46 | JULY 9 • 2020
Looking Back
From the William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History
accessible at www.djnfoundation.org
W
e are living in tumultuous times.
First, the pandemic strikes America,
and our daily lives have been
dramatically changed.
Then, we have experienced a
series of massive protests against
police brutality following the death
of George Floyd at the hands of
a rogue officer in Minneapolis.
While largely peaceful,
unfortunately, in several cities, the
early stages of the protests were
accompanied by rioting, looting
and civil unrest, all unrelated to the
reasons underlying the cause.
On May 30, 2020, the Jewish Community in
Los Angeles was a target for
those assorted lowlifes who saw
an opportunity for vandalism.
Synagogues were defaced and
several stores burned and
looted. Anti-Semitic graffiti
was plastered throughout the
neighborhood.
One of the targets for defacing was a statue
of Raoul Wallenberg. Neither a Confederate
General during the Civil War nor a slave-owner
or racist figure from America’
s past, why target
Wallenberg? Because he saved tens of thousands
of Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Sad to say, this was not the first time that the
Wallenberg memorial in LA that opened in 1988
was defaced by anti-Semitic graffiti. Indeed,
Wallenberg statues in other part of the world, like
the one in Budapest, Hungary, have also been
periodically damaged by anti-Semitic vandals.
I decided to search the William Davidson
Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History to see
how the JN covered the story of Wallenberg. I
found that he has had an ongoing presence, cited
on 419 pages, beginning with the Oct. 19, 1945,
issue of the JN, and as recently as April 4, 2018.
The 2019 issues of the JN will soon be loaded into
the Archive, but I’
ll bet Wallenberg is mentioned
at least once.
Wallenberg also has a local
connection. He studied architecture
at the University of Michigan and
graduated in 1935.
However, it was his work during
WWII that made Wallenberg
extraordinary. Using his Swedish diplomatic
credentials and every personal skill he possessed,
Wallenberg saved tens of thousands of Hungarian
Jews from Nazi death camps. He continued to
help Jews until January 1945, when
he was taken into custody by agents
of the Soviet Union. Wallenberg was
never heard from again. As reported in
the Dec. 3, 2016, issue of the JN, he was
officially declared dead that year by the
Swedish government.
Certainly, Wallenberg
deserves every honor
bestowed upon him,
from his designation as
“Righteous Among the
Nations” at Yad Vashem
in Israel to his honorary
American Citizenship, which only he and
Winston Churchill enjoy; from the University
of Michigan’
s Raoul Wallenberg Award to
Raoul Wallenberg Place SW in Washington, D.C.,
the address for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum; and, from the bust of Wallenberg at
Congregation Beth Shalom to memorials in
his name at synagogues and temples around
the nation.
And, for all this, Wallenberg’
s statue in LA
was defaced. It is another sad sign that the
fight against ignorance and anti-Semitism
must still be waged.
A correction to my last Looking Back: Randee
Freedman wrote to me about her grandfather,
Joseph Chodoroff, not Joseph Newman. The B and
C building in Royal Oak was a formerly a “B and C
Market,” not its HQ. My apologies for the errors.
Want to learn more? Go to the DJN Foundation
archives, available for free at www.
djnfoundation.org.
Wallenberg Statue
Defaced — Again
Mike Smith
Alene and
Graham Landau
Archivist Chair
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