EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

DATE: 2:30-3:45 p.m. Jan. 30 (lecture); 4-6 p.m. Jan. 30 (reception); 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Jan. 31-March 1 (exhibit)

EVENT: Annual Wallenberg Lecture and exhibit opening and reception honoring University of Michigan alumnus Raoul Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust.

On the centenary of Wallenberg’s birth, a public exhibit telling the heroic story of the young Swede and 1935 U-M architecture graduate, will be presented by U-M, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Swedish Consulate General of Detroit at the Michigan Union Art Lounge.

Created by the Swedish Institute for the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the exhibit tells the story of Wallenberg’s life, including his time in Budapest during the final months of the Holocaust and the years he spent in Ann Arbor and traveling in America. In January 1945, Soviet authorities detained Wallenberg in Budapest; his fate remains unknown.

The exhibit has been augmented with additional information about his time on campus in Ann Arbor. During the past year, the exhibition has traveled to Budapest, Berlin, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Ottawa, Toronto, New York and Washington, D.C.

The exhibit will open with a reception 4-6 p.m. Jan. 30 at the Michigan Union Ballroom. Remarks will be given by U-M President Mary Sue Coleman; Jonas Hafström, Swedish ambassador to the United States; Monica Ponce de Leon, dean of U-M’s A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; Holocaust survivor Irene Butter, cofounder of the U-M Wallenberg Executive Committee; and Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlberg, author of the award-winning book “There is a Room Waiting for You Here: The Story of Raoul Wallenberg.”

Carlberg also will give the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning’s annual Wallenberg Lecture 2:30-3:45 p.m. Jan. 30 in Room 100 of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library. Her biography of Wallenberg won the 2012 August Prize for the best Swedish nonfiction book. It is being translated into English for publication in the U.S.

EXHIBIT SPONSORS: A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; U-M Alumni Association; The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation; U-M College of Literature, Sciences & the Arts; Detroit Swedish Foundation; U-M International Institute; Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies; Jenny Lind Club of Michigan; U-M Office of the Provost; Rackham Graduate School; U-M Scandinavian Studies Program; SACC-Detroit; SWEA-Michigan; Swedish Club of Detroit; U-M Hillel; U-M Wallenberg Executive Committee; University Library; and Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia.

INFORMATION: For more information or to arrange visits to the exhibit by school groups and other organizations, contact rwcentennial@umich.edu or (734) 764-5536.