by Kati Marton
First published 2011
Raoul Wallenberg abandoned his comfortable Swedish life to enter Nazi-occupied Budapest in 1944. The young diplomat faced Adolf Eichmann's systematic campaign to exterminate Hungarian Jews. Wallenberg issued protective passports, established safe houses, and used his diplomatic status to pull victims from deportation trains. He worked against impossible odds as the Nazi machinery accelerated around him. The rest of the world had largely abandoned these people to their fate. Wallenberg refused to accept this abandonment. Kati Marton chronicles how one man's moral courage saved thousands of lives during history's most brutal period. This biography examines what individual action could accomplish when institutions failed and evil seemed unstoppable.
Genres: holocaust, biography, historical-fiction, 20th-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: heroism, individual-action, moral-courage
Setting: Nazi-Occupied Budapest, Sweden
Period: 1944
272 pages · Paperback · Arcade
Content warnings: violence