Wallenberg - Missing Hero: The Incredible True Story of the Man Who Saved the Jews of Budapest; by Kati Marton.

The title is indeed apt, Raoul Wallenberg's is the story that refutes all cynicism and reminds one that virtues such as selfless nobility of soul and character is not imaginary, it can and does exist in this very world that would often enough make one believe to the contrary - and for the latter tendency there is good reason! People, masses, or individuals without hope are easier to control, to use in service of any vicious act and plan at all. But then there are the rare souls such as Raoul Wallenberg who appear like comets on the scene and leave a trail of light, disproving the cynic and vicious thesis that would have the civilisation give up hope and humanity. And however much the adverse forces attempt to extinguish these noble agents of Divine, they leave an unmistakable, unshakeable trail of light that is forever. They are not to be forgotten, ever.

Simon Wiesenthal has said and truly enough, that there were no heroes in the WWII except Raoul Wallenberg. Perhaps there were numerous others that acted nobly enough in helping and saving lives of many others, whether singly or many, and those are not to be discounted or disparaged, either.

But Raoul Wallenberg's efforts and actions ended up saving lives of Jews of Budapest to the tune of a hundred thousand, directly and indirectly - he brought back hundreds from the deportation trains and walks, he gave out "shutzpasses" by thousands proclaiming a holder of such a pass protected by Sweden and in effect immediately a citizen of Sweden, gave hope to many more who took action for themselves and others as a result, and guidance by example that resulted in Swiss and other nations' diplomatic services in Hungary following examples and issuing similar passes; he went about bribing and intimidating those he could, writing letters to those that would be affected by officialdom, and generally thwarting the efforts of those that would wipe out all Jews from Budapest as they had managed (or so they thought) to do to Jews of most of Europe.

Eichmann is known more than Raoul Wallenberg, for the former was in charge of the implementation of the "final solution" as was decided at a meeting in Wannsee in 1942, and was thereby changed from a nazi who believed in Zionism to one who methodically went about the extermination that replaced the deportation to Palestine as a scheme, with complete determination to achieve a hundred percent "Judenfrei" Europe. He claimed at a conversation with Wallenberg that he did not care for his personal safety, but subsequently very much did, went into hiding in Europe and then in Argentina, and was hunted out only due to patient, painstaking efforts of those who would not allow such criminals to go scot free - and became famous over the world because of his being brought to justice.

But Raoul Wallenberg was the unexpected glitch in the nazi scheme of turning the humanity into a scenario of demons and victims, former without humanity and latter without hope, and the two acted opposed to each other for the short duration of few months that Wallenberg was in Budapest. That Raoul Wallenberg won in saving quite so many is what is marvellous not only for those he saved but for humanity as such, in not allowing the forces of dark in extinguishing Light from earth.

All the more tragic and horrible, therefore, what happened to him just as Europe was liberated - Soviet military took him in custody and transported him to Moscow to be thrown in prison, and shunted across the Gulag from one prison to another, forever denying his very existence with one lie or another. And this was partly because they did not believe anyone could be selfless or noble, so they took him for - of all the idiotic accusations - a nazi agent!

His clan in Sweden, Wallenberg, which is to Sweden what Rockefellers and Rothschilds are in US, UK et al, moreover, did not help either, any more that the Swedish government did, for the first decade or two - and by then it was too late, and Soviets were embroiled in their own lie that was preserved by successive regimes for sake of not admitting mistakes!

Fortunately, there were others, apart from his immediate family - his mother, stepfather, and half brother and half sister - who were not quite as willing to let him perish forgotten, and their efforts went into taking note of every person who came out of Russia having been in prison and being aware of or having met Raoul Wallenberg. This went on till '79, that is, he was seen or heard of last then, albeit the news came out later.

It is almost as if the hero with the shining noble soul who saved a hundred thousand from forces of evil was taken by the forces of darkness in revenge. One cannot help but admire him and weep at heart over this person, and yet be grateful that he existed, not only for the sake of those he saved - Budapest had about a hundred thousand surviving Jews despite Eichmann's personal and very determined efforts to wipe them all out - but for the sake of human civilisation, of very humanity.

The author has done a good job of recording his story, although by now more is known and can be found in other books. For example a detail about his incarceration from "The Nazi Hunter" that specifies that it was the then Major General Brezhnev who was responsible for the incarceration of Raoul Wallenberg - which is on par with the rest of the story and its ironies, tragedies.

For, unlike their perpetrators who were lumpen cadre whether of nazis or bolsheviks, both Simon Wiesenthal and Raoul Wallenberg in particular and a major part of the victims of holocaust in general were educated, refined people. This pattern alone goes to show the play that the whole era was, of the forces of darkness attempting to extinguish any Light from civilisation and humanity, if such evidence is required at all.

Berlin Diary 1933-41: The Rise of the Third Reich; by William L. Shirer

Often enough when reading this, and the preceding Start, Shirer reminds one of the World's End series of the incomparable Upton Sinclair, they are so synchronised in their thinking and their mindset, but of course that is not to say they plagiarised - only that either both had the same spirit in viewing that era and probably pretty much most of what they saw through their lives, and perhaps they knew one another, spoke, corresponded, or at least read works of one another. The last alone would not of course bring about the similarities in writing to the extent that a shadow of one is visible to the mind's eye as one reads the other, it has to be a synchronicity of mind and spirit, at least in viewing the era around the two world wars and perhaps more too.

To anyone interested in that era, the first half of the twentieth century with its momentous events changing future of humanity, works of these writers are invaluable. And while Upton Sinclair writes in a novel form, Shirer published his diaries of the time, and memoirs, which are practically a small camera making one see it through his view. And this, Berlin Diary of the early years of the WWII, which began formally only in 1939 but of course was set in course to begin far earlier, is perhaps the most important witness account from someone who was neither a victim nor a perpetrator but an impartial observer.

Most of the diary consists of Shirer's everyday accounts of the happenings of what he saw, what he went through, but towards the end when he is set to leave Berlin to return home, he sets out his thoughts and analysis of the whole experience, of all he saw and more, and this provides a great insight to both the man that the author was even so young, and the times he lived in. For few then saw it quite as clearly as he did, most being affected by either fear or apathy, or selfish interests or even being willingly fooled or charmed by the nazis and their agents that worked hard enough to make that happen. Perhaps there were more such men who were not fooled, and a few names come to mind - F.D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and others of British who were not pro nazi, Upton Sinclair - but the rest of the world was only made aware of just how evil the nazi ideology and rule was when at the end of the war the discoveries of the camps revolted and horrified the world for ever.

It is hard to imagine now anyone being fooled quite as much as most of the civilised world then was by the facade, but perhaps that is just as much an illusion - racism, anti-semitism and other forms thereof including of course, hugely, misogyny, pervades the world, still pretty much, so much so most people are unaware of just how much they are confused about it all. Some confuse nationalism with nazi ideology just because of the name, others claim equality is about all women being equal (which is convenient for those that would deny equality to women and leave status quo re male domination intact, of course), and more.

All the more then, one needs to not forget that era when civilisation came close to perishing, and survived only by a miracle or more; one needs to know about what people went through, what they saw, what they experienced living in Europe during those years.

The Last Jews in Berlin; by Leonard Gross.

As the author mentions at the beginning, Berlin had over 160,000 Jews before the nazi assault on their existence began through not only Germany but subsequently in most of Europe occupied by German forces. At the end, when Berlin fell, the Jewish estimate was of 1,123 Jewish survivors in Berlin.

Thousands were deported out of Germany, including Berlin, supposedly for resettlement "east" as the nation was told, but in reality to camps on the way to total extinction, with facilities arranged for the purposes not only of massacre but of complete disposal of bodies, for example bones ground into fertiliser for German fields and soaps made out of rest. Few survived this, in comparison, but they did, miraculously and with help of Germans and others - notably Church of Sweden and its officials in Berlin - who did not agree with the official policy and helped out of not only decency but enormous courage in face of the dangers to their own selves and their families.

On the other hand there were those that were unexpected in either getting them caught, especially the Jews used by Gestapo for catching the Jews in hiding in Berlin, in Germany and elsewhere in occupied regions, with fear for their own selves and families being the hook that was used to make them do this work for the Gestapo.

This book gives detailed stories of such survival of some half a dozen of Jews of Berlin, how they lived day to day, often without shelter, and starvation being a part of life, but for most part in hiding with help of their friends, colleagues, and so on. One such courageous person helping them, Perwe, the pastor of the Church of Sweden in Berlin, helped hundreds, including getting some of them out of Germany and safe to Sweden, until he flew to Sweden for a routine trip and his plane crashed - which most of his colleagues took as murder by Gestapo due to their knowledge of what he was planning further to arrange for helping a lot more escape to Sweden. Considering SS and generally Gestapo were executing all able bodied males not in war as deserters, this is not beyond possibilities.

There are moments of unexpected smile brought to reader, such as when one such surviving male was able to prove he was indeed a Jew, the Russian soldier he was facing offered him a selection of expensive watches and gave a gold watch. There are moments of unexpected horror and worse, such as when it was a gang of Russian soldiers that raped a barely teenage girl who was Russian and helped by a German woman in survival (those soldiers were promptly executed when her German adopted mother, Countess Matzlan, brought a Russian officer to rescue her). And of course, there are moments of heart touching tales, such as the German couple that began by giving a few nights sanctuary to a Jewish couple and ended up being with them for few years till the arrival of Russians - not only them but later with parents of one of them too.

All in all, certainly worth reading.