BUDAPEST, HUNGARY The Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saved thousands of Jews in Hungary during the Holocaust. On July 9, Wallenberg was commemorated in an official ceremony in Budapest, to the day 80 years after his arrival in the Hungarian capital. Paideia alumna Borcsa Lakos contributed to the ceremony and revealed an earlier unknown personal connection to Wallenberg. Here is her speech.
“When I started my studies at Paideia in 2013, at the very beginning we went to the Wallenberg Square in Stockholm. As a tourist guide specializing in Jewish Budapest, I should certainly know him. I have been telling his story for my groups for more than ten years.
In 2019, when my grandmother passed away, I received a shoe box from my parents filled with family documents. To my great surprise, when I opened the box, the first item I found was a Swedish Schutzpass. It was my grandfather’s. No one in my family ever told me this story before, about my grandfather who was saved by the Swedish embassy in 1944.
In 2024, as the anniversary of his arrival in Budapest was approaching, I found a great website and reread the story of Raoul Wallenberg. This was the moment when I realized that having a Swedish Schutzpass means that my grandfather was one of the Hungarian Jews who were saved by Wallenberg… Why have we never talked about him? Maybe no one knew about him because the ones who lived through it, my grandfather, Jancsi Papa and his mother Ilonka, most probably just wanted to forget and focus on their future…?!
I have never heard Raoul Wallenberg’s name mentioned in our family. Eighty years later, his name and story have been revealed again to give us a chance to start commemorating him properly, as well as appreciating our lives more and not taking everything for granted…
While giving this speech and sharing some stories with my father in the audience, I believe we started a new family tradition on the exact day of the 80th anniversary of the arrival of Wallenberg in Budapest.”
Photo credit: Borcsa Lakos