Rare footage of Raoul Wallenberg found
May 24, 2017 10:17 AM Subscribe
Author and historian Gellert Kovacs was watching a TV segment on cyber security, when he thought he recognized someone.
In an old black and white shot of the Swedish Home Guards, Kovacs spotted Raoul Wallenberg. He immediately contacted the producers, and with the assistance of Björn Tunbäck, a Swedish TV reporter and a number of people, the archives were able to locate the slightly longer clip of Wallenberg as an instructor with the Home Guard.
Raoul Wallenberg rescued tens of thousands of people from the Nazis by issuing a passport to Hungarian Jews during World War II.
Translated from Swedish:
"It's so touching that you get it all ... It's magical," says Nina Lagergren, Raoul Wallenberg's sister.
The unique film has been recorded in connection with a home-class exercise in the early 40's, and is the first time ever as the internationally famous Swedish film was captured. For Raoul Wallenberg's sister Nina Lagergren is the first time she sees her brother since July 1944."
( I work in documentary film, and this is the sort of discovery that sets that world on fire.)
In an old black and white shot of the Swedish Home Guards, Kovacs spotted Raoul Wallenberg. He immediately contacted the producers, and with the assistance of Björn Tunbäck, a Swedish TV reporter and a number of people, the archives were able to locate the slightly longer clip of Wallenberg as an instructor with the Home Guard.
Raoul Wallenberg rescued tens of thousands of people from the Nazis by issuing a passport to Hungarian Jews during World War II.
Translated from Swedish:
"It's so touching that you get it all ... It's magical," says Nina Lagergren, Raoul Wallenberg's sister.
The unique film has been recorded in connection with a home-class exercise in the early 40's, and is the first time ever as the internationally famous Swedish film was captured. For Raoul Wallenberg's sister Nina Lagergren is the first time she sees her brother since July 1944."
( I work in documentary film, and this is the sort of discovery that sets that world on fire.)
I'm really impressed that Kovacs could so quickly identify the subject. What a great historical find!
Right now there's a regional alert message on the web page that, as translated, ends up being mildly horrifying.
IMPORTANT MESSAGE: It burns at Cementation industry, Slite, Gotland. Everyone in the area are encouraged to go indoors and close doors, windows and ventilation.
posted by redsparkler at 10:35 AM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Right now there's a regional alert message on the web page that, as translated, ends up being mildly horrifying.
IMPORTANT MESSAGE: It burns at Cementation industry, Slite, Gotland. Everyone in the area are encouraged to go indoors and close doors, windows and ventilation.
posted by redsparkler at 10:35 AM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Fantastic!
SVT seems to have forgotten that they were established in 1956, though, so I'm pretty sure it hasn't been sitting in their archives the entire time :-)
The captions give the source as the short "Man ur huse" from 1940, there's a brief synopsis and some production information here. Hemvärnet (the Swedish national guard) was founded in May 1940, so seems this might have been one of the first promotional clips they produced.
(btw, Google unhelpfully translates "Man ur huse" as "You're out of houses", but it's an archaic expression that literally means "one man from every household", i.e. everyone should do their part; these days it's mostly used to mean "everyone was there"...)
posted by effbot at 11:45 AM on May 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
SVT seems to have forgotten that they were established in 1956, though, so I'm pretty sure it hasn't been sitting in their archives the entire time :-)
The captions give the source as the short "Man ur huse" from 1940, there's a brief synopsis and some production information here. Hemvärnet (the Swedish national guard) was founded in May 1940, so seems this might have been one of the first promotional clips they produced.
(btw, Google unhelpfully translates "Man ur huse" as "You're out of houses", but it's an archaic expression that literally means "one man from every household", i.e. everyone should do their part; these days it's mostly used to mean "everyone was there"...)
posted by effbot at 11:45 AM on May 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
Thank you for posting this -- it's a really neat archival find, and I was happy to get the opportunity to learn about Raoul Wallenberg.
This long-overdue obituary in the Economist (he was only declared dead last year!) is a good read:
This long-overdue obituary in the Economist (he was only declared dead last year!) is a good read:
BRONZE replicas of his briefcase, stamped “RW”, are scattered across the world. One stands on Lidingö island near Stockholm, on the grassed-over foundations of the summer house where he was born. Others wait at the Holocaust memorial outside Nottingham, and by the United Nations in New York. In Budapest one has been left on a bench, as if at any moment Raoul Wallenberg, with his long coat, receding hairline and dark, burning eyes, will hurry past and retrieve it.posted by orthicon halo at 11:58 AM on May 24, 2017 [17 favorites]
With the blue-and-yellow “protection passes” he carried in that briefcase, a diplomat’s bluff made “authentic” with Swedish government stamps and decorative Swedish crowns, he saved the lives of thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary in a mere five-month tour in 1944. In the 31 safe houses he set up round Budapest, decked with huge Swedish flags, he fed, clothed and cared for thousands more. As a result he was made a citizen of Canada, Israel, Australia and the United States; awards and institutes were set up in his honour, and streets and parks named after him. Yet the many memorials to him lack one thing, a date of death. In 1945, aged 32, he disappeared; and ever after the world refused to let him go.
...
Besides, to those he had saved and their families, he was still alive. There was no forgetting the charismatic young Swede who had climbed onto cattle trucks bound for Auschwitz, kicked the doors open and handed out his passes, under the rifle fire of the astonished guards, to anyone who could grab one. There was no forgetting his ferocious arguments with the soldiers who, beside the Danube, were preparing to kill Jews and dump them in the river; these, too, he saved. His motto, from a letter home, was “happy to fight".
(...and in case anyone wonders about that "cementation burn", it's a large warehouse full of plastic at the Cementa plant that's on fire. Nobody's injured, it seems, but the fire is not under control despite a dozen units on site, and they're right now moving in airport fire engines to deal with it.)
posted by effbot at 11:59 AM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by effbot at 11:59 AM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oh, this made me all emotional. He was a person who did good, and it's a shameful tragedy that his country abandoned him for it. He was younger than I am now when he disappeared. Imagine what he could have done if Sweden had managed to get him back from the Soviet Union...
posted by harujion at 12:49 PM on May 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by harujion at 12:49 PM on May 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Why isn't this hero's name taught everywhere in our schools? Kids know the name Paul Revere--so what. They should know the name of Raoul Wallenberg, a humanitarian, hero, and someone we should all strive to emulate.
posted by BlueHorse at 1:02 PM on May 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by BlueHorse at 1:02 PM on May 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
BRONZE replicas of his briefcase, stamped “RW”, are scattered across the world.
Done by Hungarian-born Swedish artist Gustav Kraitz, together with his wife and long-time collaborator Ulla Kraitz. Gustav was arrested around the same time as Wallenberg, and spent five years in a Soviet labor camp. He made it back to Hungary, but fled in 1956 during the invasion. Here's one of the briefcases, this one just outside Stockholm at the location where Wallenberg was born (now a nature reserve). The one in Budapest was installed in 2014, and was apparently considered controversial given the current political situation in the country (last link in Swedish).
posted by effbot at 5:34 PM on May 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
Done by Hungarian-born Swedish artist Gustav Kraitz, together with his wife and long-time collaborator Ulla Kraitz. Gustav was arrested around the same time as Wallenberg, and spent five years in a Soviet labor camp. He made it back to Hungary, but fled in 1956 during the invasion. Here's one of the briefcases, this one just outside Stockholm at the location where Wallenberg was born (now a nature reserve). The one in Budapest was installed in 2014, and was apparently considered controversial given the current political situation in the country (last link in Swedish).
posted by effbot at 5:34 PM on May 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
This is astonishing. How could I have never heard of this man? I am in awe. He was a saint. Thank you for this.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 12:58 PM on May 25, 2017
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 12:58 PM on May 25, 2017
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