Wallenberg award given to namesake's half-sister

By Louie Meizlish

For the Daily

This year the University chose to award the10th annual Raoul Wallenberg Award and Lecture to Lina Lagergren - Wallenberg's half-sister - for her efforts to increase awareness of Wallenberg's works.

About 400 people gathered at Rackham Auditorium yesterday for to hear Lagergren speak.

Kerry Lawson, senior associate dean of the Graduate School, opened by saying that the purpose of awarding Lagergren was to honor Wallenberg's family for their efforts to "preserve and sustain Raoul Wallenberg's memory."

Irene Butter, professor emerita of Public Health Policy and Administration, said Wallenberg medal winners embody three common characteristics: A "sense of responsibility that goes above and beyond the ordinary level we feel for others;" humility and "unbounded courage which led them to take actions to save the lives of others."

The award is named for Wallenberg for his efforts to save Jews during World War II.

Previous Wallenberg medal winners include the Dalai Lama, Congressman John Lewis and Miep Gies, known for her role in prolonging the life of Anne Frank and her family.

Regent Rebecca McGowan (D-Ann Arbor) presented the award to Lagergren, who was then introduced by her daughter, Nane Annan, who is married to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Annan said that Raoul Wallenberg believed that "all human beings are born free and equal in human rights" and that he "believed what was happening was a crime to humanity."

Wallenberg, a native of Sweden, enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he graduated with University of Michigan, where he graduated with honors from the College of Architecture in 1935. In 1944, Wallenberg was sent by the Swedish Foreign Ministry to Budapest, Hungary to head a rescue mission designed to save the lives of 800,000 Jews still residing in Hungary.

By the time Wallenberg arrived, most of the 450,000 Jews that had resided in the countryside had been deported to concentration camps. Wallenberg then focused on the Jews still living in Budapest. By delivering passports that granted them Swedish citizenship and sheltering them in safe houses, Wallenberg is credited with saving the lives of 100,000 Jewish Hungarians. Following the Soviet occupation of Budapest, Wallenberg was apprehended, Lagergren believes, for the purpose of exchange for other prisoners.

Lagergren said that Wallenberg learned the art of diplomacy by traveling around the United States and having long discussions with people in bus stations "in order to find the person who was traveling the farthest."

A Russo-Swedish Commission has been investigating for nine years what happened to Wallenberg following his work in Hungary and so far its findings have been inconclusive.

"We have been fighting for 54 years to get him back and now we are fighting for the truth," Lagergren said.

Lagergren said Wallenberg once remarked that after rereading Hitler's "Mein Kampf" he believed Hitler dictated exactly what he was going to do with regards to the Jews "and no one paid attention."

JUSTIN FITZPATRICK/Daily

Nina Lagergren and her daughter, Nane Annan, smile after Lagergren received the University's Wallenberg award.