--- title: Raoul Wallenberg Declared Dead: Who Was the Holocaust Hero? description: The Swedish diplomat has been the subject of speculation since he disappeared in the 1940s; the Swedish Tax Agency has now declared him dead canonical: https://time.com/4552301/raoul-wallenberg-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-31T21:18:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T01:31:58.488Z article:section: History og:title: What to Know About the Swedish Holocaust Hero Who Was Just Declared Dead og:description: Raoul Wallenberg has been the subject of speculation since he disappeared in the 1940s og:url: https://time.com/4552301/raoul-wallenberg-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb763f9b651ed7058/6988ac52fb4eac497288fae8/wallenberg.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Raoul Wallenberg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What to Know About the Swedish Holocaust Hero Who Was Just Declared Dead twitter:description: Raoul Wallenberg has been the subject of speculation since he disappeared in the 1940s twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb763f9b651ed7058/6988ac52fb4eac497288fae8/wallenberg.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What to Know About the Swedish Holocaust Hero Who Was Just Declared Dead  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 31, 2016 9:18 PM UTC  Raoul Wallenberg in the early 1940s Raoul Wallenberg in the early 1940sullstein bild / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 31, 2016 9:18 PM UTC The news that the Swedish Tax Agency has officially [declared](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37824692) that Raoul Wallenberg died on July 31, 1952, returns the Swedish diplomat to headlines decades after his disappearance. But why did it take so long to achieve this resolution on a case that began in the 1940s? As TIME [explained](http://time.com/vault/issue/1953-03-02/page/25/) in 1953, Wallenberg’s fate began to trouble the world almost immediately as soon as he fell out of contact with his colleagues in 1945: --- > “” --- In 1957, following years of disputes between Sweden and the Soviet Union over the fate of the diplomat, Soviet officials [announced](http://time.com/vault/issue/1957-02-18/page/28/) that he had died of a heart attack in July of 1947 and promptly been cremated, having been imprisoned by a former official who was himself dead by that point and thus could not be questioned. (The BBC [reports](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37824692) that his new, official date of death is, in accordance with Swedish guidelines, five years after the date of the last evidence that he was alive.) Without any physical or documentary proof of his fate, many wondered whether Wallenberg was in fact still in prison somewhere in the Soviet Union. The mystery was further exacerbated by the fact that Soviet authorities said that all of the records pertaining to Wallenberg had been destroyed, though experts [asserted](http://time.com/vault/issue/1990-05-21/page/72/) that such an event was unrealistic given the way that bureaucracy functioned. As late as 1981, a California congressman—who had been saved by Wallenberg’s work during his childhood—[spearheaded](http://time.com/vault/issue/1981-10-05/page/96/) a successful effort to make Wallenberg an honorary U.S. citizen, in hopes that such a designation would help an American effort to find out more about his whereabouts. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) In 2000, Russian authorities [conceded](http://time.com/vault/issue/2000-08-07/page/25/) that Wallenberg was likely killed, not felled by a heart attack. Even today, though his case may get some closure from the official declaration of his death, the circumstances of his disappearance and death remain murky. What’s clear is why the world cares. “If I can help,” Wallenberg is [said](http://time.com/vault/issue/1957-02-18/page/28/) to have once remarked, “if I can save a single person, I will go.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4552301/raoul-wallenberg-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4552301/raoul-wallenberg-history/"},"headline":"What to Know About the Swedish Holocaust Hero Who Was Just Declared Dead","datePublished":"2016-10-31T21:18:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T01:31:58.488Z","description":"The Swedish diplomat has been the subject of speculation since he disappeared in the 1940s","url":"https://time.com/4552301/raoul-wallenberg-history/","keywords":["People","WWII"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb763f9b651ed7058/6988ac52fb4eac497288fae8/wallenberg.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb763f9b651ed7058/6988ac52fb4eac497288fae8/wallenberg.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Raoul Wallenberg","caption":"Raoul Wallenberg","creditText":"ullstein bild / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4552301/raoul-wallenberg-history/","name":"What to Know About the Swedish Holocaust Hero Who Was Just Declared Dead"}}]}] ```