hungary was sheltering 760,000 Jewish refugees and natives, who had been spared the gas chambers by the lenient regency of Admiral Miklos von Horthy, a German ally but a reluctant accessory to mass murder. In March, Hitler, infuriated by Horthy's procrastination, intervened, forced the appointment of a more militant government, and, two months later, initiated large-scale deportations under the personal supervision of Adolph Eichmann. Between May 14th and July 7th, 430,000 Jews were shipped to Auschwitz aboard 148 trains; the remaining 230,000 awaited Eichmann's final twenty-four hour blitz, which would complete, in his words, "a deportation surpassing in magnitude every preceding one." (Bierman, p. 39)

World opinion mobilized in defense of the Hungarian Jews. Pope Pius XV urged Horthy to intervene and warned he would excommunicate the Nazi accomplices. (Morse, p. 353) President Roosevelt threatened to bomb Hungary and promised retribution after the war. The International Committee of the Red Cross appealed to Horthy and "the chivalrous tradition of the great Hungarian people." (Morse, p. 362) King Gustav V of Sweden, conscious of his country's high reputation in humanitarian matters, protested "the extraordinarily harsh methods" and implored Horthy to "take measures to save those who still remained." (Fenyvesi, p. 8)

Recognizing that Germany was destined for defeat, Horthy ordered a halt to the deportations.

Saving the surviving remnant became the top priority of President Roosevelt's newly-formed War Refugee Board (WRB). When Gustav agreed to expand his diplomatic and consular staffs in Hungary, the task of recruiting a suitable envoy fell to Ivar Olsen, the WRB's representative in Sweden. Among the prominent Swedish Jews convened by Olsen to advise him was Raoul Wallenberg's business partner, Koloman Lauer; he cited Wallenberg's quick wits, energy, courage, and compassion in endorsing him for the job. (Bierman, p. 31)

Wallenberg was determined not to be hamstrung in his mission by bureaucratic protocols or red tape. Among the conditions which he insisted upon, all of which were approved by the Foreign Office, were: a free hand to use any methods he saw fit, including bribery; empowerment to deal directly with any persons he wished, including enemies of the regime and members of the Hungarian government; and authorization to grant asylum in Legation-owned buildings to persons holding Swedish protective passes. (Bierman, p. 33)

Wallenberg arrived in Budapest on July 9,1944; his passenger train "quite probably crossed paths en route with the twenty-nine cattle cars transporting the last batch of Hungary's provincial Jews to Auschwitz." (Bierman, p.39) His unparalleled accomplishments during those last desperate months of the war are legendary. Among those who witnessed the exceptionalism of this "Righteous Gentile" was Anna Goldman, a thirteen-year old survivor, whose oral testimony is herein transcribed for History Day.

Day after day, we often think, "What have we done to deserve to be treated this way? Why do the Nazis hate us so much?" (Fenyvesi, p. 37) They make us wear yellow stars. They take away our telephones, our bicycles, our appliances, even my mother's wedding ring. They herd us into ghettos, where no one can go in or out and everything is forbidden. But the most awful thing of all is that the punishment for everything is death. People are beaten until they reveal where their possessions are hidden. Others are locked into wagons, eighty at a time, given one pail of water, and left to suffocate in the terrible heat. (Bierman, pp. 45-47)

We think, "It cannot go on like this. God is bound to send someone to help us." (Fenyvesi, p. 37) And He does.

His name is Raoul Wallenberg.

I have seen him myself a few times. He is tall, slender, very good-looking, with dark hair and fine features -- not your typical blond-haired, blue-eyed Swede. He has the manner of a European patrician, superior in every way, and projects an air of authority. (Fenyvesi, p. 39)

Before his arrival, a few lucky Jews with demonstrable business or family ties to Sweden were able to obtain protective passes indicating they were awaiting emigration or travel. One day a friend shows me an impressive-looking Schutz-Pass; it is "printed in yellow and blue, embellished with the triple crown of the Royal Swedish government, and dotted with seals, stamps, a photo, and signatures," almost like it has been designed by an artist. "After being reduced to mere things by all the measures and propaganda against us, it makes me feel like a real human being," she says. (Bierman, p. 52)

Wallenberg uses bribery, blackmail, and skillful negotiating to convince the Hungarian Ministry to increase its initial authorization of these passes from 1500 to eventually 20,000; his success encourages other legations to follow suit. I see friends with Spanish passports and Swiss passports. One is baptized in an air raid shelter. Another escapes with her family to Palestine using documents issued by the Papal Nuncio. Imagine that: Hungarian Jews transformed overnight into Swedes, Spaniards, Roman Catholics.

They say the man never sleeps. He throws himself at his task with the same zeal, energy, and organizational efficiency that his demon counterpart exhibits in pursuing his own murderous agenda. (Bierman, p. 53) In a few short weeks, Wallenberg has wrought miracles: setting up hospitals, nurseries, and soup kitchens; purchasing food, clothing, and medicine; accumulating a staff of four hundred; and coordinating the rescue and relief efforts of all the neutral missions. (Morse, p. 364)

Even though the trains have stopped, we never feel safe. Walking the streets, we stay close to the walls because we never know when we might be accosted by a policeman accusing us of hiding our yellow stars. (Bierman, p. 64) One day a strange girl about my age turns up in the neighborhood with the words "war whore" tattooed on her arm; she is too ashamed and traumatized to tell us what happened to her after she was kidnapped three days ago. (Bierman, p. 54)

A rumor flies through the ghetto that one million Jews (Where are they?) will be ransomed for ten thousand trucks and other non-lethal war material; if it were ever true -- unlikely, when one considers Eichmann's monomaniacal blood lust -- the Russians veto it, staunchly opposed to supplying their enemy.

The Horthy government, emboldened by the collapse of neighboring Romania and the advancing Allied armies, demands and secures the withdrawal of Eichmann and his Kommandos from Budapest. It also manages to prevent the transfer of all able-bodied Jews in the city to nearby work camps, where the back-breaking labor and undernourishment portend certain death. (Bierman, p. 70)

October 15th is a day of excruciating emotional turmoil. With the Russian army rapidly approaching, Admiral Horthy broadcasts a proclamation that the war is over. "This is the moment we have been waiting for after so many terrible months . . . It seems incredible . . . that we can now go out into the streets, cast off our yellow stars, and look for our relatives." Bierman, pp. 73-74)

Within hours, however, a different, ominous voice is heard. The Germans storm across the city, kidnap Horthy's son, and, holding him hostage, intimidate the Hungarian ruler into surrendering to them, abdicating his position, and fleeing the country. Their surrogate Arrow Cross party takes control, headed by the fanatical anti-Semite, Ferenc Szalasi. "The next day Eichmann returns to Budapest in triumph." (Bierman, p. 75)

Now Szalasi's thugs roam the street, looking for Jews to kill. Some -- as many as 13,000, eventually -- find refuge in one of the thirty-two apartment buildings Wallenberg has begged, borrowed, and rented, where the Swedish flag flies overhead like a beacon of hope, food and medicine are stashed in every corner, and forty doctors stand by to inoculate newcomers against typhoid and cholera. (Morse, p. 367) "The Swede is now Budapest's number one landlord." (Fenyvesi, p. 46)

When Hungarian gendarmes try to force their way into one of these safe houses with orders to seize all able-bodied men, Wallenberg bars the entrance. "Nonsense," he says. "This is Swedish territory. You have no right to be on these premises . . . By agreement between the Royal Swedish Government and the Royal Hungarian Government, these men are specifically exempted from labor levies . . . If you want to take them, you will have to shoot me first." The gendarmes leave empty-handed. (Bierman, p. 92)

A bizarre negotiation with the Arrow Cross government saves more lives. When Interior Minister Vajna announces the illegitimacy of Jews belonging to the Roman Catholic or Lutheran churches and the invalidity of foreign passports and letters of safe conduct, Wallenberg persuades Foreign Minister Kemeny to rescind the directive -- appealing to the sympathies of his wife, who is of Jewish birth, and to the regime's desire for international recognition. (Bierman, p. 77)

When, despite a shortage of equipment, the Auschwitz-bound trains begin rolling again, the resourceful rescuer chases them down. "How dare you attempt to remove these people who are under the protection of the Royal Swedish legation?" he demands of the lieutenant in charge, who produces his orders and a list of prisoners. "Your list cannot possibly include Jews who hold Swedish passports. And if it does, someone has made a grievous mistake, and he will pay for it," says Wallenberg. He brandishes his own list, and gets his wards off the train. (Bierman, p. 92)

At Kelenfold, on the western outskirts of Budapest, a deportation center, he flaunts his Swedish credentials and plunges into the crowd, "waving documents and shouting, 'You -- Mr. Katz! Mr. Berger! We have your papers!' The names don't matter, of course. Most of them are just made up. He hands out documents to those nearby," and snatches anyone who flashes a driver's license or ration card. "In the confusion, even people who have nothing are able to slip away." (Fenyvesi, pp. 47-48)

At the Jozsefvaros Railway Station, he brushes past an SS officer, climbs up on the roof of the train, and begins thrusting protective passes through the unsealed doors. The Arrow Cross men shout at him to desist and then open fire, deliberately aiming over his head, so as not to hit him. Wallenberg calmly orders all those with passports to disembark and leads them to a caravan of cars parked nearby, past their dumfounded captors. (Bierman, p. 91)

Weary of contesting the German Army for every locomotive and cattle car, Eichmann, resolute as ever, conceives the diabolical plan of deporting the remaining Jews on foot -- 120 miles to the Austrian border. In the bitter cold of late November, my mother and I fall in among thirty thousand refugees (one fifth will die en route) straggling down the highway, ragged, starving, exhausted, many so old they can hardly crawl. Whipped on by Hungarian guards, those who falter or fall are shot. (Morse, p. 368)

"The conditions are frightful. We walk twenty miles a day in freezing rain . . . One night we stop in a square in the middle of a village, and lay down to rest, without shelter. . . In the morning some of the older women are dead." (Bierman, p. 80)

When we reach the frontier, I manage to slip away to a barn where hundreds of women claiming to hold Swedish passports are being held. "A few days later I hear a great commotion among the women. 'It's Wallenberg,' they say. . . Dozens cluster around him, crying 'Save us, save us.' "

"How handsome he looks -- and how clean -- in his leather coat and hat, like he's from another world . . . Why does he bother with such wretched creatures as we . . . He says: 'Please, you must forgive me, but I cannot help you all. I can only provide certificates for a hundred of you . . . I feel I have a mission to save the Jewish nation and so I must rescue the young ones first' . . . He adds my name to his list. After a day or two, the hundred of us whose names have been recorded are put on a train bound for Budapest." (Bierman, pp. 81-82)

After my rescue, the Hungarian Fascists come to the house where I am staying and kidnap several women. They are taken to the river, expecting the worst, when a car arrives, and out steps Wallenberg. Confronting the Arrow Cross guards, he argues that the women are under his protection. "He has incredible charisma, great personal authority -- because there is absolutely nothing behind him, nothing to back him up . . . The guards can shoot him in the street and no one will know. Instead, they relent and let the women go." (Bierman, p. 89)

Somehow he has intuited that "he can order high-ranking Germans around by raising his voice just a little and giving it the right firmness." When Germans cannot read the rank on someone's shoulders, because he's wearing civilian clothes, and fear he may have been sent by Hitler or Himmler, they prefer to obey orders. (Fenyvesi, p. 49)

What's extraordinary is the absolutely convincing power of his behavior. When his personal driver is arrested by the Arrow Cross, he drives straight to their headquarters, marches inside, demands his release, and within minutes emerges with the man in tow. (Bierman, p. 90)

Some say Wallenberg is not a brave man, that he is always the first to seek shelter during an air raid. But when it is a question of saving lives, he never hesitates, acting boldly and fearlessly, even though the risk is much greater. (Fenyvesi, p. 52)

One miracle the imperturbable Wallenberg cannot consummate is to deflect Eichmann from his path of destruction. During a chance encounter, the saint invites the sinner to dine with him. After the "pleasures of good food, fine wine, and inconsequential chatter," he launches an attack on the Nazi doctrine, predicting the total defeat of its adherents. Eichmann responds, but his "propaganda phrases sound hollow compared with Wallenberg's intelligent reasoning. Finally he says, 'I admit you are right, Herr Wallenberg. I have never believed in Nazism, as such, but it has given me power and wealth. I know this pleasant life of mine will soon be over.' " (Bierman, pp. 99-100)

Nevertheless, he resolves to "obey his orders from Berlin and exercise his power harshly enough so that he may prolong his respite for some time." He warns Wallenberg that he will do his utmost to stop him, and that his Swedish passport will not protect him should Eichmann decide to have him removed; after all, "accidents do happen, even to a neutral diplomat" (Bierman, p. 100) -- including a car bombing and a truck ramming, both of which fail to harm their intended victim.

Despite his bluster at the dinner party, Eichmann flees Budapest on December 23rd, leaving orders with the Arrow Cross and the German Army to liquidate the 100,000 surviving Jews.

The first phase of the final act involves the transfer on foot of 25,000 Jews from the International Ghetto to the General Ghetto, where 75,000 are already on the verge of starvation. Wallenberg bribes Arrow Cross officials to cancel this order in exchange for Swedish food supplies and protective passes.

Now our fate lies in the hands of SS General August Schmidthuber. Wallenberg sends word to Schmidthuber that he will hold the General personally responsible for any massacre and see to it that he is hanged as a war criminal. With the Russians' arrival imminent, Schmidthuber realizes he has no time to find Wallenberg and silence him. "His nerve breaks. He picks up the telephone and instructs his men that under no circumstances are the ghetto killings to take place." Our defiant warrior claims his final victory. (Bierman, p. 116)

When the smoke clears, twenty-five thousand more of our brothers and sisters emerge from their hiding places in Gentile homes, monasteries, convents, and church cellars; they too owe their lives to the prodigious efforts of this brave and kind man.

Wallenberg himself was not so fortunate. Believing his best hope for securing emergency food and medical supplies for the decimated Jewish community was the Russian Army, he gathered his personal belongings and the rest of his funds, and on January 17th, 1945, left with his driver and a Russian escort for its headquarters in Debrecen, 120 miles to the east. He was never seen or heard from again.

Because of his association with the War Refugee Board and the known affiliation of his sponsor, Ivar Olsen with the U.S. espionage agency, the Office of Strategic Services, the Russians suspected him of being a spy. Whether he was or not, "the fact that he was a heroic rescuer of Jews only strengthened the Soviet determination to get him. They hated heroes . . . and probably laughed when he told them he saved Jews because he believed in humanity." Moreover, as a first step toward communizing Hungary, they were systematically eliminating foreign influences, and regarded him as an American imperialist agent. (Fenyvesi, p. 71)

Since 1941, well-intentioned statesmen had wrung their hands in frustration, affirming a proper measure of compassion, bemoaning the Jewish tragedy, and lamenting their inability to stay the executioner's sword. While it is true that Hungary presented a uniquely receptive environment, who can say if another person would have seized the day as Wallenberg did, or what factors in his personality drove him so relentlessly in his self-imposed crusade?

Undoubtedly, he was courageous, steadfast, and unselfish -- to a point seldom associated with "real, living people" -- and motivated by a simple belief in goodness and a desire to foil evil, a natural humanitarian sympathetic to the weak and downtrodden. (Fenyvesi, pp. 50-51)

But beyond that, he embraced his mission as an opportunity to exercise his individuality, to shatter his family's traditional commercial boundaries. He exulted in an unprecedented freedom of action. "He could operate outside the narrowly defined laws of any one country or community . . . Though posted as a diplomat, he ignored the restrictions of that code-bound profession. He himself would determine what was right." In a universe of moral inversion, anything that saved lives -- lying, bluffing, forging documents -- was permissible. (Fenyvesi, p.52)

The Jews of Budapest named a street for Raoul Wallenberg. There was little more they could do to express their gratitude, since he had disappeared into the vastness of the Soviet Union. But the Israelite Congregation of Pest, where the Swedish safe houses had been located, paid him this tribute:

"We witnessed the redemption of prisoners and the relief of suffering when Mr. Wallenberg came among the persecuted to help. In a superhuman effort, not yielding to fatigue and exposing himself to all sorts of dangers, he brought home children who had been dragged away and he liberated parents. We saw him give food to the starving and aid to the ailing . . . He was a righteous man." (Morse, pp. 373-374)

REFERENCES

Bierman, John. Righteous Gentile: The Story of Raoul Wallenberg, Missing Hero of the Holocaust. New York: The Viking Press, 1981.

Fenyvesi, Charles. When Angels Fooled the World: Rescuers of Jews in Wartime Hungary. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.

Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. New York: Random House, 1967.