GREENSTREET

Located in the shadow of the United Nations at First Avenue and East 47th Street, this striking monument honors the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg (1912-Α), who is credited with helping to save the lives of some 100,000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust in World War II (1939-1945). The monument was crafted by Swedish sculptor Gustav Kraitz (born in Hungary, 1926) in collaboration with his wife Ulla Kraitz, and was dedicated in 1998.

Wallenberg was born into a prominent Swedish banking family on August 4, 1912. Trained as an architect at the University of Michigan, he became a businessman and traveled widely in Europe before and during World War II. Meanwhile in Hungary, persecution of the country’s large Jewish population intensified toward the end of the war, with mass executions and deportations. In 1944, the American Refugee Board sought the aid of neutral Sweden in its efforts to save as many of the country’s Jews as possible.

Wallenberg was chosen to lead the rescue operation, largely because of his many business contacts in Hungary and elsewhere on the continent. With no prior background, he was posted to the Swedish Legation in Budapest as first secretary, and proved inventive and fearless. By the time he arrived in Budapest in July 1944, the Swedish diplomatic mission was besieged with requests by those threatened with persecution and eventual death. He contrived official-looking passports that declared the bearer to be under Swedish protection, and sheltered a large number of Jewish refugees in “safe houses” that he bought or rented throughout the city.

In January 1945, the Soviet army was stationed on the outskirts of Budapest. On January 17, 1945 Wallenberg left the city under military escort for a meeting with a Soviet commander, and never returned. After the 1989 collapse of the United Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), investigations into the mysterious disappearance of Wallenberg appeared to indicate that he died while in a Soviet prison on July 17, 1947. In honor of his heroic efforts a worldwide organization established in Wallenberg’s memory perpetuates his life and humanitarian beliefs and actions. In New York City, in addition to this plaza and monument three parks and playgrounds are named for Wallenberg, and on October 5, 1981 he was named an honorary citizen of the United States by a joint resolution of the Congress.

The monument consists of five pillars, varying in height, made of black Swedish bedrock, each polished on two sides and rough-hewn on the others. The pillars are intended to suggest the ruins of a devastated city, though the tallest pillar in the center is capped by a blue ceramic sphere symbolizing hope. Nearby a bronze attaché case is a vestige of Wallenberg and represents his mission. The entire monument is set on a platform comprised of granite paving stones from the old Jewish ghetto of Budapest.

The monument to Wallenberg was a gift to the city by the family of Hilel Storch. It was dedicated on November 9, 1998, a date chosen to coincide with the 60th Anniversary of Kristallnacht (the 1938 mass attack on Jews in Germany in which hundreds were killed and injured, and thousands arrested and sent to concentration camps; translates into “night of broken glass”).

In a solemn ceremony, remarks were delivered by Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel, Swedish Consul General Dag Sebastian Ahlander, donor Marcus Storch, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Parks Commissioner Henry J. Stern, and Agnes Adachi, a surviving member of Wallenberg’s staff. Krister Stendahl, Dean Emeritus of the Harvard Divinity School and former Bishop of Stockholm gave the invocation and Maynard Gerber, cantor of the Great Synagogue of Stockholm performed; also in attendance were H.R.H. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Nane Annan, the wife of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and also Wallenberg’s niece. Though specific to the life of one individual, Hope honors all who would act in defense of human liberty and help overcome man’s inhumanity to man.