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Raoul Wallenberg

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:5,000.00 - 6,000.00 USD
Raoul Wallenberg

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Auction Date:2015 Feb 11 @ 18:00 (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 with an ink scribble (as typical on documents of this type), one page, 8.25 x 13.25, September 24, 1944. Blue and gold two-language Schutz-Pass issued to Johann Karoly. The upper left section is filled out in type with his personal information including his 1935 birth date, height, and eye and hair color. Adjacent to his personal information is an area where his photo would have been affixed. The bottom portion bears printed statements in German and Hungarian, hastily signed in the lower left corner by Wallenberg, and countersigned by Swedish Minister to Budapest Carl Ivan Danielsson. In very good condition, with tiny edge separations to central vertical and horizontal folds, light scattered soiling, and surface loss to the area where a photo was once affixed. A similar example of Wallenberg’s rushed signature can be found in the book Fleeing from the Fuhrer by William Kaczinski and Charmian Brinson.

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 the gas chambers 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 offered page, Wallenberg saved the life of Johann Karoly—just as he had done with tens of thousands of other Jews in Hungary. An announcement that any Jew, even those holding foreign citizenship, would be interred, led to the urgency of Wallenberg’s plan to save as many lives as he could. An important reminder of one heroic man’s tireless efforts to outwit the Nazis and save countless lives.