Swedish "protective pass" issued to Lili Katz, a Hungarian Jew. The document was initialed by Raoul Wallenberg (bottom left). Budapest, Hungary, August 25, 1944.
Agnes was in Switzerland in 1939 to study French. She returned to Budapest in 1940. After the Germans occupied Hungary in 1944, Agnes was given refuge in the Swedish embassy. She then began to work for Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg in his efforts to save the Jews of Budapest, including the distribution of protective passes (Schutzpaesse). When the Soviets entered Budapest, Agnes decided to go to Romania. After the war, she went to Sweden and Australia before moving to the United States.
When Agnes was a teenager, she attended Budapest's prestigious Baar Madas private school, run by the Hungarian Reformed Church. Although she was the only Jewish student there, Agnes' parents believed that the superior education at the school was important for their daughter. Agnes' father, a textile importer, encouraged his daughter to think for herself.
1933-39: In 1936 Agnes studied educational techniques with Signora Maria Montessori in Italy and earned a diploma so she could teach. Hoping to improve her French, Agnes traveled to Switzerland in 1939. On September 9, while swimming with friends at Lake Geneva, she met some Polish Jews attending a Zionist Congress. Suddenly, news blared that Germany had overrun Poland. Frightened and still in swimsuits, the Poles ran to try to call their families.
1940-44: In Budapest in 1944 Agnes worked for Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat working to save Jews. That December, the fascists ordered Jews executed at the banks of the Danube River. The Jews were tied in groups of three, and the person in the center was shot so all three fell in and drowned. Wallenberg asked his staff, "Who can swim?" Agnes said that she could. They rushed to the water's edge, and when a group fell in they would plunge into the icy river. They rescued 50 people. Later, Agnes got sick and fell into a coma for a day and a half.
After the war, Agnes went to Sweden and Australia, and moved to America in 1951. Later, she dedicated herself to writing and teaching about Wallenberg and his actions.
Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish businessman assigned as a diplomat to Sweden's embassy in Budapest, led one of the most extensive and successful rescue efforts during the Holocaust. Supported by the American War Refugee Board (WRB) and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Wallenberg protected tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews, issuing documents testifying that the Jews were under the protection of neutral Sweden. Diplomats from other neutral countries also participated in the rescue effort. Carl Lutz, a Swiss diplomat, issued certificates of emigration, placing nearly 50,000 Jews under Swiss protection. Italian businessman Giorgio Perlasca, posing as a Spanish diplomat, issued certificates of protection to many Jews in Budapest under the name of nations which neutral Spain represented. At liberation, more than 100,000 Jews remained in Budapest, mostly because of these rescue efforts.
During World War II, it became increasingly clear to American citizens that Nazi Germany and the other Axis powers were murdering European Jews. In January 1944, Treasury Department staff, led by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., persuaded President Franklin D. Roosevelt to establish the War Refugee Board.
Roosevelt tasked this organization, nominally headed by the Secretaries of State, War, and Treasury, with carrying out an official American policy of rescue and relief. The War Refugee Board staff worked with Jewish organizations, diplomats from neutral countries, and resistance groups in Europe to rescue Jews from occupied territories and provide relief to Jews in hiding and in concentration camps. They organized a psychological warfare campaign to deter potential perpetrators, opened a refugee camp in upstate New York, and released the first details of mass murder at Auschwitz to the American people.
The War Refugee Board, along with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, also sponsored the work of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish businessman sent to Budapest as a diplomat to assist Hungarian Jews. Wallenberg helped save thousands of Hungarian Jews by distributing protective Swedish documents. Because Sweden was a neutral country, Germany could not easily harm those under Swedish protection. Wallenberg also set up homes, hospitals, nurseries, and soup kitchens for the Jews of Budapest.
The War Refugee Board played a crucial role in the rescue of tens of thousands Jews. After the war, the War Refugee Board's first director, John Pehle, called their work “little and late” in comparison with the enormity of the Holocaust.
Last Edited: Sep 23, 2025
Author(s):
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
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