The Last of the Pimpernels

In 1974, 62-year-oId Jan Kaplan was one of many Russian Jews who wanted to emigrate to Israel. Denied permission, he threw himself into the task of helping others get out. He was so successful that in 1975 he was arrested for anti-Soviet activities and given a four-year term in the Butyrka prison in Moscow. In prison, Kaplan suffered a heart attack and was placed in the hospital wing under light guard. He was soon up and about, nosing around the other wards. One day, in a hospital cell, he came across a 63-year-old Swede, a man who had been kept in isolation from the outside world for thirty years, Raoul Wallenberg—the last of the pimpernels.

In July of 1944, Wallenberg, then a 32-year-old businessman, was sent jointly by the U.S. War Refugee Board and the Swedish government to German-occupied Budapest to help save as many Hungarian Jews as possible from extinction. Appointed attache, which gave him diplomatic immunity, and armed with unlimited U.S. funds, Wallenberg set up headquarters in the Swedish embassy. He and his staff got to work at once. By bribing Hungarian authorities, he was able to provide food for about a hundred thousand Jews in the main ghetto in Budapest, and to issue papers to Jews who wanted to seek refuge in Sweden. Passage from Hungary to Sweden was impossible at that time; however, the papers became de facto passports, saving their holders from arrest.

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Lennart Frantzell

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In 1974, 62-year-oId Jan Kaplan was one of many Russian Jews who wanted to emigrate to Israel. Denied permission, he threw himself into the task of helping others get out. He was so successful that in 1975 he was arrested for anti-Soviet activities and given a four-year term in the Butyrka prison in Moscow. In prison, Kaplan suffered a heart attack and was placed in the hospital wing under light guard. He was soon up and about, nosing around the other wards. One day, in a hospital cell, he came across a 63-year-old Swede, a man who had been kept in isolation from the outside world for thirty years, Raoul Wallenberg—the last of the pimpernels.

In July of 1944, Wallenberg, then a 32-year-old businessman, was sent jointly by the U.S. War Refugee Board and the Swedish government to German-occupied Budapest to help save as many Hungarian Jews as possible from extinction. Appointed attache, which gave him diplomatic immunity, and armed with unlimited U.S. funds, Wallenberg set up headquarters in the Swedish embassy. He and his staff got to work at once. By bribing Hungarian authorities, he was able to provide food for about a hundred thousand Jews in the main ghetto in Budapest, and to issue papers to Jews who wanted to seek refuge in Sweden. Passage from Hungary to Sweden was impossible at that time; however, the papers became de facto passports, saving their holders from arrest.