Mr. Baruch Tenembaum
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
New York
Dear Mr. Tenembaum

I thank you for your letter inviting me to be part of the Honorary Board of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation over which you preside. I am well aware of the activities of the Foundation and the endeavor that is made towards peace, solidarity and dialogue as well as the understanding between cultures and religions.

It will be a pleasure for me to be part of the Honorary Committee of the IRWF, thus becoming the first President of a Spanish government to be incorporated in this organization.

Warm Regards,
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
President of the Government of Spain

John F. Nash has been included in the Honorary Membership of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, a non-governmental organization (ONG) that develops educational programs based on the examples of solidarity and courage of the saviors of the Holocaust.

In a letter addressed to the founder of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, the Argentine Baruch Tenembaum, Nash indicated:

”I have always been an admirer of Raoul Wallenberg because he was such a notable (and unfortunately also tragic) example or model of the sort of human who has compassion for other persons independently of their specific ethnicity or cultural history”.

Nash received the Nobel Prize for Economics in l994 for his pioneering analysis of the theory of equilibrium between non-cooperative work, a thesis about the mathematics of competition that contradicts the doctrines of Adam Smith, the father of modern economics.

Nash’s life was brought to the screen in a Ron Howard film ”A Beautifull Mind”, winner of four Academy Awards from Hollywood. The movie narrates the life of the mathematical genius, played by the actor Russell Crowe.

Nash is the eighth Nobel Prize Laureate who has joined the Wallenberg Foundation, together with the Dalai Lama, John Hume, Shimon Peres, Jose Ramos Horta, Oscar Arias, David Trimble, and Elie Wiesel.

Autobiography of John F. Nash, Jr. http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/l994/nash-autobio.html

”I have always supported the IRWF and that is why I have accepted to become an honorary member of such a prestigious organization”, said the letter. Likewise, the Dalai Lama recognized in his letter the Wallenberg Foundation´s research work on the humanitarian actions performed by Monsignor Angelo Roncalli in Istanbul in 1944 in his capacity as Vatican Apostolic delegate.

Thanks to Roncalli’s humanitarian attitude thousands of men, women and children avoided a certain death as they were condemmed by the National-Socialist regime. Roncalli was chosen Pope John XXIII in 1958.

”This new show of adhesion and encouragement to our mission compells us to improve the work we are carrying on since 1965 through Casa Argentina en Jerusalem (Argentine House in Jerusalem) and the Wallenberg Foundation”, pointed out from New York Baruch Tenembaum, founder of the ”Spiritual Enterprises” grouped under the premises of respect for the differences and the condemnation of any kind of discrimination.

The Tibetan leader, 14th Dalai Lama, integrates the medley of personalities of different nationalities and religions who are part of the foundation which carries the name of the Swedish diplomat who saved tends of thousands of lives during his mission in Budapest in 1944. Wallenberg disappeared kidnapped by the Soviet army in January, 1945. His whereabouts still remain a mystery, in spite of the efforts carried out by his sister, Nina Lagergren, and honorary member of the IRWF. Mrs. Lagergren is Nane Annan’s mother, wife of the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan.

Alberto Ruíz Gallardón was born in Madrid on December 11, 1958. He is married and is the father of four. He has a Ph. D. In Law and he is a member of the Fiscal Career in a state of voluntary lay-off. In 1983 he was chosen Council of the Madrid City Hall. He has been Senator since 1987 until 1995. Since 1987 he is Congressman of the Madrid Assembly. He has been the Spokesperson of the Popular Parliamentary Group in the Senate and in the Madrid Assembly. He was elected President of the Madrid Community in June of 1995 and re-elected in July of 1999.

The US Congressman Tom Lantos, and the Argentine businessmen Baruch Tenembaum and Natalio Wengrower founded the IRWF. Among the IRWF initiatives are: the educational program ‘Diplomacy and the Holocaust’ and the ‘International Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli Committee’ presented to the Vatican’s State Secretary, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, on September 7 of the year 2000 in New York city.

The President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel; the former President of the United States, Gerald Ford, the king of Morocco, Mohamed VI; the Prime Ministers of Canada, Israel, Norway, Portugal, Lithuania and Slovenia as well as twenty-five governors of the United States are some of the members of the IRWF.

In a letter directed to the founder of the IRWF, Baruch Tenembaum, President Kwasniewski writes:

”Raoul Wallenberg’s rescuing mission is well known in Poland and his memory deserves our respect. The enormous challenge he had to face was shared by thousands of Poles who endangered their own lives in order to provide refuge and assistance to condemned Jews. Your educational program, ”Diplomacy and the Holocaust” reminds me of the protagonist role undertaken by the Polish Foreign Service during rescue missions.

Likewise, I would like to point out the ”Life Marches” that are annually celebrated in my country through which thousands of youngsters of different confessions render homage at the extermination camps to the millions murdered by the Nazi Regime.”

President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, former U.S. President, Gerald Ford, the King of Morocco, Mohamed VI, the prime ministers of Canada, Israel, Norway, Portugal, Lithuania, and Slovenia are among some of the heads of state on the IRWF membership list.

Among the accomplishments undertaken by the IRWF, it can be point out the educational program titled, ”Diplomacy and the Holocaust”, presented at the German Ambassador’s residency in September 2000. On that occasion, the chief of the mission, Ambassador Hans Ulrich Spohn toasted the Jewish New Year, which coincided with the event.

The IRWF was the first NGO in Argentina to congratulate ex-Ambassador Adolf Ritter Von Wagner for the German president’s unparalleled gesture. President Johannes Rau requested exoneration from the Jewish people at the Israeli Parliament in February 2000 for the atrocities committed by the Third Reich. It is expected that in the next weeks there will be a meeting between President Rau and the founder of the IRWF, Baruch Tenembaum, in Berlin. This meeting will serve to analyze a work agenda on topics of common interest.

In the letter, addressed to Tenembaum and signed by the Chancellor himself, we read: ”It is with pleasure that I join the Wallenberg Foundation as an Honorary Member. Raoul Wallenberg personifies the battle of the valiant individual against human contempt, the authority of terror, and totalitarism.”

The President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel; former President of the United States, Gerald Ford, King of Morocco, Mohamed VI; the Prime Ministers of Canada, Israel, Norway, Portugal, Lithuania and Slovenia are some of the Heads of State who have recently joined the ranks of the IRWF.

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation was invited by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, to a meeting specially held on Sunday August 4, the day of the 90th anniversary of the birth of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

During the meeting, that took place at the Secretary General’s residence in New York, Perla Graisman and Baruch Tenembaum, founder of the IRWF, presented a Commemorative Medal specially commissioned and coined to mark the anniversary. Mrs. Nane Annan, wife of the world leader and niece of the Swedish diplomat, also attended the meeting.

This is the third time Mr. Annan meets the international NGO whose mission is to convey through educational programs the values of courage and solidarity demonstrated by Wallenberg, as well as by other saviors, during his six months rescue mission in Budapest between 1944 and 1945. Wallenberg saved tens of thousands of people, mostly Jewish, condemned to death by the Nazi regime. He later disappeared after being abducted by the Soviet Army on 17 January 1945. His whereabouts are still unknown.

On presenting the Medal, Tenembaum pointed out:

”As one of the people Wallenberg rescued accurately pointed out, ´Raoul saved the lives of tens of thousands but, paradoxical as it may seem, tens of thousands could not save him’. Therefore, the Wallenberg Foundation is going to mobilise 100,000 people all around the globe in order to know what really happened to Wallenberg, a man that is alive and will continue to be alive forever”.

Mr. Tenembaum stressed that the IRWF is committed to continue with the educational programs that it is carrying out all around the world, bringing to future generations the message of one of the true heroes of our times. The IRWF is supported by more than fifty heads of state, scholars, Nobel Prize laureates and intellectuals from the entire globe.

The IRWF has branches in New York, Jerusalem and Buenos Aires.

For his part, the UN Secretary General recalled the example given by the Swedish diplomat as a beacon to be followed by future generations.

Finally, Mrs Annan, the daughter of Wallenberg’s sister, Mrs Nina Lagergren, showed Mr Tenembaum an album of Wallenberg’s photographs and a book containing hundreds of letters written by the diplomat, mostly to his mother, Maj Von Dardel. In his last letter to his mother, written in December 1944, Wallenberg sent his greetings to his sister Nina ”and the little girl”. That ”little girl” is precisely Mrs Annan, now a renowned international lawyer and painter, who dedicates most of her time to UN educational and child-care programs. Mrs Annan assured Mr Tenembaum that both she and her mother are delighted with the work carried out so far by the IRWF.

Mister President,

In your letter answering our invitation on naming you an Honorary Member, you explained to us that by constitutional reasons you are not allowed to be a member of a private foundation, and that you honor us with your praise to the action developed by our institution. I am here to thank you for offering to help us with everything within your means and to tell you the following:

I am aware that it is a very special moment for our organization, and for me to find myself before the president, but especially the personality whose trajectory is well known.

There are things in life that are more important than life itself. In accordance to what the voice of our forefathers tells us to do, we must look for TRUTH and JUSTICE.

Your historic declaration before the Israeli Parliament in which you had the strength and courage to plead for forgiveness, is an example for all humankind. It is obvious that nobody can grant forgiveness, but the action, the intention, and the dynamic manifested are examples for our children; and it is the search of TRUTH. Our foundation follows the same track. We are looking forward to know the TRUTH- the truth of the hero Raoul Wallenberg.

Ours is an interfaith institution, and it has a different perspective to offer our children- a model of what man has to be and has to do. Thirty Heads of State already accompany us in the Wallenberg Foundation. Where there are shadows there are lights, and even though it is important not to forget the shadows, we have decided to dedicate to the exceptions that constitute the lights. We are dedicated to the memory of Raoul Wallenberg, a protestant who saved thousands of Jews assuring that there are more important things in life than life itself: the Truth.

You know what we have done and what we are doing. Following the same path, we are in the process of preparing an international campaign for the world to know what another person did, this time a catholic, also a diplomat, Nuncio Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, who later became Pope John XXIII. Today we present you the first two reports prepared by a special commission of historians and scholars. Allow me to tell you, Mister President, that the Vatican’s State Secretary, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, has publicly expressed in New York his surprise and admiration by this initiative of the spirit commenced by us, always in the search of Truth. Wallenberg and Roncalli are exceptions; they are lights illuminating the long nights in which the martyrs of humankind go on forever. Roncalli issued baptismal certificates to save Jewish children.

This and other remarkable facts will be part of the final report to be presented soon. I have the honor to tell you, Mister President, that following the path of Wallenberg and Roncalli, a few moths ago we initiated a search for German Angels, people who risked their lives to save those of others during the World War II. What a surprise it was when it was revealed that hundreds enlarge the list of what the world does not know: German-Catholics, protestants, believers, agnostics- that saved their Jewish brothers and sisters, many paying with their own lives for their acts of heroism.

We must follow that track of TRUTH that the world knows and will leave their children this example: German angels (´Germangels´). In the near future, when this job of producing and registering the list of Germans who saved human beings during the Shoa is over, we wish to launch an international campaign that will include, as in the Wallenberg’s case, worthy coverage useful to new generations as a legacy through exhibitions, educational programs, films, seminars, and courses, all in different languages.

Mister President: in the Old Testament, there is a dialogue in the Book of Genesis, in which the patriarch Abraham talks to the Creator trying to persuade him not to destroy the city of Sodom. The Creator then said that if there were only fifty upright people, the destruction of all the inhabitants would be avoided. Then, this number was becoming smaller and smaller because Abraham was looking for any light in the depth of shadows but he could not find it. He was looking for the exception and he did not find it. We all know the way in which this episode ended. With all modesty and humility we have looked for such a dramatic chapter of history and luckily we have found human beings that are good as an example and as a model for our children. This is the TRUTH.

And today we are here to tell you, Mister President Johannes Rau, that we all wish to collaborate in this sense and we want you to stay with us in everything that the Constitution of your country allows you to. Wouldn’t it allow you to be the Honorary President of this movement that we are initiating dedicated to exalt the German angels, those lights that illuminated our lives? We have decided to renew an old tradition about which we have talked to the Vatican authorities and we want to share it with you. Not only in Wallenberg’s case as well as Roncalli’s and the hundreds of German angels, we will address to all the communities and religions of the world without exception to ask them to consider the possibility of naming newborn babies with the names of the saving angels. This project, which undoubtedly will produce deep emotions, will have to be adopted by Christians during baptism, Jewish males during circumcision, and every religion according to its rites and traditions. Of course we have consulted the religious authorities and the answer was of enthusiasm and total approval.

Daughters and sons with names of heroes and angels.

Baruch Tenembaum

”I fully support the efforts of the [Foundation] to preserve the memory of Raoul Wallenberg. He was one of the true heroes of this century and continues to serve as an example to all of us. I appreciate the fine work of the Foundation and wish every success in its important endeavours”.

”We were pleased to receive your invitation for Us to join the International Committee of the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. As We thank you for this kind invitation, We are delighted to inform you herewith that We willingly agree to your request in consideration of what We know of the exemplary struggle of Raoul Wallenberg against Nazi barbarism. Not only is it Our duty to pay homage to this great Swedish diplomat, but also to perpetuate his memory by offering future generations opportunities to get better acquainted with the attitudes and convictions having inspired his notorious humanist.”