Wallenburg Essay, Research Paper

WALLENBURGTHE MAN IN THE IRON WEB By: Emily Antler Preface PUBLISHING FACTS This book, Wallenburg, Man in the Iron Web, was written by Elenor Lester. It was published by Prentice Hall Inc. in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. In 1982 it was copyrighted in 1982. This book has183 pages. TOPIC The subject of this book is a little known man named RaoulWallenburg. During World War II is when the courageousmission of this brave Swedish diplomat took place. He rescuedthousands of Budapest Jews and other minority groupsfromdeportation and even death by the Nazis. After the Russiansmarched into Budapest in January 1945, Wallenburg went,without objection, with Russian soldiers to see their commanderin Debrecen. However, he never arrived there, and neverreturned. ORGANIZATION This book is organized in chronological order by chapters. Body BACKGROUND The Wallenburgs were very a influential, diplomatic upper class family in Sweden during the war. Raoul Wallenburg, whose father died while he was two, was raised by his mother, Maj and her second husband, Fredrik von Dardel. Raoul was an intelligent child and liked to discuss world affairs with his grandfather with whom he travelled with a great deal. During Raoul’s education he studied many languages including German, French, English and Russian. After high school he had to leave for a year of military service before college. Later he studied architecture at the University Of Michigan in the U.S.A. CHARACTERISTICS Raoul Wallenburg was a brave, adventurous and caring man. He displayed braveness numerous times. For instance it is said on page four of this novel, ” He had escaped death more times than he could remember in the past few months.” It then goes on to describe the situations he had been in. ” He had stood unarmed in front of trigger happy teenaged Nazi thugs with machine guns and ordered them to take off. He had seized a young man from the very grip of armed Nazis, saying, “No, he is working for me.” All these quotes prove Wallenburg to be a brave man. He is an adventurous man. During his college years while hitchhiking across the U.S.A he was kidnapped by thieves and tells the story of his “adventure” to a nervous companion . Furthermore, you

know he is adventurous because he accepts this job while he “could have gone on living a peaceful, comfortable life in Stockholm.” This is also a reason that you know he is a caring man. Another quote that reveals how caring he was is on page six of this novel. It states, “I’ve taken this assignment and I could never go home without knowing inside that I’ve done all a man can do to save as many Jews as possible.” So, as you see, Wallenburg was brave, adventurous and caring. MAJOR EVENTS There were two major events in this story. The first was the making and distribution of the “Schutzpasse”. It was a “protection” passport designed by Raoul Wallenburg that saved the lives of thousands of Jews. It was a specially designed passport that by Swedish protection was given by Wallenburg and his men to Budapest Jews that were seemingly preparing to immigrate to Sweden. The next major event in the novel is the disappearance of Wallenburg. He was taken by Russian soldiers in January 1945, supposedly to see their commander however he never returned. Yet there have been many confessions of people who claimed to have seen Wallenburg in Russian jails or even insane asylums. MAJOR RESULTS ON THE FUTURE As a result of this caring and brave man, the lives of thousands of Jews and other minority groups were spared. Another result Wallenburg had on mankind was the effect his disappearance had on the future. There is now many groups and foundations set up to find out the truth of Wallenburgs disappearance. Conclusion POINT OF VIEW This story is told from the point of view of the author. However, there are many excerpts from letters from Wallenburg to his family, friends and acquaintances. Also there is some quotations from stories of associates of Wallenburgs whom he met in prison or rescued from Nazis.. INFOMATIVNESS I found this book very informative on the topic of Raoul Wallenburg, especially since you don’t just get one point of view. You get the real stories of how he helped the people of Budapest and the stories from his acquaintances. REFERENCE SOURCE I think this book would serve well as a reference source. Sinceit has an index, preface, forward, epilogue, appendix and noteson sources which all can help you in researching this topic. RECOMMENDATION I would recommend this book if the person were interested inthe politics of World War II. However, I found the book toodifficult to understand. The author assumes that you have ageneral knowledge of who was who and who was on which side.A grade ten history student will most likely not know the peoplespoke of if they are not properly introduced. Overall, I would notrecommend this book to another grade ten history student.