Letters and Dispatches 1924-1944

During WWII, Wallenberg, a young Swedish businessman, devoted his organizational skills and negotiating talents to rescuing some 100,000 Hungarian Jews from the Germans. He was a trade representative in Budapest when, in 1944, he was recruited by the War Refugee Board and, as he writes, began to ``save lives that the rest of the world had given up for lost.'' When the Soviet Army liberated Budapest in 1945, Wallenberg was unaccountably arrested and sent to Moscow's Lyubyanka Prison; his subsequent fate remains a mystery. This welcome collection of his letters and diplomatic reports consists largely of correspondence with his beloved grandfather, Gustave Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat whose influence on Raoul was profound. Raoul Wallenberg's letters reveal his decency, independence and adventurousness. Although the editor of the collection receives no credit line on the title page, the book was edited in-house by Arcade editor Tim Bent (who also procured Wallenberg's letters). One hopes this book will rekindle interest in resolving the circumstances of this Holocaust hero's death. Photos. (Jan.)