WEBVTT - Special X-Mas Non-Bastard: Raoul Wallenberg, History's Greatest Hero 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:07.040 M was motherfucker's No, that's not how we're gonna start with. 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:13.440 That's so good. I'm Robert Evans. Hello, I your This 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:15.480 is the Behind the Bastard Show, the show where we 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:17.400 tell you everything you don't know about the very worst 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.639 people in all of history. Only today that's not what 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:22.560 we're doing. This is our special Christmas episode. Uh. And 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:25.880 I figured that in light of the holiday season, the 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.360 fact that, uh, it's the time of the year where 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:31.960 everybody tries to think about the better aspects of humankind, 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.199 we would do a little break from tradition here and 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:37.479 talk about someone who is not a bastard, but is 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:39.680 in fact a little bit of a hero of mine, 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:42.920 more than a little bit. My guest today is Ana Hosnia, 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:47.120 co host of the Ethnically Ambiguous podcast What did I 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:54.280 suk Up? She didn't even notice, Uh, what did you do? 0:00:55.880 --> 0:01:00.560 That's totally fine. Yeah, who cares? At this point? Who cares? 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.680 He said? Most people go like Hasney, our hosts n 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.280 that's you were you were there, my friends. All right, 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.920 let's leave this all in, uh, Lawrence, Yeah, we're keeping 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.280 it in and this will be good because that way, 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:15.360 if any of our listeners meet you, they will know 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:20.039 how to approximately. How are you doing today, Anna, I 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.120 am good. You know I overslept this morning, um, which 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.760 is common for me on a nice Monday. Yeah. I 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.399 can't hop back that well into the work week after 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:30.520 a weekend. No, there's no hopping for I just got 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:32.319 off of a red eye from d C. So I am. 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.280 I am ruined. Right. Were you fighting the Good War? Yeah? 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:38.760 Kind of, yeah, I was. I was teaching baby cops 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.440 how to find Nazis on the internet. That is the 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.720 most youth thing I've ever heard in my life. Anna, 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.600 have you ever heard of a fellow named Raoul Wallenberg? No, 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.760 I'm you're about to. Uh. In a world so full 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.200 of evil, depthless greed, unspeakable cruelty, and uh that one 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.320 Arianna Grande music video that was kind of mean. Uh, 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:02.080 it can be easy to feel like there's no way 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:04.640 a single human being can make any kind of meaningful difference. 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:06.880 I feel like that a lot. I think it's pretty 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:12.040 common feeling in as we watch society spiral into oblivion. 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:18.520 You've got that Weinstein laugh going again, just kind of 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:22.000 bust into a cloud of dust. Yeah. Now, Raoul Wallenberg, 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:24.400 I feel is proof against this kind of hopeless feeling. 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:26.080 This is the story of a man who saved tens 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.040 of thousands of lives using nothing but paper and the 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.440 eternal power of lying. Uh Raul Wallenberg might be the 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.120 man from history I most admire, and so today as 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.519 sort of a Christmas present, or as a Yule present 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:41.279 if you're not into Christmas, or as a uh Satanist 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:43.639 Easter present. I think that's in December two. I don't 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:47.480 really know much. No, probably not. I just lied about that, um. 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:49.440 But in the world, I think this might also count. 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.720 We're recording this during Hanukah, but it's not going to 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.400 run during Hanukah. But you can consider it Hanakah present 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.919 as well if that is your desire. Any kind of present, 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.000 if you like presents, this this is a kind of 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.639 one of those for you. Chris MCCA, if you will, 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:10.240 Chris MCA Christmas, Chris MCA Satanist Easter. Right, let's talk 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.960 about Roel wallenberg story after this roll. Wallenberg's parents were 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.480 the science of two wealthy Swedish families. His father was 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.000 also named Roel Wallenberg and was a naval officer in 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.400 the Swedish Maybe. His mother, Maj Wizing, was the daughter 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:25.919 of a neurologist. They married in nineteen eleven, but Rule 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.800 contracted cancer a few months later and died three months 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:30.560 before the birth of the Sun who would carry on 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.920 his name. So, but he didn't go by the second 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.400 or junior, not because his dad was dead as ship. 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:37.640 So you don't got to do that if your dad dies, 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:41.640 so Swedish. So Donald, well, no, not gonna I'm gonna 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:45.560 do that. That's breaking the law again. So r Raoul 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.480 Wallenberg was born on August four, nineteen twelve, in Capsta, Sweden. 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.000 He spent his first few years living in boogie comfort 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.080 with his mother and his grandmother. Roe grew up in 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:57.480 about as much privilege as it's possible to grow up with. 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.120 His grandfather had been the Swedish ambassador to Japan, and 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.800 his uncle's were wealthy bankers, founders of the Inn Skilled, 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.480 a bank. He had kid who are bishops. His great 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:07.840 grandfather was a Jewish man who become the king's chief 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:11.400 financial advisor. Himself was not Jewish, but like he comes from, 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:13.960 you know, privilege. When you're you've get a relative who's 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.120 advising the king on where to invest money, you're anyone 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.599 who's got to ambassador. Uncle. Yeah, here we go, here 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.800 we go. Yeah yeah. I actually lived near the Saudi embassy, 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.720 and I can tell you those kids do not drive well. 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.279 Do you like ever like walk by and go who 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.560 If I'm feeling crazy today, maybe I'll go in there. 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.279 I mean again, we're really trying to get away from 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.760 talking about committing crimes on this podcast. Sorry, I can't 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.280 help myself. I will say it looks pretty fortified, like 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.120 you would have you would have trouble um next to 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:50.040 a really good shop for getting like desserts and stuff. Well, 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:52.440 I mean that makes sense, yeah, really really nice desserts 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.919 and coffee. Uh. Also a nice T shirt store next door? 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.800 And then where is it like in Koreatown area. No, 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.000 it's in like the West side. Uh oh yeah, I 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.080 didn't know that. Yes, most of the embassies are like 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:08.359 kind of that Wilsher Block, like some Saudi building, and 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.320 it's like this giant fortress looking thing in the middle 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:13.960 of like a shopping district. It's really weird. It's one 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.560 of those things. There's no signs. I didn't realize until later, 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.640 but there's all like regularly really nice cars with diplomatic 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.039 plates driving through and like usually driving like a bat 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.560 out of hell, because I mean I if I had 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:28.360 diplomatic plates, yeah I would lawless. Yeah I would never 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:34.159 drive sober. So okay. When Roll's mother remarried in nineteen 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:36.080 twelve he was six years old, his stepdad became the 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.920 administrator of the largest hospital in Sweden by all AC counts. 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:40.800 His childhood was a happy one. His mom and stepdad 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:42.720 gave him a great deal of freedom to roam around 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.560 and uh. He generally had an opportunity not a lot 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:47.400 of rich kids have, which is to kind of come 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.760 to their own conclusions about life. Role was particularly close 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:53.440 to his grandpa Gustav. Since Gustav spent his career as 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.719 a diplomat, he considered himself a citizen of the world 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.280 rather than just a Swite. He wanted his grandson Raoul 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.400 to grow up understanding the duty and oppligatetion that he 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.919 felt people owed each other. Raoul graduated from secondary school 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.400 in nineteen thirty. He spent nine months in mandatory military 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.120 service and then spent a year at the University of 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:10.520 Potier in France. By the time he was twenty, he 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:15.560 was fluent in English, German, Russian, and French sounds exhausting, right, Yeah, yeah, 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:20.840 I'm always over. I mean it's good. Yeah, well that's 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.480 always an interesting thing. Like American kids don't do that, 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:25.720 Like it was kind of an old timey, kind of 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.240 like European style to be like, I just learned all them. 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.720 There's no television exactly, there's no Twitter to distract me anyway. 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.880 I speak Chinese. Never going to go there because there's 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:43.440 no antibiotics. It's it's just a hobby. Uh. Role traveled 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:45.680 to the United States for college. He was an artist, 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.320 and he sought a career in architecture. Although he could 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.440 have afforded to have an Ivy League education, Role had 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:52.760 no interest in surrounding himself with a bunch of wealthy bricks. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.200 His sister described him as an anti snob who loved 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.840 Charlie Chaplin, hot dogs, and sneakers. He went by the 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.000 nickname Rudy. He would not have fit in at Harvard 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.280 or Yale, but the University of Michigan proved to be 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.480 a perfect fit. It's nice. I heard it's nice. It's 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:06.719 like an an arbor area. It's an ann arbor area 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.480 and just during the winter. Most of what I know 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:11.560 about Michigan is that ann arbor is a place in 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:16.680 it M. That's very true. Alright, moving on. Uh. He 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:19.320 was popular at college. One classmate recalled that Rule was 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:21.880 a star who always thought to the essence of an issue. 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.120 He was full of energy, good humor, and generally a 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:26.720 good guy. Role refused to join a fraternity because, in 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:28.520 the words of a friend, he worried it would isolate 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:30.840 him from a certain strata of students. Wow, he really 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.200 is a good guy. If he's like, I'm sorry, fraternities 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.520 just aren't for me. It's gonna I just feel like 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:37.000 I don't want to hang around with rich people all 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.320 the time. He's like, I'm not trying to get sucked 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.320 into bro culture, you know, really trying to open my 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:45.640 eyes and trying to the world. Yeah. Yeah. During the holidays, 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.840 Wallenberg indulged in his passion hitchhiking. He wrote in a 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:51.280 letter to his grandpa that quote, when you travel like 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.160 a hobo, everything is different. You have to be on 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.200 the alert the whole time. You're in close contact with 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.760 new people every day. Hitchhiking gives you training in diplomacy. Intact, 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.560 this training would prove critical for what's going to come later. 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.920 Hitchhiking also gave Wallenberg experience in staying calm during moments 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.760 of tremendous danger during his second summer in America. What 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.720 just only a man could do that? Well, yeah, I mean, yes, 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:13.440 this is definitely I'm like, could I have been No, 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:15.840 I would have been murdered in my moments of diplomacy. 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.360 I mean yeah, yeah, I mean. And as it heads up, 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.200 this is a story of a guy who's born into 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.360 like about as much privilege as it's possible to be 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:26.080 born into, but who actually like deploys it really effectively, 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:28.800 which is part of why I like this story. So 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:31.240 during the second Summer in America, while he's hitching from 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.440 Chicago to ann Arbor, the East coast distances are always weird. 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:35.680 Like when I was in d C. I would go 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:37.240 through like two or three states in a day, just 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.880 like get lunch. And it's like, actually when I people 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:42.600 doing it. Once when I was in Chicago, I took 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:45.760 the train to ann Arbor for the day, it's not 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.240 it's lunacy. I grew up in Texas and then I 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.400 moved to California, So I'm used to a state being 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.320 a thing that like you gotta really you gotta want it. 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.199 The East Coast is nonsense. Uh and I don't care 0:08:56.240 --> 0:09:01.640 who knows it except for Pittsburgh fish East coast city 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.679 of this podcast. Okay, yeah, I don't know why. That's 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:11.800 where movie theaters started. Really yep, well then there you go. Um. So, 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:14.880 during his second summer in America, this paragraphs taking as 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:18.280 a while. While hitching from Chicago han Arbor, Wallenberg was 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.559 picked up by a suspicious looking group before young men. 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:23.040 He later recalled that he quote started to work my 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.440 poverty into the conversation in order to convince them that 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:27.800 he wasn't worse robbing. This did not succeed. One of 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.400 the men jammed a revolver in Wallenberg's face and demanded 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:32.720 all of his money. He stayed calm. In fact, he 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.679 later reported that during the robbery, he realized his robbers 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.320 were quote the ones who were frightened. Maybe because I 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.480 was so calm. I really didn't feel any fear the 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.280 whole time. It was more like an adventure. Um. He 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:45.080 was robbed and tossed in a ditch, but even this 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.480 didn't cause him to give up pitchhiking in the world. 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:51.559 I understand, you know, they didn't, you know, they had 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.040 to Yeah, they were robbing me. It's whatever. I feel 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:58.760 bad that they were so scared. I was fine with it. Uh. 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.160 He took this as a war to carry less cash 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.800 and quote, try to become more devious, which is good 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:10.080 advice in general in life. Yeah, he's like, I learned 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:12.800 from everything. Yeah, he's he's really that kind of guy. 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:17.520 This is a learning opportunity. Yeah. Rao came to love 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:19.880 the United States and he had a difficult time leaving 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.800 the country after February nineteen thirty five, when he completed 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:25.480 his BA in architecture. Believe he did because the world 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:27.880 was beckoning to him. Roll next spent six months in 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:30.080 South Africa and then a year in Palestine as a 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.520 banker's apprentice. It was there that he first came face 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.160 to face with the consequences of Nazi racial policy. Palestine 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.720 in the late thirties was flooded with Jewish refugees from Germany, 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.040 men women who had been bankrupted by the Nuremberg Laws 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.400 and forced to flee for their lives. One of Wallenberg's 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.480 biographers believes that the conversations he had with Jewish refugees 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:48.719 left him permanently changed. He felt as if he had 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:50.880 to do something. I want to note that as soon 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.560 as I said Nuremberg laws, the dog barked again. She 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.120 doesn't care for it. No, she does not like Nazism. 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:01.280 It's a good dog. It's a good dog. She's continuing 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:09.760 to grow. Oh, somebody's delivering something, possibly a Nazi, every 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.120 time she hears that word. In nineteen thirty seven, Rolls, 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:16.800 grandfather and mentor, Gustav died. Roles next four years were difficult, 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:18.920 or at least they were rich get difficult. He started 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.760 two businesses, both of which failed, but he had family money, 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:23.720 so these failures were more like hits to his pride 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.640 than financial disasters. It is possible that some of his 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:28.680 failure had to do with his inability to really focus 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:31.080 on commerce. As the Third Reich War on and the 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.880 Second World War sparked off, Rae grew more and more 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.320 concerned for the Jews of Germany and of Europe. For 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:38.320 a long while, his ability to help was limited to 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.320 providing food aid to a family of refugees who had 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.720 fled to Sweden. But in nineteen forty one, with Hitler 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.320 at the height of his murderous power, Roles uncle Jacob 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.240 introduced him to a man named Kalman Lauer now Lauer 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.280 was a Hungarian businessman who had interests across Central Europe. 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.120 Since Lara was Jewish, Nazi domination of Central Europe made 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.440 it almost impossible for him to you know, travel, do 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.960 not get killed. Exist. He's a rough time to exist 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:04.840 if you were a Jewish guy in Central Europe. So 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.560 Lower's business was essentially like an exotic food import company, 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.560 and he put Wallenberg in charge of the company's European operations. 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.559 Because Wallenberg looked like the whitest dude ever. Well, they're 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:16.240 a picture of him up on the site. I don't 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.360 have one on this document because I am cracked out. 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:25.640 Oh boy, I can see the literal red eye. Yeah, yeah, Oh, 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.280 Sophie has pulled one up. Oh he had like male 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.800 pattern baldness. He's so cool. He's just a normal guy, 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:35.520 just a normal guy. If you were central casting white man, 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.080 you would pick Rao Wallaberg. Very normal looking dude. So 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:41.680 Wallenberg is now in charge of this company's European operations, 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.680 and he starts spending a lot of time in Budapest, 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:45.720 which is kind of where they're centered. He fell in 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:47.320 love with the city, which is an easy thing to 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:51.880 do hud beautiful beauty. One of the prettiest cities to 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:55.120 see from water that I've ever ye lovely place. Now. 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:57.839 Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany at the time. 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.040 Hungarians have kind of a history of being on the 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:05.080 wrong side of any given conflict ideologically, but especially fried food. 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:10.360 Oh my god, oh man, I had some of the best. 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.200 It was a brick of bacon, like the size of 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:17.160 an actual building brick that was all like the consistency 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:19.120 of a cheetoh all the way through. It was so fried, 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.800 so good, so good at fried food, and Hungary pretty 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.800 good at beer, but on the wrong side of your diet. Well, yeah, 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:32.160 fried bacon in World War two and of World War One, 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.000 one day, you know, one day, a lot of rough 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:39.640 decisions made me tieth century just fry it. They've benefited 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:42.960 the most from like Germany, just because of how nobody 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:45.440 thinks about what the Hungarians did during that war anymore, 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:47.800 because like they're right next to Germany, and oh boy, 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.480 got washed away by all that, by all the German behavior. 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:53.440 I guess we just let them take the blame for 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.439 this one and start walk away whistling. Well, no one 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:02.480 saw us. We were really there. They were definitely there. Yeah, 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:04.880 Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany. It's soldiers fought 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:06.880 and died in Russia alongside the men of the Rmacht, 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:08.880 but it was not officially part of the Third Reich. 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.040 Hungarian Jews were forced to wear yellow stars wherever they went, 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.160 just like German Jews um, but they were not sent 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.640 to concentration camps, at least not initially. Admiral Miklos Horthy, 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.240 Hungary's leader, was not a good guy, but he was 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.280 a better dude to having charge than say Hitler if 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.000 you happen to be Jewish, which is a low bar, 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:32.040 very low bar. But he was not Hitler. So by 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.200 early nineteen four, hungary seven hundred Thousandish Jews were probably 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.120 the most intact Jewish community in Europe. With the war 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:40.760 turning against them, the Nazi high command decided in essence 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:42.720 that if they couldn't win the war against the Allies, 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.200 they might at least win their war against the Jews, 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.440 which is very much how they viewed it now. Admiral 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:49.880 Harthy was not a total fool. It had become clear 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.560 as a bell by nineteen forty four that Germans were 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:54.640 not going to win this war. He tried to pull 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.240 his country out of the war and out of its 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:01.760 alliance with Germany. But Hitler was like, n Hitler, I'm Hitler. 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:06.400 You may have heard of me. Yeah, yeah, we've both 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.560 heard of Hitler. We've all heard of Hitler. The Vermacht 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.920 occupied Hungary on March nineteenth, and Horthy was basically ordered 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.200 to put a bunch of Hungarian Nazi types in charge 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:17.080 of the country. So he wasn't removed from power at 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:19.160 this point, but he was told, like, you didn't do 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.120 a nothing, dog, and you better throw some people that 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.640 we like in charge. So once the Nazis were in charge, 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.840 the Nazis did what Nazis do, exterminate Jewish people. By 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.040 July they had deported around four hundred and forty thousand Jews, 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.920 and this was the rapidest deportation and elimination of a 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.000 Jewish population Europe. But then a couple of weeks they 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:40.880 deported like four hundred something thousand people, most of them 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.280 wound up in Auschwitz, were three hundred and twenty thousand 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:47.240 of them were exterminated upon arrival. Inter The US government 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.720 kind of belatedly took a couple of years a million deaths. 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:54.600 But while up until this point the United States is 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.000 a reaction to the Holocaust could best be described as 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.600 piss poor, the Roosevelt administration finally decided to do something 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.520 about this thing. We don't have a word for yet 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.200 because the word genocide wasn't point until after this point, 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:12.080 but they decided to do something. Murder, murder, rampage, yeah, yeah. 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.000 They sent a guy named Iver Olsen to Stockholm as 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:19.640 the official representative of the War Refugee Board or w RB. Now. 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:21.640 Olsen's task was to find someone who could speak both 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:23.960 Hungarian and German and was willing to travel into one 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:25.720 of the deadliest parts of the world as the Reichs 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.600 slowly collapsed and try to rescue Jews from Hitler's death machine. 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.760 Olsen met Kalman Lauer, and Lauer recommended his friend Raoul 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:35.480 Wallenberg for the job. Wallenberg instantly agreed. He traveled to 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:39.560 Budapest in July ninety four as officially the secretary for 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.640 the Swedish Embassy in Budapest. So we're going to talk 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.920 about what he did in Budapest. But first, do you 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:52.160 like products? Are you a fan of services? Well, that's 0:16:52.640 --> 0:17:03.920 what we're that's about ends and we're back. We're talking 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.840 about not a bastard today, the opposite of a bastard hero. 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.520 Uh And yeah, So when we last left off, Wallenberg 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:13.879 had just sort of made it to Budapest as a 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.399 secretary with the Swedish embassy. But that job title was 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.480 essentially nonsense. Wallenberg had a pretty open sort of mandate 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:22.600 to just try to save people's lives, and they've given 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.240 him just a job, so that he was technically attached 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:27.959 to the embassy, right and but was he almost just 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.840 like on a secret mission. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:34.600 was happening. Uh So, Wallenberg's one condition for taking this 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:36.399 job was that he have full permission to do his 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.600 work without contacting the ambassador or any other government officials 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.520 for permission about anything. Basically, he was like, I want 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:44.159 to be a loose cannon diplomat. He doesn't have to 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:47.320 play by anybody's rules but his own. And this rarely 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:51.199 happens in government. But they were like, sure, kind of 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.239 a weird time. It is a weird time. Why not, 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.560 ye can't make the situation worse. Have you guys seen 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:01.920 what's happening out there? Late July? The only intact Jewish 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:05.240 community left in Hungary was the Jewish ghetto in Budapest. Now, 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:08.080 before the Nazis could depourt and exterminate all of them too, 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.280 Admiral Horthy ordered a halt to the deportations, and again 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:13.040 not because he was a great guy, but because he 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.000 was like, they're definitely going to lose the war, and 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:17.800 I want to be the guy who tried to stop 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.360 the mass murdering, so maybe I don't get hung Yeah, yeah, 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.360 he's an opportunist. He's an opportunist. I mean, you get 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.200 credit for trying to stop the Nazis from killing Jewish people, 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.480 for sure, glad he did that. But again, Horthy's a 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.679 complicated figure in expe, we'll say that. So his his 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:35.360 halt held for a few months, but it was clear 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.240 to everyone that eventually the Nazis were going to push 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.760 back again, because it's kind of what Nazis do. Wallenberg 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.119 began to focus his efforts on protecting the Jews and 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.200 his care from being arrested or attacked in the hopes 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:46.320 that the Jewish community in Budapest would just be able 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:47.720 to sort of wait out the end of the war. 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.040 So he was kind of playing for time. Raoul opened 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.879 a diplomatic office in Budapest. He hired four hundred Jewish 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:54.800 people to staff it. He didn't pay them because he 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:56.760 didn't we have the money to do that. But that 0:18:56.800 --> 0:18:59.159 wasn't the point. As embassy employees, these Jews would be 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.600 protected against deep pitation. Wallenberg ordered his men to remove 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:05.000 their yellow stars. He told them, you are now under 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.840 Swedish diplomatic protection. So this remains the only truly justified 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:12.639 example of an unpaid internship in history. Yeah. Yeah, so 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:15.399 it was done well once. Let's just say this is 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.160 gonna save your life. Let's just say you work without 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.640 pay and so that we you can't get deported. That's 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.760 that's cool with everybody. Yeah. His next move was to 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.800 start issuing a new type of Swedish passport, shoots pass. 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.240 The government gave him the authority to print fiftud of 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.280 these passes, and he lobbied to increase that number to 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.080 forty and eventually just started printing the Mountain hand them 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:39.040 ount like hotcakes without permission. Yeah. Wallenberg designed these protective 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.280 passes himself, because again he was an artist. He knew 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.960 German and Hungarian fascists, like all fascists were unduly impressed 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.520 by colorful government documents with impressive symbols on them, Wallenberg 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:50.720 printed his protective passes and yellow and blue with a 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:52.800 garish coat of arms that included the three crowns of 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.560 Sweden in the middle. They were covered with stamps and signatures, 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:57.600 all of which were just nonsense. Just he just knew 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:00.879 that it made it look more legit. But like, whoa 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:07.600 on this motherfucker. Alright, alright, I guess we're not committing 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:12.440 genocide today. Did you see the stamps. It's just really 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:15.600 ridiculous that it worked, because the Shoots pass was more 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:17.480 or less alive. But it was a lie that worked. 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:19.000 By the end of the war, it's possible that he 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.280