"Schutz-Pass" ["Protective Passport"] issued to the Jewish woman Lili Gartner-Pataki and her daughter Katalin by the Swedish Embassy in Budapest. Personally signed by Raoul Wallenberg. August 24, 1944. German and Hungarian.
A document attesting that the bearer and her daughter both enjoy the protection of the Kingdom of Sweden. Hand signed by the Swedish ambassador Carl Ivan Danielsson and bearing the inked stamps of the Swedish Embassy in Budapest as well as the signature of the bearer, Lili Gartner-Pataki. In the lower left corner, there is an additional hand signature – a quick scribble, partially obscured by an ink stain – that of Raoul Wallenberg.
The actions of the Swedish Embassy in Budapest on behalf of the Jews of Hungary began shortly after the Nazi German conquest of Hungary in 1944. Carl Danielsson, the Swedish ambassador, issued temporary Swedish passports specifically to Hungarian Jews with family or commercial ties to Swedish subjects.
In July 1944, after large numbers of Hungarian Jews had already been deported to Auschwitz, Raoul Wallenberg was dispatched on behalf of the Swedish Foreign Office to Budapest to assist in the rescue of the city's remaining Jews. For the most part, the Hungarian and German authorities honored the diplomatic standing of the Swedish Embassy, and Wallenberg managed to issue thousands of "Schutz-Passes" that offered reliable protection to their Jewish holders and prevented them from being deported eastward, despite the fact that they lacked any legal status.
Wallenberg did not make do with the issuing of these passes, and resorted to additional measures in his attempts to save Hungarian Jews; among other things, he opened shelters to house Jewish refugees, and applied various forms of pressure upon senior officials in the Nazi regime to halt the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz. According to a number of eyewitness accounts, he would arrive in time at the train stations where Jews were being concentrated for deportation to Auschwitz, and demand that all those ostensibly carrying the "Schutz-Passes" be allowed to get off the train. In 1966, the honorific of "Righteous among the Nations" was bestowed upon Raoul Wallenberg by Israel's Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
The name "Lili Gartner (Pataki)" appears among the "Schutz-Pass" holders included in the Wallenberg Passport List, kept in the Jewish Museum and Archives of Hungary, Budapest.
[1] f., 34 cm. Good condition. Fold lines to length and width. Minor tears to fold lines, and small open tear in middle of sheet at intersection of fold lines (reinforced with strips of adhesive tape on verso). Minor creases and stains. "Schutz-Pass" without passport photo. Abrasions to paper in space allotted for passport photo.