Scarce DS in German and Hungarian, one page, 8 x 11.5, December 15, 1944. Identification certificate issued at the Royal Swedish Embassy in Budapest, signed in ink by Raoul Wallenberg as secretary of the Swedish embassy. In part (translated): "The Swedish Royal Embassy certifies that the adopted son of Peter Major is employed at the Swedish Royal Embassy by Mr. Istvan Szecsi." In very good to fine condition, with small splits to the ends of the intersecting folds.
Wallenberg arrived in Hungary in July 1944 as the country's Jewish population was under siege. Nearly every other major Jewish community in Europe had already been decimated, and the Nazis were dispatching more than 10,000 Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers daily. With time of the essence, he devised and distributed thousands of 'Schutz-Passes'—official-looking, but essentially invalid, Swedish passports granting the Hungarian bearer immunity from deportation. Nazi officials readily accepted the paperwork, leading to the escape from certain death for thousands of Hungarian Jews.
This rare example was signed one month before his disappearance. Less than two weeks after it was signed, the Siege of Budapest began. The document is notated twice as a "Swedish Passport," in Russian, likely done in January 1945 during the siege. On January 17, 1945, during the Siege of Budapest by the Red Army, Wallenberg was detained by SMERSH on suspicion of espionage and subsequently disappeared.
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