Raoul WallenbergPrint Page

The monument commemorates the courageous Swedish diplomat and humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg who undertook one of the most significant rescue of Jews during the Holocaust in World War Two. In 2013, Raoul Wallenberg was made Australia`s first honorary citizen by Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

The monument created by sculptor Karl Duldig, was initiated by Professor Frank Vajda, Head of the Free Wallenberg Australian Committee.  Professor Frank Vajda owes his life to Wallenberg who saved him during World War Two.  In 1945, aged nine, Professor Vajda was lined up with his mother against a wall waiting for the Nazis to shoot him when Wallenberg intervened, saving him, his mother and 30 other Jews.

Based in Budapest, Raoul Wallenberg set up a department which issued local Jews with important-looking protection certificates, emblazoned with a yellow and blue flag and Sweden`s crown. The holders of these "Wallenberg passports" were protected from the Nazi bureaucracy and thereby avoided being deported to Auschwitz. In the last days of the war he foiled Nazi plans to blow up two ghettos, an act which alone saved 100 000 Jews. Raoul Wallenberg disappeared into Soviet Union custody in 1945, and at one time the Soviets claimed that he had died in custody in 1947, but it is unknown what really happened to Wallenberg.

Professor Frank Vajda owes his life to a Swedish diplomat who saved him during World War II. Aged nine, Prof Vajda was lined up against a wall waiting for the Nazis to shoot him when Raoul Wallenberg intervened, saving him, his mother and 30 other Jews.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard last week announced Mr Wallenberg would become Australia's first honorary citizen. Ms Gillard said the citizenship, awarded in the year of the centenary of Mr Wallenberg's birth, was symbolic recognition of his "tireless devotion to human life during 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," Ms Gillard said.

Mr Wallenberg led an extraordinary rescue operation in Hungary, saving 100,000 Jews from the Holocaust by issuing protective passports and providing shelter in diplomatic buildings. He was later was arrested by Soviet troops in January 1945 and his fate remains a mystery.

Prof Vajda led the push for the first memorial to Mr Wallenberg outside Budapest, which was erected at Kew Junction in 1985. "What I have achieved in my life, I owe to Australia, but I owe my life to Raoul Wallenberg," Prof Vajda said. "I heard (Foreign Minister) Bob Carr speak about Raoul Wallenberg in November last year. I wrote to him, believing the time was right for him to be honoured."

Priest Anna Lindblad-Axerup, of the Toorak-based Church of Sweden, said she had learnt more about Mr Wallenberg since migrating to Australia. "Maybe there is a touch of guilt in Sweden given that we opened our countries up to Nazi Germany, but Raoul Wallenberg, he really did something great," she said.  "We are so proud of what he achieved."

Kooyong federal Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg said Mr Wallenberg's "courage and deeds will always represent a beam of light in what was one of the darkest periods in the history of mankind.
Herald Sun (Melbourne), 21 April 2013.

Location

Details

Dedication