The impact of the Vrba-Wetzler Report of June 1944 and Raoul Wallenberg’s mission to Budapest, July 1944.
As told to and quoted by Robin Vrba, Jewish Heritage Museum, New York, 6 May 2012
Introductory talk to Holocaust educators.
The direct link between Rudi’s Report and Wallenberg was not through Sweden, but directly through the War Refugee Board (set up by Roosevelt some five months earlier), which, when a copy of the Report reached it in Washington, D. C., sent Wallenberg to Budapest, and financed him.
The Report was entirely the catalyst for Wallenberg, but through the War Refugee Board, not through Sweden. At that time Sweden was still helping the German War effort with the crucial provision of essential raw materials for German bombers. Wallenberg was attached to the Swedish legation as a result of strong diplomatic pressure on the Swedish government from both Roosevelt and Churchill, both of whom were increasingly angered by Sweden’s one-sided “neutrality”, and wanted Sweden to give some sign that it could do the right thing.