Wallenberg was born in Kapptsta, near Stockholm. He was a member of a prominent family of bankers and industrialists. He visited Hungary on business in the early 1940s, during World War II. Wallenberg became increasingly disturbed by the plans of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to kill all the Jews of Europe. In 1944, the World Jewish Congress and the American War Refugee Board asked Wallennberg to help and he agreed to go to Hungary to save the remaining Jews there.