Harald EDELSTAM

Family tree of Harald EDELSTAM

Scandinavian politician

SwedishBorn Gustav Harald EDELSTAM

Swedish diplomat

Born on March 3, 1913 in Stockholm, Sverige

Died on April 16, 1989 in Stockholm, Sverige

Family tree

Report an error

Report an error

This form allows you to report an error or to submit additional information about this family tree: Harald EDELSTAM (1913)

Source : jgranath

More information

During World War II he earned the nickname Svarta nejlikan ("the Black Pimpernel," a reference to The Scarlet Pimpernel) for helping SOE agents and saboteurs escape from the Germans. During the 1970s he was stationed in Santiago, Chile, and became known as the "Raoul Wallenberg of the 1970s" when he helped Cuban diplomats and Uruguayan refugees escape persecution by Augusto Pinochet.



During the 1973 military coup against President Allende, the Cuban embassy was under fire by tanks and Cubans were returning fire from the windows; Edelstam took a Swedish flag in hand and walked in front of the tanks as bullets hurled past. He fetched the Cubans out of the embassy and took them to the Swedish embassy, then got them out of Chile to safety. Edelstam also helped many other Cubans to escape from Chile and was honored by Fidel Castro as a hero. Due to his remarkable courage and moral integrity, Edelstam is today considered as a true modern-day hero among millions around Latin America, and particularly so among the hundreds of thousands of Chileans who were forced into exile by the dictatorial regime.

 ...   During World War II he earned the nickname Svarta nejlikan ("the Black Pimpernel," a reference to The Scarlet Pimpernel) for helping SOE agents and saboteurs escape from the Germans. During the 1970s he was stationed in Santiago, Chile, and became known as the "Raoul Wallenberg of the 1970s" when he helped Cuban diplomats and Uruguayan refugees escape persecution by Augusto Pinochet.



During the 1973 military coup against President Allende, the Cuban embassy was under fire by tanks and Cubans were returning fire from the windows; Edelstam took a Swedish flag in hand and walked in front of the tanks as bullets hurled past. He fetched the Cubans out of the embassy and took them to the Swedish embassy, then got them out of Chile to safety. Edelstam also helped many other Cubans to escape from Chile and was honored by Fidel Castro as a hero. Due to his remarkable courage and moral integrity, Edelstam is today considered as a true modern-day hero among millions around Latin America, and particularly so among the hundreds of thousands of Chileans who were forced into exile by the dictatorial regime.



Edelstam died from cancer in 1989.



© Copyright Wikipédia authors - This article is under licence CC BY-SA 3.0

  

Geographical origins

The map below shows the places where the ancestors of the famous person lived.

Loading... An error has occured while loading the map.

In the same topic