Raoul Wallenberg Bronze Medal

The Raoul Wallenberg Bronze Medal is a bronze duplicate of the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Raoul Wallenberg in recognition of his many achievements and heroic actions during the Holocaust.

The medal’s obverse features a close-up portrait of Wallenberg. Inscriptions are “RAOUL WALLENBERG,” “ACT OF CONGRESS 2012,” and “HERO OF HEROES.”

The medal’s reverse 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 on the medal’s reverse are “HE LIVES ON FOREVER THROUGH THOSE HE SAVED” around the upper border and “ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE” beneath the Schutz-pass.

Raoul Wallenberg was born on August 4, 1912, in Sweden. After graduation from the University of Michigan, he returned to Sweden where he began a career as a businessman and later as a Swedish diplomat. While working at the Holland Bank, Wallenberg began to meet young Jews who had been forced to flee from Nazi persecution in Germany. Working with the War Refugee Board, Wallenberg 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. Indeed, many of the people Wallenberg saved have been influential citizens contributing to American institutions and culture. Wallenberg’s ultimate fate remains a mystery.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan made him an honorary US citizen, an honor that had only previously been extended to Winston Churchill.