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Raoul Wallenberg : 19-September-2011
Raoul Wallenberg : 19-September-2011

Photographs supplied by Graeme Saunders

A tree commemorates Raoul Wallenberg who planned one of the most significant rescues of Jews during the Holocaust in World War Two.

Based in Budapest, he set up a department which issued local Jews with important-looking 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. Subsequent eyewitness sightings of Wallenberg in the Soviet penal system after 1947 have called this statement into question, and the exact date and circumstances of Wallenberg’s death may never be clarified. In October 2016, 71 years after his disappearance, Swedish officials formally declared Wallenberg legally dead.

In 2013, Raoul Wallenberg was made Australia`s first honorary citizen by Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Location

Address:Birdwood Avenue, Kings Domain, Melbourne, 3000
State:VIC
Area:Foreign
GPS Coordinates:Lat: -37.824448
Long: 144.972035
Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate.
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Details

Monument Type:Tree
Monument Theme:People
Sub-Theme:Foreigners

Dedication

Actual Monument Dedication Date:Sunday 23rd October, 1994
Front Inscription

B`nai B`rith Raoul Wallenberg Unit honours Raoul Wallenberg

A hero of our time.

Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, who saved over 100,000 Jewish lives in Hungary during World War II, symbolises the fight for human rights and human dignity.

This tree was planted by Lady Anna Cowen 23. 10. 1994

Source: MA
Monument details supplied by Monument Australia - www.monumentaustralia.org.au