Editing Raoul Wallenberg (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Kappsta Raoul Wallenberg.jpg|thumb|Former location of the summer villa where Wallenberg was born in 1912 (pictured in 2009)]]

Wallenberg was born in 1912 in [[Lidingö Municipality]], near [[Stockholm]], where his maternal grandparents, Per Johan Wising and his wife Sophie Wising (née Benedicks), had built a summer house in 1882. His paternal grandfather, Gustaf Wallenberg, was a diplomat and envoy to [[Tokyo]], [[Istanbul]], and [[Sofia]].

His parents, who married in 1911, were Raoul Oscar Wallenberg (1888–1912), a [[Swedish Navy|Swedish naval officer]], and Maria "Maj" Sofia Wising (1891–1979). His father died of cancer three months before he was born, and his maternal grandfather died of pneumonia three months after his birth. His mother and grandmother, now both suddenly widows, raised him together.<ref name  =ROB/> In 1918, his mother married Fredric von Dardel;<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.raoul-wallenberg.eu/researcher/dardel/|title=Raoul Wallenberg's family, the von Dardel|work=Searching for Raoul Wallenberg|access-date=30 March 2016|date=22 February 2008}}</ref> they had a son, [[Guy von Dardel]],<ref name="raoul-wallenberg">{{cite web|url=http://www.raoul-wallenberg.eu/articles/guy-von-dardel-introduction-to-the-report-of-the-independent-consultants/|title=Guy von Dardel's introduction to the report of the Independent consultants" Searching for Raoul Wallenberg|publisher=Raoul-wallenberg.eu|access-date=27 May 2014|date=January 2001}}</ref> and a daughter, [[Nina Lagergren]].<ref>{{Cite news |title=Nina Lagergren obituary |newspaper=[[The Times]] |language=en |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/nina-lagergren-obituary-gmfg72tlj |access-date=2022-05-04 |issn=0140-0460}}</ref>

After high school and his compulsory eight months in the Swedish military, Wallenberg's paternal grandfather sent him to study in Paris. He spent one year there, and then in 1931 he studied architecture at the [[University of Michigan]] in the United States.<ref name=ROB/> Although the [[Wallenberg family]] was rich, he worked at odd jobs in his free time and joined other young male students as a passenger rickshaw handler at [[Chicago]]'s [[Century of Progress]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.raoul-wallenberg.eu/background/3%C2%A0-raoul-wallenberg-university-and-training/|title=03. Raoul Wallenberg; University and Training|work=Searching for Raoul Wallenberg|access-date=30 March 2016|date=20 February 2008|archive-date=20 July 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720173535/http://www.raoul-wallenberg.eu/background/3%C2%A0-raoul-wallenberg-university-and-training/|url-status=dead}}</ref> He used his vacations to explore the United States, with hitchhiking being his preferred method of travel. About his experiences, he wrote to his grandfather saying, "When you travel like a hobo, everything's different. You have to be on the alert the whole time. You're in close contact with new people every day. Hitchhiking gives you training in diplomacy and tact."<ref name=TWS>{{cite web |first=Penny |last=Schreiber |url=http://www.wallenberg.umich.edu/college.html |title=The Wallenberg Story |access-date=14 February 2007 |archive-date=20 August 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080820083204/http://wallenberg.umich.edu/college.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Wallenberg was aware of his one-sixteenth Jewish ancestry and proud of it. It came from his great-great-grandfather (his maternal grandmother's grandfather) Michael Benedicks, who immigrated to Stockholm in 1780 and converted to Christianity.<ref name= "mystery lives">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eFDNcB4NGdQC|title=Raoul Wallenberg: The Mystery Lives on| first= Harvey |last= Rosenfeld|access-date=30 March 2016|isbn=9780595355440|year=2005|publisher=iUniverse }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/6000000013333388727|title=Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg's Family Tree|website=Geni.com|access-date=30 March 2016}}</ref> [[Ingemar Hedenius]] (one of the leading Swedish philosophers) recalls a conversation with Raoul dating back to 1930 when they were together in an army hospital during military service:
{{blockquote|We had many long and intimate conversations. He was full of ideas and plans for the future. Although I was a good deal older – you could choose when to do your service – I was enormously impressed by him. He was proud of his partial Jewish ancestry and, as I recall, must have exaggerated it somewhat. I remember him saying, 'A person like me, who is both a Wallenberg and half-Jewish, can never be defeated'.<ref>{{cite book |first=John |last=Bierman |title=Righteous Gentile |url=https://archive.org/details/righteousgentile0000bier_j7l4/page/24/mode/2up |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd |location=London |year=1981 |page=25|isbn=978-0-14-006116-1 }}</ref>}}
Raoul Wallenberg's Jewish ancestry is supported by Sweden researcher Paul A. Levine, who wrote in his monograph about Wallenberg:
{{blockquote|There is general agreement that around the end of the eighteen[th] century, a German Jew named Benedicts emigrated to Sweden, establishing the material line of [Raoul's] Wallenberg’s family.<ref>{{cite book |first=Paul |last=Levine |title=Raul Wallenberg in Budapest: Myth, History and Holocaust. Valentine Mitchell |location=London |year=2010 |page=59}}</ref>}}

[[File:Raoul Wallenberg young.jpg|thumb|Wallenberg as a youth]]

Wallenberg graduated from the University of Michigan in 1935 with a degree in architecture. Upon his return to Sweden, he found that his American degree did not qualify him to practice as an architect. Later that year, his grandfather arranged a job for him in [[Cape Town]], South Africa, in the office of a Swedish company that sold construction material. After six months in South Africa, he took a new job at a branch office of the Holland Bank in [[Haifa]],<ref name= JVL>{{cite encyclopedia | url = https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/wallenberg.html | title = Raoul Wallenberg | year = 2007 | encyclopedia = [[Jewish Virtual Library]]| via= jewishvirtuallibrary.org}}{{unreliable source?|date=November 2021}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lester |first=Elenore |url=https://archive.org/details/wallenbergmanini00lest/mode/1up?q=Haifa |title=Wallenberg, the man in the iron web |date=1982 |publisher=Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-13-944322-0 |pages=26}}</ref> where he met and befriended Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Marton |first=Kati |url=https://archive.org/details/wallenberg00mart/page/24/ |title=Wallenberg |date=1982 |publisher=New York : Random House |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-394-52360-6 |pages=24–25}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kershaw |first=Alex |url=https://archive.org/details/tosavepeople0000kers_u6r8/mode/2up?q=haifa |title=To save a people |date=2011 |publisher=London : Arrow |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-09-953913-1 |pages=54}}</ref> He returned to Sweden in 1936, securing a job in Stockholm with the help of his father's cousin and godfather, [[Jacob Wallenberg (1892-1980)|Jacob Wallenberg]], at the Central European Trading Company,<ref>The company name is sometimes translated as the "Mid-European Trading Company"</ref> an export-import company trading between Stockholm and central Europe, owned by [[Kálmán Lauer]], a Hungarian Jew.{{Citation needed|date=January 2019}}