Schutz-Pass (Protection Passport) of the Jewish woman Lili Gartner-Pataki and her daughter Katalin, issued by the Swedish embassy in Budapest. Signed by hand by Raoul Wallenberg on August 24, 1944. German and Hungarian.
"Protection Passport" which states that the holder and her daughter are protected by the Kingdom of Sweden. Signed by hand by Raoul Wallenberg and Swedish ambassador Carl Ivan Danielsson. It also includes the ink stamps of the Swedish embassy in Budapest and the signature of passport holder Gartner-Pataki. The name Lili Gartner Pataki appears on the list of "Wallenberg passport" holders, which is located in the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives.
During World War II, the diplomatic mission of neutral Sweden in Budapest was constantly involved in issuing transit documents for Jewish people to emigrate to Sweden, which granted them temporary immunity from persecution and deportations. This activity was under the authority of diplomat Per Anger, later recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. However, Anger's ability was limited, and the hundreds of permits he issued were a drop in the ocean compared to the masses of Jews who were sent or intended to be sent to their deaths. The embassy urgently requested the Swedish Foreign Ministry to increase the personnel in the embassy to deal with issuing certificates to Jews. This request was heard in Stockholm, and the Swedish government even demanded the Hungarian government do everything in its power to stop the deportation of Jews, a request that succeeded in temporarily halting deportations.
Raoul Wallenberg, a businessman who served as a Swedish diplomat in Hungary during World War II, arrived in Budapest on July 9, 1944, with his official appointment as the First Secretary at the Swedish legation. He was equipped with extensive powers and a substantial budget to rescue Jews. At this point, about 400,000 Hungarian Jews had already been sent to their deaths in an operation organized by Adolf Eichmann. Wallenberg focused his efforts on rescuing as many of the remaining 200,000 Jews in Budapest as possible. He issued special Swedish passports, as the one before us, which testified that the holders were under the protection of Sweden, awaiting their "return to their homeland." These passports were, in fact, an extension of the method used by the Swedish embassy before Wallenberg's arrival. The documents he issued had no real legal validity, but Wallenberg, well aware of the Nazi mindset and its bureaucratic complexities, made sure to print the passports so they appeared impressive, filled with symbols, stamps, and signatures, and seemed to reflect a high level of international authority and influence. Using these passports, Wallenberg saved tens of thousands of Jews from certain death. Many of the Jews who held these passports later referred to them as the "certificate of life" that they kept in their pockets.
Among Wallenberg's actions to rescue Jews, he issued and distributed thousands of Swedish protection passports to Jews in Budapest, established a network of safe houses under the Swedish crown protection as a safe haven for Jews, exerted various pressures on senior Nazis and Hungarians to stop the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz, and even confronted SS personnel and physically blocked the deportation of Jews.
Numerous testimonies tell of Raoul Wallenberg arriving at the train station where Jews were being gathered for deportation to Auschwitz, reading from his black notebook, listing names of people supposedly holding protective passports, and authoritatively demanding their removal from the train and release. He did not hesitate to climb onto the train roof and continue distributing passports to anyone he could reach, engaging in verbal and physical confrontations with German and Hungarian guards. When his passport supply ran out, he distributed any other document written in Swedish and bearing an official appearance, taking advantage of the fact that Hungarian police and German SS personnel did not understand Swedish but were impressed by official documents with stamps and seals. Wallenberg enabled many to present any piece of paper they had in their possession as supposed proof of their eligibility for Swedish protection, while tricking the guards. Wallenberg did everything in his power to rescue Jews, even when Eichmann, due to a shortage of trains, deported Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz on foot in death marches; Wallenberg would approach the exhausted marching Jews, distribute papers among them, and pull hundreds of people onto Red Cross trucks he had recruited, back to freedom.
Until the end of Nazi rule in the country, Wallenberg had directly saved at least 20,000 Hungarian Jews by issuing protection passports, housing them in Swedish safe houses, and removing people from deportation trains and death marches. In addition, many thousands of Budapest ghetto residents were saved thanks to Wallenberg's success in thwarting Eichmann's order to annihilate the ghetto before Budapest fell to the Red Army. Some estimate that the number of Jews saved by Wallenberg's actions is much higher, with Wallenberg saving around 100,000 Jews!
When Hungary was liberated, he was arrested by the Soviets, and his whereabouts have been unknown since. In 1957, the Soviets claimed he died in prison from a heart attack. Wallenberg's story and legacy are celebrated worldwide, and he is among the most prominent and well-known individuals awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations.
The passports issued by Wallenberg, each one of them, serve as a living testimony to future generations of human nobility, the sanctity of life, and the heroic effort to save anyone possible during a time when tens of thousands of Jews were being led to their deaths - an effort made by a single person who did not submit to the dictates of the evil Nazi regime, during the most horrifying time in all of human history.
[1] Leaf, 34 cm. Good condition. Fold marks. Slight tears along the fold marks and a small open tear in the center of the page at the crossing of the fold marks (reinforcement adhesive tape strips on the back). Schutz-Pass without a passport photo.
