8048

Raoul Wallenberg Signed Document

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:8,000.00 - 10,000.00 USD
Raoul Wallenberg Signed Document

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Auction Date:2015 Sep 28 @ 13:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
DS in German and Hungarian, quickly signed in ink, “R” (as typical on documents of this type), one page, 8.25 x 13.25, August 26, 1944. Blue and gold two-language Schutz-Pass issued to Franz Halasz. The upper left section is filled out in type with personal information including his 1893 birth date, height, and eye and hair color. Affixed adjacent to his personal information is a passport-style photo bearing an official ink stamp. The bottom portion bears printed statements in German and Hungarian, briskly signed in the lower left corner by Wallenberg, and countersigned by Swedish Minister to Budapest Carl Ivan Danielsson. In very good condition, with central vertical and horizontal folds with a pinhole at the intersection, small edge separations at folds, and some scattered creases. Accompanied by a related document bearing a stamped Wallenberg signature.

Wallenberg arrived in Hungary in July 1944 as the country’s Jewish population was under siege. Nearly every other major Jewish community in Europe had already been decimated, and the Nazis were dispatching more than 10,000 Hungarian Jews to their deaths daily. With time of the essence, he devised and distributed thousands of these ‘Schutz-Passes’—official-looking, but essentially invalid, Swedish passports granting the Hungarian bearer immunity from deportation. Nazi officials readily accepted the paperwork. Thus, with his simple, nondescript scribble on this Schutz-Pass, Wallenberg saved Franz Halasz—an important reminder of one heroic man’s tireless efforts to outwit the Nazis and save countless lives.