The University of Michigan inaugurated a lecture series today honoring an alumnus of its class of 1932 who, during World War II, was directly responsible for rescuing more than 50,000 Hungarian Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps. The lecture series at the University’s College of Architecture, is named for Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg, scion of a wealthy Swedish family who volunteered to aid Jewish victims of Nazi persecution early in 1940 and was eminently successful at his task as a diplomat assigned to the Swedish Legation in Budapest in 1944.
The initiative for the Wallenberg lectures came from Sol King, a U. of M. classmate who in 1969 undertook to raise a scholarship and lecture fund to honor the Wallenberg name. The $30,000 subscribed by a number of Detroiters and by Wallenberg’s classmates has been earmarked for the annual lecture series.
Dean Reginald F. Malcolmson of the College of Engineering presided at the inaugural at which the first lecture was given by King. Philip Slomovitz, editor and publisher of the Detroit Jewish News was another speaker. King presented a history of the Wallenberg effort. A symposium based on his lecture will be held tomorrow.
In 1944, Wallenberg was assigned as third secretary of the Swedish Legation in Budapest in charge of a special department responsible for the protection and relief of Jews. He issued thousands of protective passports to Jews in Budapest, sheltered Jews in apartment houses under the Swedish flag and personally released Jews from deportation trains under Nazi guns. Wallenberg also organized an undercover group of young Jews who raided Nazi prisons and released Jews held there.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
