The Envoy: The Epic Rescue of the Last Jews of Europe in the Desperate Closing Months of World War II

by Alex Kershaw

  But Dannecker wasn’t swayed. “He maintained that the previous day, Wallenberg had taken people under false pretenses,” recalled Janos Beer. “He didn’t have the right to take them now. Wallenberg had communicated with the German Embassy. He had the right, but for the SS, whatever happened in diplomacy was not very important.”19

  Beer saw Dannecker point his pistol at Wallenberg.

  Dannecker said he was going to shoot. He looked like he meant it. Wallenberg turned toward Beer. “He was absolutely calm,” recalled Beer. “It was time to go.”20

  Reluctantly, Wallenberg drew back from Dannecker and made his way out of the station, accompanied by Beer and Veres. All three were soon sitting in the back of Langfelder’s Studebaker. As they left the station, Wallenberg looked over his shoulder, back at the train station, at Dannecker and his black-clad SS men, and managed a smile. “I don’t think we’ll come back here for a while.”

  Later that morning, Wallenberg was reportedly ushered into the office of Veensenmayer’s deputy, thirty-five-year-old SS Brigadierfuhrer Theodor Horst Grell, to whom he bitterly complained about Dannecker’s actions—they were an outrageous violation of his diplomatic immunity. But like Dannecker, Grell was unmoved. “My advice to you, Mr. Secretary, is to worry more about the real Swedes living in Budapest,” he said. “These Jews aren’t Swedes. However, if you insist on becoming involved in things that don’t concern you, then I cannot, unfortunately, protect you from the consequences.”

  Wallenberg persisted. “Several weeks ago,” he protested, “a German military truck demolished one of my official cars. Since then, other of my cars have been the victims of similar ‘accidents.’ Is this what you mean by ‘the consequences’?”

  “I suggest that you return to peaceful Sweden, Mr. Secretary. There, the military vehicles are in less of a hurry. They can take more care not to endanger pleasure trippers such as yourself. I would advise you to take my advice. Good day.”21

  WALLENBERG HAD MANAGED TO SAVE three hundred men by Veres’s estimation, but in that week alone Eichmann had deported seventeen thousand in the labor brigades from the station. Most would die of starvation and disease before the war’s end.

  The continuing murder of Budapest’s Jews and the steady escalation in atrocities finally began to unnerve and depress Wallenberg. According to several of his workers, he appeared increasingly tired and drawn, deep circles framing his sad eyes. One morning, a dispirited Wallenberg told a Swedish Red Cross worker: “Even while we speak, somewhere, someone else is being murdered by the Arrow Cross . . . Laws no longer exist here; anything can happen. Sometimes one can’t get from one street to the next . . . Anyway, reality doesn’t matter any longer, illusion does.”22

  It was crucial, Wallenberg realized, to exert constant pressure on the Arrow Cross, which he did almost daily through carefully worded, sometimes even obsequious letters to key officials. He also insinuated that they might require his presence as a useful witness at inevitable war crimes trials.23 In some cases, this combination of veiled threat and polite but constant complaint was effective. But increasingly it met with indifference and annoyance. The Arrow Cross was not the Wehrmacht or even the SS, who at least feigned abiding by certain rules.

  In late November, Wallenberg visited Interior Minister Vajna’s office and told him that he had learned that his Arrow Cross government was planning to place all of Budapest’s Jews in sealed ghettoes. This would make it far easier to kill them in a massive pogrom. “If the Jews are endangered, Hungarians all over the world will pay dearly,” Wallenberg told Vajna, “particularly Hungarians sympathetic to the Arrow Cross.”

  Vajna was unmoved.

  “But Mr. Secretary, there are no Hungarians abroad who are sympathetic to us. And as for the others, I couldn’t care less what happens to them.”24

  Wallenberg also failed to win over other Arrow Cross officials who had hardened their stance toward neutrals as the Soviets neared and their Arrow Cross government appeared further than ever from official recognition by Sweden, Switzerland, and others. The dictates of international law were not for Szalasi and his men. Wallenberg and his fellow diplomats, such as Lutz, were now seen as nothing much more than Jew-lovers meddling in Hungary’s internal affairs.

  One morning, Foreign Minister Baron Kemeny paid a visit to Wallenberg’s offices. He told Wallenberg that he was giving him an ultimatum; unless the Arrow Cross were recognized by Stockholm within three days, all protected Jews would be handed over to Vajna for immediate deportation.

  Wallenberg did his best to buy more time, telling Kemeny that three days was not long enough. Reports from the Swedish Legation to Stockholm about Kemeny’s government were not too complimentary, he explained. If Kemeny were to make a few noteworthy humanitarian gestures, Wallenberg could guarantee that the reports would soon be more sympathetic. But it would take more than three days.

  It seemed that soon all of Budapest’s Jews would be deported en masse as Kemeny, Vajna, and others in the Arrow Cross government wanted. But then Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, of all people, came to Wallenberg’s aid, apparently ordering an end to mass deportations to the death camps. Budapest’s Jews would have to stay where they were: either in two ghettoes, where conditions were rapidly deteriorating, or in the many protected houses run by the Swedes and the Swiss.

  LATE THAT NOVEMBER, Himmler summoned Eichmann to his mobile headquarters, a heavily guarded train stationed in the Black Forest near Triberg. Thirty-six-year-old SS Colonel Kurt Becher, Himmler’s so-called economic specialist in Hungary, was present at the ensuing meeting. Becher had overseen the highly successful pillaging and appropriation of Jewish wealth and industries earlier that year in Hungary, mostly through extortion. He had also met with Wallenberg at least six times, though there is no known record of what they had discussed. According to one source, Becher had offered to “provide his protection and exit visas for four hundred Jews with Swedish passports in exchange for only 400,000 Swiss francs.”25 But Wallenberg had been unable to negotiate because his funds could not be used for paying ransoms.26

  Suave and cunning, Becher later testified, while fearing for his life, that he had told Himmler that Eichmann had repeatedly tried to get around his orders in Budapest, hence the summons to Triberg. The death marches were a case in point—Himmler had ordered an end to them but Eichmann had continued to send mostly women and old people—few able-bodied male Jews were left in Budapest—to the Austrian border. “I had told Himmler that Eichmann simply did not take his orders seriously and would only carry them out if they were expressly confirmed by SS Major General [Heinrich] Muller,” Becher recalled.

  The meeting between Himmler, Eichmann, and Becher must have been a tense affair. Eichmann was far too dogmatic and unsophisticated in his methods compared to cool-headed and calculating operators such as Becher. The lower-middle-class Austrian, badly educated, was politically tone deaf, unable to see like Becher how profit-taking and escaping prosecution for war crimes were all that counted now as Germany headed toward apocalyptic defeat. Notably, unlike Becher, Eichmann had made no effort to secure the support of Jews who could later vouch for him and save his neck.

  “Himmler talked to Eichmann [in a manner] I would call both kindly and angrily,” recalled Becher. “I remember one thing that Himmler said to Eichmann in this connection: He shouted at him something like, ‘If until now you have exterminated Jews, from now on, if I order you, as I do now, you must be a fosterer of Jews. I would remind you that in 1933, it was I who set up the Head Office for Reich Security, and not Gruppenfuhrer Muller or yourself, and that I am in command. If you are not able to do that, you must tell me so!”27

  According to Becher, Eichmann was soon dismissed. But Himmler could not have been too upset with his protégé—he would award Eichmann the Cross of War Merits, First Class, with Swords. At last, the “Master” would be recognized for his work. It would be his only reward for carrying out history’s greatest genocide.

  13
/>   December 1944

  THEN WINTER DESCENDED. Snow fell from the ash-gray skies, dusting the ice floes on the Danube, the domes of the central synagogue, and the deserted streets and avenues. With each dawn, the sound of Soviet guns seemed to get louder and piles of Jewish bodies yet higher, like the mounds of garbage the drunken Arrow Cross no longer collected.

  One night in early December 1944, as the snow fell, Tom Veres was working late at Wallenberg’s Section C offices on Ulloi Street, a stone’s throw from the central synagogue, now used as a horse stable by the Arrow Cross. Suddenly, a gang of Arrow Cross youths burst into the offices. The youths arrested Veres and everyone working alongside him.

  Veres was terrified. He was carrying false papers stating that he worked for the Red Cross, and if they were discovered he was sure he would be shot on the spot. The green-uniformed Arrow Cross screamed and shouted at Veres and Wallenberg’s other aides and workers. They were then marched toward Arrow Cross headquarters several blocks away. Veres ripped his false papers into small pieces and ate them as he trudged through the snow. When he arrived at the headquarters and was bustled inside, he heard the Arrow Cross start to shout and curse each other. They wanted to place Veres and the others in a cellar, but there was not enough room for them all to fit. “Put them on top of each other,” one of the Arrow Cross thugs shouted. “They’re gonna die anyway.”1

  Veres and the others were taken instead to another building, where they were made to stand against a wall and told they would soon be taken to the Danube to be shot. A man beside Veres asked: “Do you know which way’s the Danube?”

  “Once the shooting starts,” replied Veres, “you’ll know we’ll be there.”2

  At that point, they heard a familiar voice.

  “These are my people,” Wallenberg shouted. “You cannot touch them.” There was a heated discussion, but Wallenberg managed to get his way. Soon, Veres and Wallenberg’s other people were hurrying back to his offices on Ulloi Street. Wallenberg had saved Veres and several dozen other Jews’ lives. But how much longer would their luck hold?

  BY DECEMBER 9, several weeks after Stalin had demanded the immediate seizure of Budapest, the Russian army’s offensive had finally reached the Danube at Vac, a few miles north of the city, and the siege of Budapest began. Just the previous day, a courier had left for Sweden carrying Raoul’s most recent dispatch for the Foreign Office. Wallenberg’s last known report to Sweden confirmed that “as far as can be ascertained, only 10 Jews with Swedish safe conducts have up to now been shot in and around Budapest.” It was a staggeringly low number given the circumstances. 3

  The courier also carried Raoul’s last known letter to his mother, Maj:Dearest Mother,

  I don’t know how to atone for my silence, and yet again today all you will receive from me are a few hurried lines via the diplomatic pouch. The situation here is hectic, fraught with danger, and I am terribly snowed under with work . . . Night and day we hear the thunder of the approaching Russian guns. Since Szalasi came to power, diplomatic activity has been very lively. I myself am almost the sole representative of our embassy in all government departments. So far I have been approximately ten times to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have seen the deputy premier twice, the minister of the interior twice, the minister of supply . . . I was on pretty close terms with the wife of the foreign minister. Regrettably, she has now left for Meran [sic]. There is an acute lack of food supplies in Budapest, but we managed to stockpile a fair amount in advance. I have the feeling that after the [Russian] occupation, it will be difficult to get home, and I assume that I will reach Stockholm only around Easter. But all that lies in the future. So far, nobody knows what the occupation will be like. In any event, I shall try to get home as soon as possible. I had firmly believed I would spend Christmas with you. Now I am compelled to send you my Christmas greetings and New Year wishes by this means. I hope that the longed for peace is not too distant.4

  At the end of the letter, Wallenberg scribbled: “Love to Nina and her little one.”5

  WALLENBERG DID NOT TELL his mother that his concerns were now overwhelming. Life was increasingly precarious for his staff of four hundred or so employees, almost all Jews who lived with their families in ten buildings that belonged to the Embassy and were thereby supposedly protected. With foresight, Wallenberg had arranged for them to be inoculated against epidemics such as typhoid and cholera, which would soon sweep through the city as the Soviet siege grew ever more ferocious. But the fear that they might all be killed, at any moment, grew with each new night and day.

  Neutral diplomats were also now targets. The Swiss diplomat, Carl Lutz, was arrested and beaten. The Arrow Cross also broke into Swedish Embassy buildings and seized Lars Berg and others, who were lucky to either escape or be later released after much negotiation. “Our greatest worry was Wallenberg’s safety,” recalled Per Anger, who now carried a gun. “The Arrow Cross men [such as Kurt Rettman] hated him openly and intensely. He learned several times that they intended to murder him.”6

  If the Arrow Cross didn’t kill the neutral diplomats, Russian bombs and shells might. Veesenmayer, Hitler’s representative in Hungary, had already made the Germans’ intention clear, declaring that Budapest could be “destroyed ten times, so long as Vienna could thereby be defended.”7 60,000 German and Hungarian defenders would fight to the bitter end against more than 180,000 Soviet and Romanian troops.8 The scene was set for an epic battle that would eventually rival that of the siege of Stalingrad. 800,000 people, including at least 120,000 Jews, were now trapped in Budapest. They would all end up victims or traumatized survivors.

  EICHMANN HAD VOWED TO STAY in Budapest until the last German died defending the city. But as the Soviets encircled the city, he and his killing squads prepared to flee. During his last hours in Budapest, he allegedly called senior Arrow Cross figures to a meeting and apologized to them for not liquidating all Hungary’s Jews. Hungary had been the only country in Europe where he had not succeeded in his goals. But time had run out for him. Yet they still had the chance to finish what he had begun. If they wanted to be effective, they should ignore the demands of the neutral diplomats.

  The war could still be won, stressed Eichmann. Hitler had secret weapons that would soon be unleashed, and then, when the Soviets had been defeated, Eichmann would return to Budapest.9

  By December 22, the Soviets were almost in Buda itself. Katushka rockets lit the sky above the Hotel Majestic with streaks of fire and explosions. The shellfire was continuous. Searchlights crisscrossed the city. That night, Eichmann got into the back of his black Mercedes and told his driver to take him across the Danube, and into Pest. He had one more piece of unfinished business with the city’s Jewish Council.

  Earlier that evening, one of Eichmann’s assistants had been ordered to make contact with the Council, which had its headquarters in the General Ghetto, where just 243 buildings housed over seventy-five thousand people—so many that they were forced to sleep on staircases, living fourteen to a room, if they could find one.

  An SS officer had told a porter called Jakob Takacs to make sure the Jewish Council gathered at nine o’clock. Eichmann would arrive at that time to meet with them. Sure enough, at 9 p.m., the SS arrived in three staff cars and pulled up outside the Jewish Council headquarters on Sip Street. Eichmann and two aides stepped out of a car. Guarded by an SS man with a submachine gun, Eichmann strode toward the porter’s lodge.

  Takacs heard Eichmann knock.

  “Well, where are they?” asked Eichmann.

  Takacs was terrified. Eichmann looked drunk—his eyes were blood-shot.

  “The Jewish Council members,” Eichmann said. “Where are they?”

  “I was told to get them here for nine o’clock in the morning,” lied Takacs.

  Eichmann raged that a call had been made, and it had been agreed that they would be there at nine o’clock. Takacs said he thought he had meant nine in the morning. Hearing the commotion, Takacs’s sister arriv
ed just in time to see Eichmann pull out his revolver. He said he would shoot brother and sister if they did not gather the Jewish Council members straight away. Takacs said this was impossible because the members were spread out in various houses. It would take all night to get them together. One of Eichmann’s aides then pistol-whipped Takacs until he collapsed, blood from facial wounds running across the floor.

  Eichmann then turned to Takacs’s sister.

  “Tell your brother when he comes round,” said Eichmann, “that if the entire council is not here at nine in the morning, lined up for inspection, I will have both of you shot.”10

  The next morning, fearing for their lives, the Jewish Council assembled, along with a heavily bandaged Takacs and his sister, and waited nervously for a vengeful Eichmann to reappear. The council’s diary entry for that day, December 23, 1944, reads: “An hour or two, full of anxiety, passed, and at last it was learned that the Eichmann detachment had left Budapest most urgently during the night.”11

  EICHMANN HAD FLED, managing to escape through the last gap in the front lines.12 It was not a moment too soon for the last remaining Jews in the city. But now the Germans were the least of their worries. Knowing that time was fast running out for their regime, the uncontrolled Arrow Cross street gangs turned their rage on the defenseless, captive Jews. In a city renowned for its subtle charms and rich culture, barbarism became the norm and evil was personified. Just as there had been nothing banal about the mass murders by Eichmann and his men, now there was very little that was mundane about Budapest’s most psychopathic fascists. According to Hungarian historian Christian Ungvary: “Practically all party activists were obliged to take part in tortures and executions, which served as a so-called loyalty test.”13