- From Fact To Fiction-
What does this have to do with Pimpernel Smith? Well, when the film was released, it was banned in Sweden because it was feared that the movie's condemnation of Nazi Germany could injure Sweden's relationship with that country. Raoul, however, managed to see it at a private screening and afterwards told his sister that he would like to do what the character Horatio Smith had done in the film, rescuing people from the concentration camps.
Wallenberg could have remained safe and comfortably neutral; he was from a prominent and wealthy family in a country which was carefully avoiding involvement in the war. Instead, he got himself sent to Budapest in a diplomatic position, where he was secretly involved in a program developed by the US and Swedish governments to rescue Hungarian Jews. Wallenberg would issue fake passports to the Jews which identified them as being Swedish. He then housed them in some 32 buildings which he rented in Budapest and declared Swedish territory. Over the course of the war, he was involved in the rescue of literally tens of thousands of Jews.