Word: budapests
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...could not bear to witness the pain of one individual. It seems as though Wallenberg--who, as a well-to-do Gentile, could have sat through the war in comparative comfort in Sweden--felt personally responsible for helping the Jews. Before he left on his mission to Budapest, according to Bierman, he told a friend, "I cannot stay in Sweden beyond the beginning of July. Every day costs human lives...
...forces of the notorious German SS leader Adolf Eichmann and the Hungarian terrorist group, the Arrow Cross, in their attempt to destroy the Hungarian Jewish population. It is estimated that he was directly responsible for saving well over 100,000 lives. But in 1945, when Russian troops captured Budapest, where Wallenberg was working, the Soviets arrested him as a spy, and his whereabouts since then have been unknown...
...first half of the book tells of how Wallenberg became involved in the effort to save the Hungarian Jews and contains eye-witness accounts of many of his heroic and ingenious efforts while in Budapest. Bierman plays up Wallenberg's heroism by contrasting it against the atrocities that were committed in Hungary at the time, especially by Eichmann, Wallenberg's arch-enemy and a man utterly dedicated to Hitler's Final Solution--the absolute extermination of Jews in Europe...
...five million Jews on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction." Bierman tells of the death marches--organized by Eichmann--which claimed tens of thousands of lives. And the Hungarian terrorists were no better than the Nazis; in some cases they were even worse. They roamed the streets of Budapest in packs, randomly terrorizing and executing Jews. The city had erupted in a frantic wave of violence--all of it directed against the Jews--and as the Russians advanced closer and closer to the city, German and Arrow Cross soldiers seemed only more bent on killing. Fortunately, Bierman avoids preaching...
When Eichmann, his German troops, and the Arrow Cross were finally driven out of Budapest by the Soviets, Wallenberg began planning recovery programs for the devastated Jews. But the Soviets considered him politically dangerous and on January 17, 1945, they charged him with spying and arrested him. The second half of Righteous Gentile consists largely of transcripts of interviews conducted on and off over the last 35 years by the Swedish organizations with those released from Soviet prisons who claimed to have seen Wallenberg in jail. Yet the Soviets have continued to proclaim his death. Immediately after the war, Sweden...