; Whereas Raoul Wallenberg is credited with saving tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews through his work with the U.S. War Refugee Board; Whereas Wallenberg and his diplomatic colleagues, aided by members of the Hungarian resistance, set up hospitals, schools, nurseries and soup kitchens in Budapest for over 8,000 Jewish orphans whose parents had already been either killed or taken to a concentration camp; Whereas Wallenberg redesigned and developed official Swedish documents for the protection of Jews, including creating the so-called Schutzpass , a Swedish protective passport that ended up saving nearly 20,000 Jewish lives by granting the holder immunity from deportation from Hungary and almost certain death in Nazi concentration camps; Whereas in November 1944, Wallenberg intervened in a German death march of Jews from Budapest to labor camps in Austria, handing out food, clothing, and Swedish protective passports, saving over 1,500 Jews from being transported to Auschwitz; Whereas Wallenberg helped set up shelters that offered protection, and as a result of his joint efforts with the International Red Cross and diplomatic representatives from Switzerland, Portugal and several other nations, was able to save 50,000 Jews—of which an estimated 25,000 were directly under Wallenberg’s protection; Whereas Wallenberg’s last significant success took place in January 1945, when he helped thwart a plot by the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) to exterminate 70,000 Jews being held captive in the Budapest Central (Large) Ghetto; Whereas, on January 13, 1945, Raoul Wallenberg contacted the Soviet military authorities in an effort to secure food and supplies for the Jews under official Swedish protection; Whereas, on January 17, 1945, Wallenberg and his driver, Vilmos Langfelder, left Budapest for a meeting with the Soviet military commander, Marshal Malinovsky in Debrecen, when they were taken into protective custody by the Soviet military counterintelligence units (Smersh)