A statue of Haym Salomon greets visitors at the entrance to Pan Pacific Park at Third and Gardner streets. (photo by Edwin Folven)

Statues honoring two historic figures with important links to the Jewish people stand tall in Los Angeles’ Fairfax District, with thousands passing by possibly unaware of who they were and how they made pivotal contributions to society.

The men lived two centuries apart but shared many similarities. Haym Salomon (1740-1785) helped the American colonists defeat the British during the Revolutionary War, while Raoul Wallenberg (1912-1947) rescued thousands of Jews amid the Holocaust during World War II.

With Salomon, a wealthy Jewish businessman, the statue at Third and Gardner streets illustrates the cost of pursuing freedom and the contributions of immigrants. With the memorial to Wallenberg (1912-1947), located in Raoul Wallenberg Square at Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, the statue commemorates unfettered acts of kindness.

“You have one, Haym Salomon, who was a Jewish man living at the time in the British colony of America, and he fully believed in the American dream, he fully believed in freedom. He dedicated his life and his business to helping the Revolutionary War. I think he really believed that Jews should have a role to play in this new free country,” said Jordanna Gessler, chief impact officer for Holocaust Museum L.A. “And with Raoul Wallenberg, here was a man who did not need to help but saw an opportunity to reach out and save Jewish lives, not because he himself was Jewish, but because he felt that it was the right thing to do. There’s that affirmation of freedom and liberty and equality that I think is mirrored in both statues.”

Born in Poland of Jewish heritage, Salomon left Europe as a young man and arrived in New York City in 1775. He quickly joined the Sons of Liberty and embraced the patriotic cause, according to Chabad, a resource on Jewish history. Salomon was a close associate of Robert Morris, one of the Founding Fathers who is among those who signed the Declaration of Independence. Skilled in finance, Salomon established a brokerage house for international trade in New York and helped fund the campaign for American freedom.

In 1776, the British accused Salomon of being a spy and he served 18 months in captivity. After being pardoned and released, he was arrested a second time in 1778 for espionage and sentenced to death but escaped by bribing a guard. Salomon fled to Philadelphia and once in the “capital” of the American Revolution, further aligned with the patriots. Salomon started a second brokerage house and business dealing in currency exchange. Fluent in multiple languages, Salomon served as a translator and paymaster for foreign troops fighting for the Americans and is credited with providing $600,000 to the colonists. He was appointed superintendent of finance and personally raised $20,000 to help support Gen. George Washington during the Battle of Yorktown, a decisive victory and precursor to the end of the war.

In an ironic twist, Salomon was heavily in debt after the Revolutionary War and died at age 44 in a debtor’s prison. He is buried in the Mikveh Israel Cemetery in Philadelphia, but his grave is unmarked and its specific location unknown.

Raoul Wallenberg is recognized with a statue in a courtyard at Beverly and Fairfax. (photo by Edwin Folven)

Wallenberg was born in 1912 in Stockholm and later studied in the United States. During World War II, he served with the U.S. War Refugee Board and the Swedish government appointed him as a diplomat in Hungary, where he arrived in 1944. Wallenberg was responsible for helping thousands of Jews escape deportation to Nazi concentration camps, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

While in Hungary, Wallenberg remained focused on his mission of saving as many Jews as possible. A neutral country during World War II, Sweden gave Wallenberg permission to issue certificates of protection. Over a period of months, he prevented tens of thousands of Jews from being deported to Nazi camps.

In early 1945, Soviet forces drove the Nazis out of Budapest and liberated approximately 100,000 Jews in the area. Distrusted by the Soviet troops, Wallenberg was arrested and was never seen again. He is believed to have died in Russian captivity in 1947 and like Salomon, the exact whereabouts of his burial site are unknown.

Like those who they honor, the statues in the Fairfax District have divergent yet analogous histories. The Salomon statue, created by sculptor Robert Paine, a descendant of Founding Father Thomas Paine, was first dedicated in a park in Boyle Heights in 1944 and later moved to MacArthur Park and West Wilshire Park before coming to Pan Pacific Park in 2008. The statue memorializing Wallenberg, created by artist Franco Assetto and titled “Angel of Rescue,” was unveiled in 1988 at the northeast corner of Fairfax Avenue and Beverly Boulevard, which was dedicated as Raoul Wallenberg Square.

Both statues are a short distance from Holocaust Museum L.A., and although the museum had no connection in bringing them to the Fairfax District, their proximity offers an important educational opportunity, Gessler said.

“I think the connection is the broader cultural significance of this neighborhood for the Jewish Angeleno population. Also, very tragically, there’s no marked grave for either of these two men, and I think that’s really interesting that we can consider how these monuments can act as gravestones for mourning and commemoration.”

Gessler added that Holocaust Museum L.A. has a significant amount of information on Wallenberg but less on Salomon, who has remained somewhat of an enigma in history.

“I think it was a really beautiful bashert (destiny) moment, a stated moment that the three spaces exist so close to each other and have so many important ties. They can really inspire us to think about how to be kinder to one another,” she added. “These serve as spaces to commemorate those who don’t have a gravesite, and really as a reminder of humanity and the human dignity we all carry.”