Raoul Wallenberg and Wilm Hosenfeld. Hardly household names but people who should be remembered and honoured for showing righteousness in the horrors of world war 2.
Raoul Wallenburg was a Swedish diplomat who at the young age of 32 went to Hungary to save Jews from deportation to certain death. He used a combination of believable (but fake) passport like documents and a lot of swagger and confidence to save over 100,000 Jews by pretending they were protected by Sweden - a country who Germany had to keep sweet since they were supplying the Reich with iron ore. Tales of bravery abound and in around 6 months he had lived a lifetime. Sadly he was arrested by the Russians as a spy shortly afterwards and because of incompetence on the part of Sweden and secrecy on the part of Russia, he was never seen again, believed to have lived for a few decades in Russian prisons and by now presumed dead.
Wilm Hosenfeld was made famous in the film the Pianist when he is shown helping the eponymous character with food and protection despite being a Nazi. It so happened that he was also a devout Catholic and was horrified at treatment of the Jews and saved several Jews and Poles from harm. Sadly again he was whisked away by Russia and died in a prisoner of war camp before the Pianist could come and lobby on his behalf.
We lack many heroes like this nowadays, we worship crap singers and overpaid footballers. It would be great to teach more about these kind of people in schools and have people aspire to true greatness.
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