Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary

Wallenberg is a Swede who came to Hungary amidst the German occupation. At that point, 400,000 Hungarian Jews had already been transported to Auchwitz in an astoundingly short amount of time. There was not much in the way of non-Jewish resistance to these deportations, although at that point it was abundantly clear that Germany was losing the and Hungary would go down with it. The Swedes had been issuing Swedish papers to any Hungarian Jew who could show a Swedish realtionship. Wallenberg took it one step further. He brashly and openly issued papers to any Jew, regardless of their background.

He flashed a lot of money around to make this possible, and that certainly helped with his success, although he was clearly a wanted man. He bought a section of Budapest, declared it under Sweidsh control and protection, and housed Jews there. It probably wouldn't have worked for a long period of time, but again, Hungary had been a German ally until late in the war, so the occupation came at the very end. Short term solutions were what was needed. Wallenberg is credited with saving tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews, an impressive feat. He was not rewarded for his heroism. He was captured by the Russians, and died in a Soviet prison in 1947 at the very young age of 34--at least that is what was reported. his body was never returned to Sweden, and his family continued to look for him for years to come. His parents tragically committed suicide after hunting for him for years after the war.