October 2006

Governor Blagojevich Proclaims Wallenberg Day

Governor Rod R. Blagojevich signed a proclamation declaring October 5th Raoul Wallenberg Day in the State of Illinois, in memory of the Swedish diplomat’s humanitarian efforts to save tens of thousands of lives in Hungary during World War II.

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Guardian Unlimited. Putin’s chance

Tom Parfitt (Bureaucracy forces foreign aid groups to stop work in Russia, October 19) calls attention to the troubling status of human rights in Russia, in the wake of Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. As President Putin comes under EU pressure on civil liberties, he is presented with a suitable opportunity to honour human dignity and courage.

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The Washington Institute. The Holocaust’s Arab Heroes

Virtually alone among peoples of the world, Arabs appear to have won a free pass when it comes to denying or minimizing the Holocaust. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has declared to his supporters that ”Jews invented the legend of the Holocaust.” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recently told an interviewer that he doesn’t have ”any clue how [Jews] were killed or how many were killed.” And Hamas’s official Web site labels the Nazi effort to exterminate Jews ”an alleged and invented story with no basis.”

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NJ.com. Remembering missing hero of the Holocaust

LAWRENCE — Perhaps no other man in the history of the Holocaust can be attributed to saving as many lives as Raoul Wallenberg.

A Swedish diplomat sent to Bu dapest, Hungary, in 1944, Wallen berg is credited with saving approximately 100,000 Hungarian Jews who had been marked for ex termination. Arrested by the Soviet army at age 32 and imprisoned for the rest of his life, the exact date and location of his death still re main elusive today.

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La Nación. Wallenber´s Day

Sir,

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation is an educational NGO created in Argentine. Few months ago we proposed the Buenos Aires’ government to mark the city’s calendar with a day dedicated to the memory of the Swedish diplomat, missing since 1945 after having saved the lives of tens of thousands of people condemned to death by the Nazism.

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JTA. For congressman and others, debt to Wallenberg still remains unpaid

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (JTA) – As a new congressman 25 years ago, the first legislation I introduced was a bill to pay a debt from my adolescence.

My wife, Annette, felt a similar obligation. We owed our lives to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who had saved us during the Holocaust. At that time, Wallenberg was thought by many to be alive in the Soviet gulag, but nobody was sure. His fate remains unknown to this day.

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The Edelweiss Pirates: A Story of Freedom, Love and Life

In the years before World War II, the members of the Nazi regime became intent on cultivating a sense of loyalty and entitlement in the German youth. It would be too late, they thought, to wait for adulthood; the Nazi mentality must be inscribed on children if it was to take hold and grow to support the cause. With such an intention, the Hitler Youth was born.

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‘Nostra Aetate’ Commemoration Recalls Pope John XXIII’s Legacy

With the prominence of religious tension and divisiveness in today’s global affairs, this Oct. 28 marks a significant anniversary for all people coming to terms with diversity of beliefs and practices. Forty-one years ago, the Second Vatican Council issued ”Nostra Aetate,” a declaration on the Catholic Church’s position toward non-Christian religions.

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Holocaust survivor and panelists remember Italian righteous

Holocaust survivor Walter Wolff earned a standing ovation for the inspirational account he shared at an Oct. 17 symposium on Italians who risked their lives to help persecuted Jews. He praised the Italians who helped him flee Nazi Germany and hid him in their homes, and he exhorted the full auditorium at the Center for Jewish History to combat discrimination the moment it starts.

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Helena Zahajkewycz Melnyczuk, Ukraine

The Family Zahajkewycz

As with any photograph, a simple glance at the picture of Orest Zahajkewycz and Helena Melnyczuk, taken in New Jersey in 1986, does not do its subjects justice. It is notable, though, that the two siblings, crowned by a picture of the Virgin Mary, seem to portray a sense of humility and kindness. Their values, however, which compelled them to perform selfless, courageous acts during one of man’s most trying times, are not as easily perceived.

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Swedish Parliamentarian to Present Bill for Raoul Wallenberg Day

Birgitta Olsson, Liberal Party MP, will present the Swedish Parliament with a bill to declare Raoul Wallenberg Day in Sweden, the home country of the diplomat whose humanitarian efforts saved tens of thousands of lives in Hungary during World War II.

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