Washington – Swedish-born businessman and diplomat Raoul Wallenberg was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal today during a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
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The medal was designed and prepared by the United States Mint in accordance with Public Law 112-148 in recognition of Wallenberg’s achievements and heroic actions during the Holocaust.
Raoul Wallenberg was born August 4, 1912. After graduating from the University of Michigan, he pursued a career as a businessman in Sweden, and later became a Swedish diplomat. While employed at the Holland Bank, Wallenberg met young Jews who had been forced to flee from Nazi persecution in Germany. Working with the War Refugee Board, he helped save more than 100,000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, many of whom later immigrated to the United States. Today, hundreds of thousands of American Jews can directly or indirectly attribute their own lives to Wallenberg’s heroic actions.
The medal’s obverse (heads side) design, by United States Mint Sculptor-Engraver Don Everhart, features a close-up portrait of Wallenberg with the inscriptions RAOUL WALLENBERG, ACT OF CONGRESS 2012, and HERO OF HEROES.
The medal’s reverse (tails side) design is by United States Mint Sculptor-Engraver Phebe Hemphill. The design depicts Wallenberg’s view as he extends a Schutz-pass and a background view of those he could not reach being boarded on a train bound for a concentration camp. Inscriptions are HE LIVES ON FOREVER THROUGH THOSE HE SAVED around the upper border and ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE beneath the Schutz-pass.
Public Law 112-148, which requires the United States Mint to strike the Congressional Gold Medal for Raoul Wallenberg, also authorizes the bureau to strike and sell bronze reproductions of the medal. The medals will be available for purchase beginning noon Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) July 10, 2014, via the bureau’s online catalog at http://www.usmint.gov/catalog and at 1-800-USA-MINT (872-6468). The three-inch medal (product code 945) will be priced at $39.95, and the 1.5-inch medal (product code 946) will be priced at $6.95.
“Today’s Ceremony which was held 70 years to the day that Wallenberg arrived in Budapest was a Kiddush Hashem and an opportunity for the world to see both survivors who were saved by Wallenberg as well as descendants of those he saved gather in Washington for no other purpose than to say thank you in the presence of Wallenberg’s sister Nina said Peter Rebenwurzel who chairs the Raoul Wallenberg Centennial Celebration Commission established by Ezra Friedlander, CEO, The Friedlander Group which advocated for the Bill’s passage.