The Wallenberg Medal of the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

is awarded to outstanding humanitarians whose actions on behalf of the defenseless and oppressed reflect the heroic commitment and sacrifice of

Raoul Wallenberg Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. 31 J ...

, the Swedish diplomat who rescued tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest during the closing months of World War II.

Raoul Wallenberg at the University of Michigan

Encouraged by his grandfather, Gustaf Wallenberg, a diplomat and member of a prominent Swedish family of bankers, industrialists and politicians, Raoul Wallenberg came to Ann Arbor in 1931 to study architecture at the

. Here, his grandfather believed, he could escape the isolation of the elite position of his family and would have the chance to experience the broader world. Wallenberg wore sneakers and rode a bicycle around campus, living in a boarding house rather than the more exclusive society of the fraternities. His many friends admired his modesty, sense of humor, and insightful intelligence. As an architecture student, he was recognized for his aptitude for finding practical solutions to complex problems. In 1933 he worked in Chicago at the Swedish pavilion in

Century of Progress A Century of Progress International Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, from 1933 to 1934. The fair, registered under the Bureau International des Expositi ...

. He spent summers hitchhiking across the US and Canada, and in 1934 drove with a friend to Mexico City in a battered Ford. He earned his degree with honors in architecture in 1935, winning the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

silver medal for student with highest academic standing.

The Wallenberg Endowment

Th
Wallenberg Executive Committee
which includes faculty, students and members of the Ann Arbor community, raises funds for the endowment and select the annual medalist. The Wallenberg Endowment also supports th

awarded to University of Michigan undergraduate and graduate students who undertake civic and humanitarian work anywhere in the world.

Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning Wallenberg Scholarships

The University's

Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning The A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, also known as Taubman College, is one of the nine professional schools at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Taubman College offers the following degrees: Bachelor of Science ...

also awards Wallenberg Scholarships to exceptional undergraduate and graduate students, many of which are given to enable students to broaden their study of architecture to include work in distant locations.

Medalists

* Elie Wiesel (1990) *

Jan Karski Jan Karski (24 June 1914 – 13 July 2000) was a Polish soldier, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II. He is known for having acted as a courier in 1940–1943 to the Polish government-in-exile and to Poland's Western Allies ab ...

(1991) *

Helen Suzman Helen Suzman, OMSG, DBE (née Gavronsky; 7 November 1917 – 1 January 2009) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician. She represented a series of liberal and centre-left opposition parties during her 36-year tenure in th ...

(1992) *

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...

(1994) *

Miep Gies Hermine "Miep" Gies (; ; 15 February 1909 – 11 January 2010) was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family (Otto Frank, Margot Frank, Edith Frank) and four other Dutch Jews (Fritz Pfeffer, Hermann van Pels, Auguste van Pels, ...

(1994) *

Per Anger Per is a Latin preposition which means "through" or "for each", as in per capita. Per or PER may also refer to: Places * IOC country code for Peru * Pér, a village in Hungary * Chapman code for Perthshire, historic county in Scotland Mat ...

(1995) * Marion Pritchard (1996) * Simcha Rotem (1997) *

John Lewis John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville ...

(1999) *

Nina Lagergren Nina Viveka Maria Lagergren (''née'' von Dardel; 3 March 1921 – 5 April 2019) was a Swedish businesswoman and the half-sister of Raoul Wallenberg, and the leading force to find out what happened to him after his disappearance. She was the fou ...

(2000) *

Marcel Marceau Marcel Marceau (; born Marcel Mangel; 22 March 1923 – 22 September 2007) was a French actor and mime artist most famous for his stage persona, "Bip the Clown". He referred to mime as the "art of silence", and he performed professionally worldw ...

(2001) *

Kailash Satyarthi Kailash Satyarthi (born 11 January 1954) is an Indian social reformer who campaigned against child labor in India and advocated the universal right to education. In 2014, he was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Malala Yo ...

(2002) * William "Bill" Basch (2003) * Heinz Drossel (2004) *

Paul Rusesabagina Paul Rusesabagina (;"Paul Rusesabagina, Rwanda's ...

(2005) * Luise Radlmeier (2006) * Sompop Jantraka (2008) * Desmond Tutu (2008) *

Lydia Cacho Lydia María Cacho Ribeiro (born 12 April 1963) is a Mexican journalist, feminist, and human rights activist. Described by Amnesty International as "perhaps Mexico's most famous investigative journalist and women's rights advocate", Cacho's repor ...

(2009) *

Denis Mukwege Denis Mukwege (; born 1 March 1955) is a Congolese gynecologist and Pentecostal pastor. He founded and works in Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where he specializes in the treatment of women who have been raped by armed rebels. In 2018, Mukwege and I ...

(2010) *

Aung San Suu Kyi Aung San Suu Kyi (; ; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a prime minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2 ...

(2011) * Maria Gunnoe (2012) *

Nicholas Winton Sir Nicholas George Winton (born Wertheim; 19 May 1909 – 1 July 2015) was a British humanitarian who helped to rescue children who were at risk of being murdered by Nazi Germany. Born to German-Jewish parents who had emigrated to Britain at ...

(2013) *

Ágnes Heller Ágnes Heller (12 May 1929 – 19 July 2019) was a Hungarian philosopher and lecturer. She was a core member of the Budapest School philosophical forum in the 1960s and later taught political theory for 25 years at the New School for Social Res ...

(2014) *

Masha Gessen Masha Gessen (born 13 January 1967) is a Russian-American journalist, author, translator and activist who has been an outspoken critic of the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the former president of the United States, Donald Trump. Gess ...

(2015) *

Manuel L. Quezon Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina, (; 19 August 1878 – 1 August 1944), also known by his initials MLQ, was a Filipino lawyer, statesman, soldier and politician who served as president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from 1935 until his de ...

(2015) *

Bryan Stevenson Bryan Stevenson (born November 14, 1959) is an American lawyer, social justice activist, law professor at New York University School of Law, and the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, h ...

(2016–2017) *

March For Our Lives March for Our Lives (MFOL) was a student-led demonstration in support of gun control legislation. It took place in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2018, with over 880 sibling events throughout the United States and around the world, and wa ...

and B.R.A.V.E. Youth Leaders (2018) * Safa Al Ahmad (2019)

References

University of Michigan Wallenberg Committee
*
Remembering Raoul Wallenberg
', Penny Schreiber and Joan Lowenstein (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001).

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wallenberg Medal Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian and service awards Awards established in 1990 1990 establishments in Michigan University of Michigan