Raoul Wallenberg – an honorary Australian
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced that Raoul Wallenberg has been made an honorary Australian citizen.
Raoul Wallenberg
Wallenberg was a Swedish architect who served as a special envoy in Budapest during the Second World War.
Prime Minister Gillard said: “I am pleased to announce that the late Raoul Wallenberg will be recognised as an honorary Australian citizen. This is the first time that Australia has bestowed such an honour.
Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who led an extraordinary rescue operation in Hungary during World War II.
Wallenberg Memorial in Woollahra, Sydney
He saved tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust by issuing protective passports and providing shelter in diplomatic buildings.
Tragically, Raoul Wallenberg did not return to Sweden. He was arrested by Soviet troops in January 1945 and his fate remains a mystery.
Mr Wallenberg has been recognised as an honorary citizen of the United States of America, Canada, Hungary and Israel.
Many monuments, buildings, streets, schools and other institutions around the world bear his name.
He was awarded the honour of ‘Righteous among the Nations’ by Yad Vashem, the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust.
The lives of those he rescued are Mr Wallenberg’s greatest memorial and Australia is honoured to have survivors he rescued living in Australia today.
The Governor-General, Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC CVO, will host the presentation of a certificate of honorary Australian citizenship at Government House, Canberra, on Monday, 6 May 2013.
The award is made in the year of the centenary of Mr Wallenberg’s birth.
The award of honorary Australian citizenship is symbolic recognition of Mr Wallenberg’s tireless devotion to human life during the Holocaust.”
Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott said: The Coalition welcomes the award of honorary Australian citizenship to the late Raoul Wallenberg.
Born on August 4 1912, Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who served in Budapest during the Second World War.
His efforts in providing ‘protective passports’ and shelter for Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary is credited with saving the lives of a hundred thousand people.
On 17 January 1945 after the Red Army entered Budapest, Wallenberg was taken, never to be seen again.
In August last year, the Member for Kooyong paid tribute in the House of Representatives to Raoul Wallenberg.
He said: “He was a man who was ‘a righteous among nations’ and whose courage and deeds will always represent a beam of light in what was one of the darkest periods in the history of mankind.”
Australia joins the United States, Canada, Hungary and Israel in bestowing honorary citizenship on Raoul Wallenberg.
The ceremony at Government House will recognise Raoul Wallenberg’s remarkable service to humanity and provide an opportunity for Holocaust survivors and their families to honour his memory.”
The limited edition Raoul Wallenberg Stamp Sheet was launched for Raoul Wallenberg Unit’s 25th anniversary just two years ago. It was produced with the help of Mr Max Stern of Max Stern & Co, a leading Melbourne stamp dealership, in conjunction with Australia Post. It features ten 60 cent Australia Post stamps with tabs which show personal images of Raoul Wallenberg from early childhood with his mother and grandfather, to adult soldier in uniform. Permission to use these images was sought and obtained directly from the Wallenberg family. The stamp sheet gives a brief history in point form of Raoul Wallenberg’s life. The back of the display envelope depicts a Schutz-Pass (protective passport) similar to those which saved the lives of thousands during the Second World War. This particular Schutz-Pass belonged to the late Susan Reichman, who had been a member of Raoul Wallenberg Unit.
As part of the Centenary Year Commemoration, it was decided to over-stamp a small, limited edition of 250 of the sheets with a special Centenary postmark which features the Raoul Wallenberg Unit logo with the words B’nai B’rith below it and the encircling words Raoul Wallenberg Unit, Wallenberg Centenary Year 2012 around the perimeter.
This philatelic item makes a most appropriate gift for religious holidays and festivals, when visiting family and friends, for presentations to speakers at functions and as an ideal present to take overseas.
The Raoul Wallenberg Stamp Sheet
with the Centenary Postmark and Envelope is available for
$A25 + $A5 handling and postage in Australia; $A25 + $A12 overseas
Further information: Judi Schiff 61 (0)3 9816 9414; [email protected]
Place Raoul Wallenberg, Montreal
Wallenberg Monument, Budapest
Memorial at Great Cumberland Place, London
Sign commemorating Wallenberg in Budapest
Monument in Stockholm
Köszönöm, a monument at the University of Michigan
Memorial to Raoul Wallenberg, Stockholm, Sweden
One of the memorials in Budapest
Plaque at the site of the former Swedish Embassy in Budapest, honoring Carl-Ivan Danielsson, Wallenberg and Per Anger
Street sign for Raoul Wallenberg St. in Jerusalem
MY first impressions of the Citizenship still remain..’why’? why now’? why him? and I have yet to get over the feeling that it is a propaganda exercise whilst Israel’s fanatical warmongers are invading Syria again after selling them defective early warning devices and conjuring up fairy tales about the assassination of Zygier and his “suicide”. I admit to being a critic of zionism, its views on goys and its power-broking control of governments and free-speech throughout the west.
That said I have profound sympathy for the Jewish victims and the terror they will have endured at the hands of the Reich, the same Reich which created Israel through an agreement with Zionists over the “Jewish Question” leading to many years of transferring Zionists to Palestine.
The victims….The old order jews who stayed were the victims of the same abominations as half a million Gypsies, ‘defectives’ ‘undesirables’ had already experienced.They get an occasional mention. In my view not a single Jewish person should have been maltreated, terrified or killed…Some 60-100,000 new order Zionists were transferred to Palestine but hundreds of thousands of ‘old order’ jews stayed put not only fearful of Zionists but presuming things would blow over. They didn’t and thousands tried to escape…some to Palestine where sometimes Palestinians looked after them. Others broke the Zionist agreement with the Reich and tried to escape to Spain and other nations including USA.
The first refugees trying to enter America were returned at the demand of Rabbi Wise. Thousands escaping to Spain were betrayed by Zionists….so a lot was a foot.
Though they continued a world wide BDS against Germany prior to the war, Israelis had their first bank built by the Reich and traded with Germany. They were not suffering the fate of the ‘old order’ yet it is they who collaborated with the Reich military and who have pursued abominable crimes against humanity through the IDF, imported fanatics and the Mossad. I can’t relate Raol Wallenberg to Israel of the 1930’s and the wartime.
I admire Raoul Wallenerg even more having tracked his history as written over many sites and his use of post, personality and family connection to save whatever Jews he actually managed to save by direct personal risk. Others were saved in larger numbers through his delays and example.
Though in immense admiration of what I have read, and his courage and drive, I can’t see why he is being made a citizen of Australia. How does that realistically impress his qualities onto youth and others. I think it is more a bonding with zionist power brokers than a real effort to offer his qualities for examination. There are other examples of great humanitarians who will not be considered and are not considered. Pius X11 for example who saved large numbers of Jewish refugees through the Italian network, receives only mockery.I am not comfortable with the citizenship nor that it was decided upon by politicians and lobbyists.I do however feel e revitalizing admiration in Raoul , a christian as were so many who have aided the Jews.
I would much rather see him exemplified rather than see the peculiarity of his post mortem citizenship. I think far more effective appreciations of his
mindset and heritage and works can be made without that…that’s my view….
Voila