The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2011

J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 31 Standish issued hundreds of visas to support the work of Varian Fry, the representative of the private U.S. Emergency Rescue Committee. To- gether, the three men helped at least 1,500 Jews escape to Spain and other safe havens, including artist Marc Chagall, novelist Heinrich Mann, political scientist Hannah Arendt and other prominent Jewish intellectuals and creative fig- ures. All told, Bingham saved the lives of more than 2,000 Jews and other refugees in Vichy France. After attracting unfavorable State Department atten- tion for the large number of visas that he was issuing, Bing- ham was abruptly transferred, first to Lisbon and then to Buenos Aires, and his Foreign Service career came to an untimely end not long thereafter. (See the June 2002 For- eign Service Journal for a full profile.) In June 2002, AFSA presented Bingham’s family with a posthumous award honoring him for exemplifying the spirit of constructive dissent. And on May 30, 2006, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp hon- oring Bingham as one of six “Distinguished American Diplomats.” Raoul Wallenberg Probably the most famous name on the list is that of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. According to the late U.S. Representative Tom Lantos, D-Calif., one of those whom Wallenberg rescued, during a stay in Bu- dapest of approximately six months the diplomat “saved the lives of tens of thousands of men, women and children by placing them under the protection of the Swedish crown.” (The Yad VashemWeb site notes that he issued at least 4,500 protective letters to Jews authorizing the bear- ers to travel to Sweden.) Wallenberg arrived in Budapest on July 9, 1944, with $200,000 to spend on his mission. With this generous U.S. funding, he established “Section C” within the Swedish legation to help Jews. He eventually employed 340 peo- ple, most of them Jews, and set up a network of more than 30 safe houses, designated as Swedish legation premises. He extended the initiative of Swedish Minister (Head of Legation) Carl Ivan Danielson in issuing 600 provisional passports to Jews who could prove they had personal or commercial ties to Sweden. Wallenberg also concocted the “Schutzpass,” a safe passage document. He started with an initial run of 1,500, and later printed thousands more. Wallenberg was a special case, however. First, he was not a career diplomat, but a businessman fluent in several languages, who was specif- ically hired to carry out a special mis- sion. Second, he was acting on behalf of the U.S. War Refugee Board and enjoyed the support of the Swedish govern- ment in carrying out his mission of saving Hungary’s Jews. Finally, Wallenberg also had some Jewish blood, since his great-great grandfather was Jewish before converting to Lutheranism. The mystery of his disappearance in January 1945 con- tinues to pique the public’s interest. (He reportedly died while in Soviet custody in 1947, but this has been widely disputed.) Numerous books have been written about him, and several movies have been made about his life. Doing Their Duty In general, the activities of the 60 “savior diplomats” on the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation list fall into three broad categories. In the first instance, some of the diplomats were conducting normal diplomatic or consular activity that also had the effect of protecting Jewish individuals or communities. The U.S. consul in Bern, Howard Elting, was recognized for transmitting the Auschwitz Protocols — eyewitness accounts of the atrocities there — as an au- thentic document to the Department of State and Jewish community leaders in Switzerland. Isidor Fabela, the Mexican delegate to the League of Nations, drafted his country’s official protest of Germany’s 1938 annexation of Austria. The future Pope John XXIII, known then as Arch- bishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, was papal nuncio in Is- tanbul during the war. He not only reported to the Vatican on the killings of millions of Jews in Poland and Eastern Europe, but interceded with King Boris on behalf of the Bulgarian Jews, and with the Turkish government on be- half of Jewish refugees who had fled there. Roncalli also did his utmost to prevent the deportation of Greek Jews. Other actions fell within the traditional consular re- sponsibility to provide protection to citizens of the sending state. The Portuguese vice consul in Paris, Carvalho da Silva, personally intervened and persuaded the Gestapo to free 40 Portuguese Jews who were at the deportation cen- F O C U S Probably the most famous name on the list is that of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.