Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 36) permitting the use of the rotunda of the Capitol for a ceremony to award the Congressional Gold…
Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 36) permitting the use of the rotunda of the Capitol for a ceremony to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the next of kin or personal representative of Raoul Wallenberg.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the concurrent resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I might consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the concurrent resolution, permitting the use of the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol for a ceremony to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the next of kin or personal representative of Raoul Wallenberg.
The issuing of the Congressional Gold Medal is in recognition and in honor of this individual's heroism and selfless humanitarian actions.
Raoul Wallenberg was born on August 4, 1912, in Sweden; and in 1931, Mr. Wallenberg attended college in my home State of Michigan, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
In the years that followed his graduating at the top of his class in architecture, he quickly established himself in business in his home nation of Sweden, and like so many others, then he also witnessed the ever-growing threats coming from Germany.
At the age of 32, Mr. Wallenberg was recruited by the U.S. War Refugee Board, a board that was established by then-President Roosevelt and whose mission was to rescue the Jewish from occupied territories and to provide relief to those sent to concentration camps.
Mr. Wallenberg later became known as an individual who led one of the War Refugee Board's most extensive operations.
Mr. Wallenberg was given status as a Swedish diplomat and traveled to Hungary in the summer of 1944, a few months after Nazi forces occupied that nation.
Sweden was a neutral country; and, therefore, Nazi forces or the complying Hungarian authorities could not easily arrest or otherwise harm Swedish citizens. This enabled Mr. Wallenberg to save tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from concentration camps.
Shortly following Nazi occupation, the rounding up of Hungarian Jews and their transference into Nazi custody began. When Mr. Wallenberg arrived in Budapest that summer, the Nazis had already deported nearly 444,000 Hungarian Jews, with almost all of them being sent to the Auschwitz or Birkenau killing centers.
We now know that the SS killed approximately 320,000 of these individuals upon arrival and used the rest as forced labor. When Mr. Wallenberg made it to Budapest, only about 200,000 Jews remained in the city, but there were plans made by the Hungarian authorities under Nazi rule to deport those as well.
Provided with diplomatic credentials and the authorization from the Swedish Government, Mr. Wallenberg took heroic action to save as many of these individuals and families as he could by creating and distributing protective Swedish certificates.
Through the War Refugee Board and assistance from Sweden, Mr. Wallenberg was able to use funds to set up hospitals, nurseries, a soup kitchen, and dozens of safe houses for the Jewish of Budapest. These safe houses actually formed the international ghetto, holding some of the same protective Swedish certificates that Wallenberg handed out.
Faced with the further breakdown of the Hungarian Government and increased Nazi control, deportations of the Jewish population resumed; but this time, the authorities decided to force tens of thousands to march toward Austria, due to the railroad being cut off by the Soviet troops.
That fall, Mr. Wallenberg personally worked to stop the further deportation
of many by securing the release of those who had already had some of the same protection certificates that he had worked to distribute, and he was able to help them return to safe houses within the city.
Mr. Wallenberg was not alone. He worked with many of his colleagues and other diplomats who participated in the same types of rescue operations and issued their own neutral countries' protective certificates to Jewish people and found ways to house them.
By the end of 1944, Mr. Wallenberg and others were able to keep the authorities from destroying the ghetto and the individuals who resided there.
By the beginning of 1945, Soviet forces came to Budapest and liberated the city in February. More than 100,000 Jewish people remained.
But what happened to Mr. Wallenberg, like so many others during this time, is unknown. Mr. Wallenberg was last seen in Soviet custody, and it is thought he may have died in prison.
Mr. Speaker, the end of Mr. Wallenberg's life remains a mystery, but the life that he led and especially the actions he took while living in Budapest for those 6 months and saving as many as so many innocents are forever, forever remembered.
Raoul Wallenberg is a hero, not just for those who were in Budapest at that time, but a hero that the world remembers.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Wallenberg's memory lives on and serves as the best kind of reminder for what it means to serve and accomplish the greater good for all of humanity, and it is certainly fitting that we gather, as a Congress, in the rotunda of the United States Capitol, to formally remember and pay tribute to this man, a man who used the tools he was given to work tirelessly for the lives of others, a man who did so much, even at his own peril.
Awarding Mr. Wallenberg the Congressional Gold Medal is the very least that we can do as a grateful Nation and as a grateful member of the world.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, as well, I would urge all of my colleagues to support S. Con. Res. 36, which is a resolution authorizing the use of the rotunda of the Capitol for a ceremony to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the next of kin or personal representative of Raoul Wallenberg.
I yield back the balance of my time.
