Statue Honors Diplomat Who Saved Jews

More than 500 people crowded onto the northeast corner of Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue to look on as John Brooks removed the white cloth covering the bronze statue of a man with an outstretched hand.

Brooks was there to honor Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who saved Brooks and thousands of other Hungarian Jews from the Nazis.

Praised by Speakers

Other than the politicians, community leaders and media, most who watched the unveiling of the Wallenberg memorial had gray hair and slightly stooped shoulders. Some clasped the hands of grandchildren. A man in a brown cap cupped a hand to his ear to better hear a procession of speakers say that Wallenberg was more than a hero to Jews and Swedes.

As one Holocaust survivor put it, Wallenberg represented the best side of human nature in a time in which man behaved at his worst.

Wallenberg “doesn’t need this memorial. We do,” said Rabbi Paul Dubin.

During a two-month period of 1944, the Nazis killed 500,000 Hungarian Jews in a final rush to complete Hitler’s genocide.

That’s when Wallenberg, starting in July, 1944, stepped in to save more Jews than any other person, organization or country.

Wallenberg, the Lutheran son of a prominent Swedish banking family, rescued Jews by handing out what were essentially fake Swedish papers and by placing Jews in Swedish-controlled “safe houses.”

Twenty-year-old John Brooks and his 16-year-old wife obtained two such protective passes. As a result, Brooks escaped slave labor at a steel plant near Budapest as well as the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

After the war, Wallenberg disappeared after his arrest by Soviet officials. The Swedish government and Jewish leaders are still demanding proof that Wallenberg, who would now be 76, died in prison in 1947, as the Soviet government maintains.

Personal Crusade

Brooks, 65, a semi-retired contractor, made establishing the memorial a personal crusade. Sculptor Franco Assetto volunteered his efforts and donors contributed about $150,000 for materials.

“The next time someone contemplates speaking out against social injustice this monument will guide them to do the right thing,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who helped sponsor fund-raising efforts along with James Montgomery, chairman of Great Western Financial Corp.