Around 1930, my parents and I –I was an only child- moved to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, where I started my schooling. Although my grandparents,- who remained in my home town, were religious and prominent in the community of Nove Zamky- my parents, and thereby, myself, were secular.

The then Czechoslovak Republic, was known throughout Europe as the most democratic country, of the continent. One never heard the word ”Jew”: everybody was the same, until 1938, when the Allies offered Hitler my country on a platter, to avoid Germany declare war. As we unfortunately know, it did not help, however, my parents were ordered to leave Bratislava, and return to my hometown, which was ceded to Hungary.

In 1942, after completing 4 years of gymnasium (equivalent to a high school graduation), I became bored with school, and my parents’ decision was for me to learn a trade, for which they sent me to Budapest.

On Sunday, March 15th, 1944, the day the German army occupied Hungary, I was at home visiting my family on a short week-end trip, and I returned the same day, although with much apprehension, to Budapest to work.

Unbeknown to all of us, that was the last time I saw my family alive, as there was no way of leaving the city anymore….

Shortly after my return, the Germans came around recruiting able bodied males for various labor tasks. Mine was to empty confiscated Jewish residences of all furniture, hauling them to a warehouse, where German officers chose them to their liking, and transport them to their acquired houses.

I did this until about May 1944, when we were herded unto a soccer playing field, mustered in battalions, and taken to various forced labor camps, to dig tank traps against the oncoming Russian Army.

As the Russians advanced on Budapest, the powers-at-be decided to put us on one of their famous(or infamous?) ”death marches”, towards the Austrian border.

That was my first encounter with Mr.Wallenberg. Although, I never met him personally, I know he was one of the men, who showed up every evening, as we stopped for a nights’ rest, be it in an open field, a brick yard, or a soccer stadium, with folding tables and chairs, carrying portable typewriters, and sat down to type out ”Schutzpasses”, until they were chased away by our guards of the day (they alternated between the field gendarmerie, the Arrow Cross, or some Army units), but they were back, relentlessly, the following evening, continuing issuing the documents!

And so it went for several days, until finally, we were told that a deal was reached with the Germans by Mr.Wallenberg, that all those, under 16 and over 60 years of age, will be permitted to return to the recently created Budapest Ghetto.

Although I did not qualify officially, I destroyed all my ID’s, and thanks to my young looks, I succeeded to become part of the saved ones, who, given the choice of waiting for a train to take us back, if and when it became available, or march back on foot, we chose the latter……

I never saw Mr.Wallenberg again, nor was I aware of him, until after the liberation of the Ghetto, in January 1945.

I consider myself lucky and privileged to call myself one of his ”saved ones”

After the liberation, I returned to my hometown, hoping to find some survivors of my family: unfortunately, none came back. Of the 4,000 Jews, only about 100 survived.

I started trekking to the west, with the eventual hope of leaving Europe, and it’s bitter memories behind me, and after a three-year sojourn in Germany and France, I succeeded in emigrating to Canada.

I got married in 1960, raised three children with my wonderful wife, who, unfortunately passed away in 2007, and have 6 grandchildren, ranging in age from 2 to 10

I partook in two video-taping testimonials, on for the local McGill University project, and the other one for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah foundation.

I am retired now, and spend my time volunteering, one of which is giving living testimonies of my wartime experiences to students of various ages, and thus, in a way keeping the memory of Raoul Wallenberg, and my thanks for saving my life, alive.

Father: Elemér Milkó.
Mother: Erzsébet Gyárfás (Guttman). She was born Jewish but had converted at age 12 to the Lutheran faith.
My sister, Eva, born 1930.
According to Hungarian law, the boy follows the father in his religion, and the girl – her mother.

First anti-Jewish laws went into effect in 1938. Father was exempt from the anti-Semitic laws enacted in Hungary until March 19th 1944. On this date Nazi Germany occupied militarily Hungary, because the Horty Government was trying to make peace with the allies. The Germans imposed a Nazi friendly and virulently anti-Semitic Government. Father continued working in the paper mill firm for another two months into the German occupation. Then, he was drafted into a labor battalion, and released after two months; it was July 1944. The Nazi friendly Government was dismissed by Horty in June 1944. He was negotiating with the Soviets an extra peace.

Father had a lot of contact with Sweden, especially with regard to raw material purchased from Sweden for the paper mill industry. The firm, Hazai Papirgyár R.T. was controlled by the family Fellner it was the second richest industrial group in Hungary.
Father then offered his services to Raoul Wallenberg. There is a picture of the two that I saw in one of the Wallenberg exhibits in a castle in Buda, some 15 years ago. Raoul Wallenberg is receiving a committee representing the Jews of Budapest. My father is the last one standing up on Wallenberg’s left, behind him.

In 1941 I was a youth swimming champion, but when in 1942 the people discovered that my grandfather was Jewish; that is, that I was of Jewish descent (until then I did not know of it), I was removed from the swimming group. I then started my contacts with the illegal Communist party, and at the same time was allowed to finish my studies at the Gymnasium. In May 1944, my home became a ”White Star” home for Christians of Jewish origin.

Tátra street, number 6 was the center of Swedish activity in the International ghetto. My father was responsible for the organization of this Ghetto in every respect. He had several other people working with him.

Since October 15th when the Germans took Horty prisoner and imposed an arrowcross Hungarian nazi Government I went definitively underground. The orders we got was to manufacture false identity papers, birth certificates and so on. We had only one contact to the resistance movement. I don’t remember the name but I know he reported to Rajk, executed later by the Soviet controlled communist regime. In order to improve our cover we joined the Arrow Cross party and used their uniforms. We had some arms but were under orders not to use them unless discovered.

Mid November or maybe a bit later my Father sent a message to join him in Tátra-u. 6. I helped from then on with some paperwork, as a messenger boy, assisting wounded people as far as possible. I used to be a boy scout and had some First Aid training. In the summer of 1944 I worked during daytime in a Hospital – trained nurses and also Doctors were in very short supply. So I had some experience. I also sorted food and medicine and helped distributing it. I was somewhat safer on the streets then others, since my name does not suggest Jewish origin, my original birth certificate was catholic and I have not been circumcised.

While working with Wallenberg, in Tátra-u. 6 father used to go to the bank of the Danube River with a large book of the Embassy with names of persons on the Schutzpass list. I did not accompany him on these dangerous forays. He would return bringing along people with him, whom he saved from being shot; people with names or slightly similar to those in the book. The Arrow Cross bandits used to tear up the Schutzpasses when they could get hold of Jews taking their valuables and shooting them into the Danube. Gabor Forgacs in his book mentions my father as being with the Wallenberg operation.

One day, father received a handwritten note from Wallenberg. It stated: I cannot guarantee the protection of Swedish houses and others in the International ghetto. Therefore, distribute medicine and food to the people to have with them when the Arrow Cross people will come to take them to the Jewish ghetto (which was fenced or walled-off). In actuality, it proved to be a false alarm, since the Arrow Cross did not come to the Tátra – u. 6 location, but to another Swedish Protected house in Nagymezö u. Father organized the execution of the orders received from Wallenberg . In the early morning hours he committed suicide with my mother, me and sister. The morphine he had was not enough. We all survived. Father died later from a heart attack maybe connected with morphine poison or not. According medical men morphine will not cause a heart attack if the person survives. Father was at his desk trying to get in contact with Wallenberg when he had the fatal attack.

Why did father decide to commit suicide? Because he knew the exact location where Wallenberg was staying, and he was afraid that under torture he would give away the location. Or maybe he just lost control. Mother told me he was totally exhausted and disillusioned that he could not go on protecting the people entrusted to him. After all of us in the family swallowed the morphine, I was taken to a Lazaretto. There, they at first thought I was already dead, but I regained consciousness. Some time later, on January 7, 1945, father died suddenly of a heart attack, while Budapest was under siege and shelling by the Soviet army. He collapsed at his table. The Soviets were only 4 house blocks away.

Soon after the liberation of Pest, I believe it was January 15, 1945, I witnessed Wallenberg appearing in front of the Tátra u. 6 building. He was in a black embassy limousine, accompanied by two Russian officers in full dress uniform, and a NKVD agent. Wallenberg expressed regrets at my father’s passing, and said he was going to Malinovsky’s headquarters to get food, medicine and provisions. And not to worry; he would be back in two days. He spoke in German.

I left Hungary in 1948. In Brazil I was manufacturing screws. I have three sons; one heads a Staples outlet in the Boston region. I am married the second time my first wife having died from a cancer illness.

In 1973, while on a business trip to Geneva, I met in a restaurant Mr. Lindberg, a business associate from Stockholm. He pointed out to me Wallenberg’s sister sitting at his table. I did have a long talk with her I can not remember where. When I returned to Brazil, I sent her a copy of the Wallenberg note.

To whom this may concern:

I am a Holocaust survivor. I was born in Hungary. In 1944, I was taken with my loved ones to Auschwitz. We were liberated from Bergen-Belsen in April 1945.

We are grateful to the Swedish government for being the first to come to our aid in such dreadful time. King Gustav V invited 10,000 of the sick Holocaust survivors and their relatives to come to Sweden. The Swedish supplied them with boats and medical personnel, cared for them, put them up in sanitariums, convalescent homes, hospitals and schools. King Gustav V was surely sent from Heaven to save these remaining Jews, and his reward is great. As it says in Judaic sources, one who saves one life is considered to have saved the whole world. How much more so if he saved so many!

A Raoul Wallenberg office was established in Stockholm. A family friend, Vera Muller, worked there. The office sent 10 krona to all the Hungarian children for their birthday. Every youngster was a recipient…except for one. This little girl was crying and carrying on. ”What’s wrong with me?” she wailed. ”Am I not Hungarian? Why was I left out?” It broke my heart. I wrote a letter to the Raoul Wallenberg office, describing the situation and requesting that they rectify it so that she would not fell orphaned. To this day, I still feel gratitude for their kind cooperation.

My husband, Erno Friedman, was born in Hungary. In 1944, hiding as a Gentile in Budapest, he saw how Raoul Wallenberg traveled all over rescuing Jews. He pulled them from the death march and off cattle cars, supplied them with documents that identified them as Swedish subjects, and established safe houses. We believe he was the only one in the Second World War who risked his life to confront Nazi officials and try to reason with them or threaten to have them hanged as war criminals if they proceeded with their heinous plans.

These are a few of the memories which have stayed with me and my husband for more than six decades.

Respectfully,

Paula and Erno Friedman
Brooklyn, NY

My mother was a Physics and Chemistry Professor and my father had a PHD in Chemistry and, as such, he was the technical director of a chemistry and pharmaceutical products’ factory. We lived in the factory. Opposite the factory, there were some hills, which allowed us to go for walks in the summer and to go on sleighs and to ski in winter.

In 1939 I went into the elementary school without any problems. During that year we were supposed to migrate to Argentina, where a sister of my mother already lived. My grandmother, my father’s mother, was very ill and my father did not want to leave her. By the time she died the last ship from Genoa had already left.

My family’s problems started in 1942, when all the men under 45 years of age had to enroll in the army. As my father was Jewish he was taken to a labor field, near the Russian frontier to build an airport. He remained there until 1943 when he could return thanks to the request of the factory and in the interest of the army.

In 1943, when I went into high school some problems arised. As my mother also worked, my parents wanted me to go to a full time school. These schools were either Protestant or Catholic and there were restricted vacancies. Thanks to somebody’s help I could go into a Protestant school.

On March 19th, 1944, the Germans occupied Budapest and in April we had to start wearing the yellow star, which meant limited schedules to walk along the streets and special places where to sit when traveling by means of transport. At the same time the Allies started bombing the city.

I shall never forget one night when a bomb fell into a gas tank. It seemed as if all the lights of Budapest had been turned on. There were many panic stricken people who wanted to go back to the villages because of the bombing but with little luck, an aunt of mine with a friend of hers and the children of both took a train which had to stop in the middle of the field because some Russian planes were flying over it, one of them fired and killed my aunt and her friend’s daughter.

By the end of April, the classes were finished and by the end of June, all the Jews who did not live inside the ghetto had to abandon their houses to go to live in the houses assigned to the Jews (a room per family).

Hitler asked Eichmann, who had experience in deporting Jews to other countries, for what was called ”the final solution”. Therefore they deported about 430 thousand Jews from Hungary. According to what the people in Auschwitz in those days narrated, the crematoriums could not cope with all the cremations.

The husband of a cousin of my mother’s, who was Catholic, managed to get us papers with false names and placed each of us in different places.

I remained in a convent until the first days of December. The nuns’ behavior was really excellent. Besides having girls from ”the provinces” as they used to say, they had 70 people they had picked up from the streets when they saw the lorries, which were taking them to be deported. One night a Nazi high official came and demanded that the Mother Superior should hand in the Jews, the Mother Superior said he could take them over her dead body and we were lucky….

In 1948 we arrived to Argentina, with the habitual difficulties. It was Perón’s time and you could only get into the country with papers where it was stated that you were Catholic.

I studied, worked and got married, I had two children and four grandchildren.
Translation: Nora Bellettieri

Raoul Wallenberg, whom my father, Bruce Teicholz, knew and worked with in Budapest, was someone he admired.

Bruce Teicholz had arrived in Budapest in early 1942, a refugee from Poland. (He was born Benzion Teichholz, and was also known by the first names Bernhard, Ben, Bronislaw, Boris, and Bruno). He alerted the Jewish community to what was occurring to the Jews in Poland but they did not believe the same could happen in Hungary. Undaunted, my father began to organize an underground unit that built bunkers, forged baptismal certificates and other identity papers, and smuggled people across the border.

By the time Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest in July 1944, Teicholz, under the code name ”Glück”(which means ”luck”) was leading a ”technical” unit of hundreds of young men and women working in the underground.

Wallenberg was a few years younger than Teicholz, but Wallenberg made a strong impression him.

Wallenberg, he later recalled … was up early at the train depots handing out Swedish passports and saving lives. All day he ran from place to place, making sure the Swedish Houses were safe.

What my father so admired in Wallenberg was that he risked his life to save Jews when he didn’t have to. My father, as a Jew, felt obligated to do so it was a matter of life and death for him and his people. But Wallenberg had no such reason, and the zeal with which he did so impressed my father all the more.

He witnessed Wallenberg at 3 or 4 in the morning pulling people off the cattle cars destined for Auschwitz.

Wallenberg and my father met on several occasions. Most significantly they met to discuss the fact that my father’s underground group was copying Wallenberg passes. When Wallenberg issued one, my father’s group printed 100. Wallenberg was concerned that the Germans might invalidate them suspicious of so many Swedes. Part of the problem was that the Swedish passes often went to the richest Jews. Teichholz’s forged passes were more democratic the underground passed them out to Jews all over Budapest.

After they met, Wallenberg approved of Teicholz making the counterfeit passes. Together they were able to save many more lives than Wallenberg would have been able to alone.

My father last saw Wallenberg in January 1945 as the Russians first entered Budapest. He heard a few days later that Wallen! berg had been arrested by the Russians. My father always assumed the Russians suspected Wallenberg of being a spy. He never saw him again.

My father, having lived until 1941 in Poland, always believed that Raoul Wallenberg died in prison either during an interrogation or due to harsh prison conditions and that the Russians wanted to cover that up. It was my father’s experience that if someone was alive in the Russian gulag, there were many ways for them to get a verifiable message out. That Wallenberg did not succeed in doing so meant that he was dead.

Nonetheless, my father always supported the efforts of the various government inquires and Wallenberg committees to arrive at the truth of what happened to Raoul Wallenberg.

My father spoke about Wallenberg on many occasions to historians and&nb sp; journalists. He was interviewed and appears in the book by Thurston Clarke and Frederick Werbell, ”Lost Hero: The Mystery of Raoul Wallenberg,” as well as Elenore Lester’s ”Wallenberg: The Man in the Iron Web” and the NBC miniseries ”Wallenberg” (1985) as well as in works of history by Randolph Braham and Yehuda Bauer. He was honored by the Jewish community of Budapest in 1988 and a plaque exists at the base of the Holocaust memorial in Budapest acknowledging Bruce Teicholz ”for the lives he saved.” Bruce Teicholz died in 1993.

Sincerely,

Tom Teicholz

Now Ignacio looks at the faded document again and sees a seal that he hadn’t noticed before.

”What ´s that?”, he asks.

”The Coat of Arms of the Swedish Royal House.”

My grandson understands that there is a story behind this and I begin to reminisce.

II

The sound of water is the music that accompanied my childhood. The most intense and distant memories of Budapest, the city of my birth, are associated with water. Not only because the two historical centers, Buda and Pest are devided by the Danube river, but also because the whole capital of Hungary abounds with fountains and thermal baths.

During the summer, my family and I used to go to Gellért, the most popular bath. I can still feel the excitement of sinking into the pool with artificial waves that would lift me up to the crest with ondulating movements. In those days I was only eight and my world was a safe place, sheltered by my parents’ love. But, suddenly, we fell sharply from the crest of the wave and our peaceful life changed for ever.

Soon, Janos, my father, and Bartha, my mother, understood that, apart from the calamities of war, there was for us a great additional menace: persecution because of our origin. One had only to see what had happened in Poland: as soon as the Nazis occupied it, the manhunt of Jews was unleashed.

From my child’s point of view, I could not grasp the danger.

”But if we Hungarians are friends of the Germans” I argued ”Why would they hurt us?. ” Perhaps in order to set my mind at rest, I thought that my parents were exaggerating. During the following years, in spite of the war, I continued going to school and leading a life which, even with fear and hardships of every kind, seemed normal. Then the fateful year of 1944 arrived.

That year, Germany and her allied countries (among which was Hungary) were definitively headed for defeat. The Russians, who, allied with England, France and the U.S.A., fought against the Germans, were advancing without stopping over Rumania and Bulgaria and threatened with arriving to my country. Commandant Horthy, head of the Hungarian government, asked the Russians for a truce. The Nazis considered this petition as treason. They feared that, through our territory, the enemies would finally penetrate Germany. To avoid it, they invaded Hungary.

A that time I was thirteen. I harshly had to learn how correct my parents’ fears had been. The invaders immediately put in practice against Hungarian Jews the policy of death that they had enforced in all the occupied countries.

My parents and I, together with thousands of others, were torn from our homes and confined to the enclosure of the ghetto (1). That winter was a harsh one and we were crowded in dark, miserable rooms under the constant menace that any gesture would cost us our lives. Once a day, we would manage to eat a piece of bread. I remember that, despite everything, I went on hearing the sound of water, the music of Budapest, and that kept my hope alive.

Finally, on a day when the April sun was beginning to show itself, we were violently driven from the ghetto and were dragged to the East Railway Station.

In more happy times, we used to leave from there to visit my grandparents who lived in the country, the country which in springtime is filled with flowers. Now, instead, from there we would leave in cattle trains towards death.

I Walked together with the others, striving to keep back my tears. I was so afraid! Beside me walked a woman with a baby in her arms. We were already in the station platform, when one of the huge dogs that an officer was holding threw itself against me. Terrified, I fell to the ground. The soldiers laughed at my panic. The dog’s enormous mouth was baring its sharp teeth centimeters from my head when I suddenly heard an unfamiliar voice exclaiming: ” Leave him! That boy is under the protection of the King of Sweden!

The man who held the menacing beast, pulled its leash and withheld it. I looked at the person who had spoken: he was a young man of about thirty, slim and elegant. He wore a long blue overcoat and his blonde straight hair was combed back form his forehead. With a determined gesture he extended before the officer a yellow paper that bore the coat of arms of the Royal House of Sweden. I never really found out why the Germans, who stopped at nothing, showed such respect for seals and documents.

That day Raoul Wallenberg (2) (I later learned that this was my savior’s name) managed to save dozens of Jews from the trains of death. During the following months, I worked by his side at the Embassy of Sweden, a neutral country during the war.

Employed as an office boy, I myself distributed among my brethren those yellow papers that meant the difference between living and dying. More than fifty years have passed and I cannot forget the image of that brave and caring man, climbing on the roofs of the cattle trains, giving out with full hands the saving documents. And I cannot but think of the irony of destiny.

In 1945, when the Nazis surrendered and the Russians finally entered Budapest, Wallenberg had succeeded in rescuing from the hands of the victimizers more than a hundred thousand Jews. However, he was not able to save himself. On January 17th 1945 he was seen for the last time when entering the Headquarters of what was then the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Russians, who made him a prisoner, maintain that the Swedish diplomat died in prison in 1947. But there is no proof of this being true. It is thought that those who captured him suspected that he was a spy in the service of the United States, or maybe they suspected him because of his contacts with the Germans.

”There wasn’t a saving paper for Raoul Wallenberg just as there isn’t a tomb to pay him homage (3),” I concluded my story.

Ignacio looks once more at the paper he is holding in his hands and tells me that he is going to keep it carefully and that when the son that he expects have is thirteen, he will bequeath it to him , together with my story. We hug each other and then, to my absolute surprise, he whispers in my ears the following words: ”Isten eltessen sokaig/a fuled erjen bokaig”.

”Who taught you that?” I ask, bewildered.

My Dad. Who else? But the truth is, I don’t know what it means. He told me to ask you.”

To surprise me, my son had taught his son the most enigmatic of my people’s greetings: ”May God give you a long life and may your ears reach your ankles”.

I translate the strange words for Ignacio. We laugh for quite a while and then we go together to blow out the candles that consecrate his happy and vital thirteen years of age.

(1) Ghetto: an enclosed neighborhood destined to isolate Jews.

(2) When in 1944, he was proposed with the chance to work in Budapest to help the Jewish community, he gave up a successful appointment in a private firm to undertake a mission of risk.

(3) In Buenos Aires, in the square situated in Figueroa Alcorta and Austria, there is a monument that commemorates Wallenberg.

Traducido por: María Lía Macchi

first met Wallenberg on October 17, 1944, when I was a young man. By then, the Nazis had ”cleansed” the Hungarian countryside of Jewish people; more than 430,000 men, women, and children had vanished, at the rate of 12,000 a day, never to be seen again. Now, in the closing days of the war, the Nazis prepared to exterminate the last large population of Jews alive in Europe, those in Budapest.

Raoul Wallenberg, a young Swedish architect, had been sent to Budapest in July for the sole purpose of saving lives. By then, U.S. government intelligence could no longer pretend they didn’t know what was happening to the Jews of Europe. The War Refugee Board decided to send someone from a neutral country to facilitate some sort of rescue of the Jews of Hungary. Wallenberg volunteered for the job. His work had taken him throughout Europe, and he’d seen firsthand what the Nazis were doing to the Jews. The Swedish government joined in the effort, and he was sent to Budapest through the Swedish Legation, although he’d never been trained as a diplomat.

What makes a man leave the safety of a neutral country to take on personally the Nazis? I can’t tell you. All I can tell you is that his weapons were his wits, determination, and a belief in the worth of each human life to the point of risking his own in exchange.

I’d grown up learning photography from my father. He was the court-appointed photographer to the Hapsburgs, the personal photographer of the Hungarian regent, Admiral Miklos Horthy, and the top society photographer in Budapest. Admiral Horthy gave us a personal exemption from the existing laws imposed on the Jews.

On October 15, when the Arrow Cross–the Hungarian Nazis–took over the government, all exemptions were cancelled. Through my father, I knew one of the Swedish diplomats, Per Anger. Knowing my life was in immediate danger, I headed for the Swedish Legation. Against all odds, I made it through the crowds of people seeking help and was admitted.

I told Per the bind I was in. ”Let me introduce you to someone,” he said. He leaned out the door. ”Raoul?”

Raoul Wallenberg came in, a young man, early 30s, slim, with brown hair. His air was down-to-earth, a center of calm in a world gone mad. Per said, ”This is Tom Veres, a photographer, a friend of mine. He could be useful.”

Wallenberg said, ”Good. You’ll be my photographer. You will document the work we are doing. You’ll report directly to me.” They made out official papers on the spot.

Much of my time was spent taking pictures for schutzpasses (passports) that Wallenberg then issued by the thousands. They stated that the bearer was approved to move to Sweden after the war and was already under the protection of the Swedish government.

But the day that I found out what it really meant to be Wallenberg’s photographer was a month later, on November 28, when his secretary handed me a piece of paper with his instructions: ”Meet me at Josefvarosi Station. Bring your camera.”

The Josefvarosi train station was a freight depot on the outskirts of town. I took my Leica and got on the tram, not knowing what to expect. To tell you the truth, everybody, especially those on the Nazis’ hit list, thought lying low was the best plan. Keep quiet, keep out of sight. Don’t get involved. Yet here I was on a raw November morning, heading for Josefvarosi Station.

I found the station surrounded by Hungarian Nazis and gendarmes from the countryside. Anyone in his right mind was trying to get out. Wallenberg expected me to find a way in. I shoved my camera into my pocket and went to one of the gendarmes. Using the world’s phoniest Swedish accent, I spoke in a mixture of broken Hungarian and German. ”I’m a Swedish diplomat! I must go in to meet Raoul Wallenberg!”

The gendarme stared at me incredulously but let me in. The scene inside the station was harrowing. Thousands of men were being loaded onto cattle cars. Wallenberg was there, as were his Studebaker and his driver, Vilmos Langfelder. When Raoul saw me, he walked over and whispered slowly, ”Take as many pictures as you can.”

Pictures? Here? If I were caught, I’d be on that train myself, legation or no legation. I climbed into the backseat of the car and took out my pocketknife. I cut a small slit in my scarf and positioned the camera inside it. I got out and walked through the train yard as calmly as possible, snapping pictures.

Wallenberg had his black ledger out. ”All my people get in line here!” he called. ”All you need to do is show me your schutzpass!”

He approached the line of ”passengers.” ”You, yes, I have your name here. Where is your paper?” The startled man emptied his pockets, looking for a paper he never had. He pulled out a letter. ”Fine. Next!”

Wallenberg had pulled hundreds of men out of line when he sensed the Nazis losing patience. ”Now back to Budapest, all of you!” he said.

The new Swedes walked out of the station to freedom. As soon as they had a good head start, Raoul and I got back into the car where Vilmos waited. The danger we’d been in didn’t hit me until then. This man, a Swede, who could have waited out the war in safety, was marching into train yards–and asking others to do the same!

The next day, word came: more deportations from the Josefvarosi Station. Again I was asked to come. It was a ghastly repeat. Gendarmes with machine guns, thousands of men being herded onto trains. Wallenberg with his table and his black ”Book of Life.”

This time, my Leica was already hidden in the folds of my scarf. As Wallenberg started calling off common names that many men might answer to, I started snapping photos.

That day, my cousin Joseph was among those marked for death, as was one of Hungary’s great actors. I pulled them out of line to join Wallenberg’s hundreds.

It was then I saw my chance. I walked around the train, inches from the armed guards. On the other side, the side away from the station, I climbed onto the already filled car. The train hadn’t been padlocked from the side. I jumped, pushing all my weight onto the bolt that held the door shut. The spring clicked. The long door slid back in its tracks.

The men inside, who a moment ago had stood prisoner in the darkness, now blinked in the November sky. ”Move, quickly!” I said. Men started jumping off the back of the train, running to the line where Wallenberg continued to give out passes.

As I struggled to climb onto a second train car, Wallenberg clearly saw that his time was up. ”All of you released by the Hungarian government, back into town! March!” At the same time, a Hungarian police officer saw what I was doing. He pointed his revolver at me. ”You! Stop what you’re doing!”

Raoul and his driver got into their Studebaker, and they drove around to my side of the train. Raoul opened the door and leaned out. ”Tom! Jump!”

I didn’t have a moment to think. I made the longest jump of my life.

Raoul pulled me inside and Vilmos stepped on the gas. Raoul smiled and looked back at the train station. ”I don’t think we’ll come back here for a while!” he said.

By January, the Soviet Army was pressing close to the city, but the Nazis and Arrow Cross still ran Budapest. Wallenberg was in a pitched battle to keep the 30,000 people in protected houses from being added to the 70,000 people already locked in the Central Ghetto. He was doing everything he could to stop the pogrom to finish off the ghetto. In fact, he was able to intervene with German General Schmidthuber and halt the final destruction of the ghetto minutes before it was to begin.

The war was within days of being over when the bad news came. Everyone, Jews and Gentiles alike, who lived in my family’s apartment house, had been marched away by the Arrow Cross because they’d found the huge hidden food stocks kept by the well-known Zserbo Confectionary stored in the building’s basement. My parents were taken as well; they were taken straight to the Danube and shot, their bodies thrown into the river. It was too late for Raoul to save them.

But it wasn’t too late for the thousands of people whom Raoul had pulled out of trains or off marches. It wasn’t too late for the people in the ghetto whom Wallenberg and his accomplices saved from the final pogrom, even as the firing squads were assembling.

The last time I saw Raoul Wallenberg, he and Langfelder were getting ready to leave for Debrecen to meet with the newly established provisional government about setting up reconstruction programs. He asked me if I wanted to come, but I had yet to find out about the whereabouts of my parents. The two men left on January 17 with a Soviet escort. Before reaching Debrecen, they were taken into custody by the NKVD, a precursor of the KGB. Neither man has been seen outside Soviet prisons since.

I’ve often thought about how the timing of my parents’ tragic deaths kept me from disappearing along with Wallenberg. Sometimes, I think my life was spared so I could tell his story.

What happened to Wallenberg is shrouded in mystery to this day, but what he did for thousands of men, women, and children will always be bright and clear. It’s been said, ”Greater love has no man than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). They were not literally his friends, these people whose lives Wallenberg saved; they were simply his fellow human beings, and as such, he felt responsible for them. He wasn’t some superhuman, although his actions were heroic. He was an ordinary person who dared other ordinary people to do what he did.

So here, I tell his story.

Source: Beliefnet