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STORY: U.S. President Barack Obama paid tribute on Wednesday to a Swedish diplomat who risked his own life to save thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

Raoul Wallenberg, born in Sweden in 1912, graduated from the University of Michigan in the United States and went on to become a diplomat upon his return to Sweden. There, he came across many Jews who had been forced to flee persecution in Germany under Nazi rule and later saved the lives of at least 100,000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust.

He is seen as a hero in Sweden and many American-Jews can attribute their own survival to Wallenberg's actions.

"I'm here today because as Americans we cherish our ties to Wallenberg as well. He was a son of Sweden, but he also studied in America," Obama told a gathering including some of Raoul's remaining family and friends at the Great Synagogue of Stockholm, where he paid tribute to the many who were killed during the Holocaust along