London’s memorial to Raoul Wallenberg: The diplomat who saved thousands
In a small crescent on a side street near Marble Arch stands a memorial to a remarkable man who was twice declared to be dead.
This is the memorial to Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who used his position as Sweden’s special envoy to Budapest to save thousands of Jews in German-occupied Hungary during the Holocaust from German Nazis and Hungarian fascists during the later stages of World War II.
However, during the Soviet siege of the city in 1945, he was snatched by Soviet agents and imprisoned in Russia’s notorious Lubyanka prison.
In 1957, the Soviet government later claimed that he had died from a heart attack in 1947, although later investigations suggest he had been executed. However, the exact cause of death was never cleared up, and there were even suggestions that he hadn’t died and was still in prison elsewhere.
To this day, there are still ongoing efforts to solve the mystery of what happened to him.
Eventually, in 2016, the Swedish Tax Agency declared him dead in absentia, with the pro forma date of death noted as 31st July 1952, five years after he was last seen alive.
As a humanitarian who saved thousands of people from the Nazis, he was posthumously awarded a lot of honours, and one of them was the public memorial in London.
The statue, by Scottish sculptor Philip Jackson is located outside the Western Marble Arch Synagogue, and was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997, in the presence of the President of Israel, Ezer Weizman, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, and survivors of the Holocaust.
It’s an interesting design, as a large bronze slab with a sulpture of the man on one side, but it’s the other side that is fascinating — showing large bundles of documents.
These represent the papers that he signed while in Budapest that enabled the Jews to escape the Nazis looking to send them to their deaths. A few open papers have slipped off the pile and lie on the floor, showing what the documents looked like.
A side panel explains who he was and what he did. Although it does cite a number of 230,000 people saved by his actions, that is now thought to be a considerable exaggeration. Even so, the thousands he did save are substantial.
Around the base, a long inscription reads:
- The 20th century spawned two of history’s vilest tyrannies.
- Raoul Wallenberg outwitted the first but was swallowed up by the second.
- His triumph over Nazi genocide reminds us that the courageous and committed individual can prevail against even the cruellest state machine.
- The fate of the six million Jews he was unable to rescue reminds us of the evils to which racist ideas can drive whole nations.
- Finally his imprisonment reminds us not only of Soviet brutality but also of the ignorance and indifference which led the free world to abandon him.
- We must never forget these lessons.
SUPPORT THIS WEBSITE
This website has been running now for over a decade, and while advertising revenue contributes to funding the website, it doesn't cover the costs. That is why I have set up a facility with DonorBox where you can contribute to the costs of the website and time invested in writing and research for the news articles.
It's very similar to the way The Guardian and many smaller websites are now seeking to generate an income in the face of rising costs and declining advertising.
Whether it's a one-off donation or a regular giver, every additional support goes a long way to covering the running costs of this website, and keeping you regularly topped up doses of Londony news and facts.
If you like what you read on here, then please support the website here.
Thank you