To Help or Hang (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9798295556333)

Raoul Wallenberg decided to apply his analytical mind and life experience to change a deadly world. The 32-year-old native of Sweden and alumnus of the University of Michigan came to Budapest in 1944 to confront the apparent hopelessness surrounding Jewish survival. This book provides fresh insights into his thinking and actions by walking the reader through a day-by-day chronology of the people he met, based on his personal pocket calendar. Other primary sources used to identify the individuals, their fate and the meeting context include the 1943 Budapest phonebook, the 1944 Hungarian Government office directory, letters and memoranda Wallenberg sent, as well as contemporary Hungarian newspaper accounts. These intriguing people included aristocrats from the National Casino, the ubiquitous S.S., Jewish Council members, the Interior Minister who launched the Hungarian Holocaust (Shoah), the resistance leader who stole a German bomber, the sadistic lieutenant colonel who implemented the slaughter of more than 400,000 innocents, the patriotic Baron, who after meeting with Wallenberg, met with Hitler, journalists, well-known artists and many others unknown to history who acted as intermediaries or provided safe meeting places. These were not stock players doomed by fate to play their role in a Greek tragedy. They were people with recognizable character traits who had to make personal decisions. Their difficult choices - and Wallenberg's strategic genius - provide thought-provoking examples for our self-reflection and discussion, as we too must wrestle with how to live honorable lives in an unsettled world.