The event was co-organized together with Casa Argentina en Israel-Tierra Santa and The Spanish-Speaking Friends of the Tel Aviv University.

The ceremony paid tribute to three rescuers: Louise and Joseph Materne, a Belgian couple that saved the life of a Jewish child  in the Shoah, and a contemporary hero  – Sandra Samuel, who saved the life of the child Moshe Holtzberg, in the terrorist attack perpetrated against Chabad House in Mumbai, in 2008, in which Moshe’s parents, Rivka and Gavriel Z’l, were murdered.

The packed audience included ambassadors and diplomatic personnel from a number of Embassies in Israel.

The ceremony was conducted by Mr. Eduardo Bigio, on behalf of the Spanish-Speaking Friends of the Tel Aviv University, who greeted the public and stressed the unique symbolism of the ceremony.

The keynote speakers were the renown journalist Mr. Henrique Cymerman and Mr. Danny Rainer, Vice-President of the Wallenberg Foundation.

Two films created and directed by Mr. Cymerman were screened on the occasion: The documentary film “Juanito”, which tells the awe-inspiring story of the Belgian rescuers of Dr. Zalman Shiffer, and an interview with Sandra Samuel, who could not make it to the event as she was rushed to hospital due to a sudden health problem which, fortunately, though not serious, required immediate medical attention.

In his speech, Mr. Cymerman told the breathtaking story of his own family, during the Shoah and  in a brief and live interview with Dr. Shiffer, the role of the IRWF was emphasized.

Mr. Rainer, in turn, introduced to the audience the mission and activities of the Wallenberg Foundation, stressing that its most important contribution is to “encourage people to exercise the recognition of goodness, very much like Dr. Shiffer and the Rosenbergs (grandparents of Moshe) are teaching us with their deeds… for the recognition of goodness and gratitude are cardinal pillars of Judaism and of all people of good will”.  Mr. Rainer went on by saying that the beauty of this ceremony is that not only the IRWF is paying tribute to these heroes, but the entire audience is actively participating in this homage.

At the end of the ceremony, Rabbi Shimeon Rosenberg, his wife Yehudit, and the little Moshe came up to the stage amidst a standing ovation from the audience. Mr. Guillermo Sverdlin, President of the Spanish-Speaking Friends of the Tel Aviv University and Mr. Danny Rainer, presented the 2011 Raoul Wallenberg Award to the little Moshe, and Dr. Zalman Shiffer handed the diploma to his grandparent.

Rabbi Rosenberg asked to say a few spontaneous words and thanked the IRWF for this well-merited tribute, stressing the importance of recognizing the good, regardless of race, nationality or religion.

PHOTOS by: Chabad On Line (COL) / Avi Aziz / Inbal Tenembaum.

The program will start with a lecture by the internationally acclaimed journalist Henrique Cymerman, and the presentation of the film-interview Juanito.

Juanito tells the remarkable story of Dr. Zalman Shiffer and his “brother” Juanito, which the IRWF has researched and documented in 2010. In 1942 in Belgium, Zalman was given shelter at the house of Louise and Joseph Materne, who had already had a Spanish boy named Juanito – who fled the Spanish Civil War – living at their house. The film-interview tells the story of these two brothers by accident, and the way this experience has changed their lives forever.

After the short intermission a special Ceremony of Honoring Sandra Samuel will take place.
Sandra Samuel saved the life of two-year-old Moshe Holtzberg in the terrorist attack that took place in Mumbai during the November of 2008. Sandra was working for Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, at the Mumbai Chabad House since 2003, being Moshe’s nanny since his birth. On November 26, 2008, Sandra showed incredible courage rescuing Moshe while the terrorist who took the lives of his parents were still in the building.

Danny Rainer, Vice President of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation will bestow a special distinction to Sandra Samuel.

Friday, May 6, at 10.30 AM
Auditorium Bar Shira, TAU
George Wise Street

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Tomorrow, on 17^th of January, the world will mark the 66^th anniversary of the traceless disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg.

Raoul Wallenberg, who grew  up in the very distinguished Wallenberg family in Sweden, found in his grandfather, a well-travelled diplomat, a mentor and confident.

Encouraged by his grandfather he soon became fluent in  English, French, German and Russian. He studied architecture at the University of Michigan. When he couldn’t find a job in Sweden he started to work in various business ventures. Therefore he spent some months in Haifa, where he first met Jewish refugees, who could escape from the Shoah.

He was so touched by the fate of the Jewish people that he changed his whole life. Inspired by a friend of his family, an Hungarian Jew, he started to learn Hungary and to travel to Budapest to find out news about the family of this friend.

When back in 1944,  the American War Refugee Board  started searching for a person whose mission would be to try to save at least some Hungarian Jews from the Nazi-death-machine, someone who speaks German and Hungarian, someone with an independent spirit, Raoul Wallenberg was ready for this mission.

The American War Refugee feared  that Raoul Wallenberg might be too young for the task ahead (He was 32 years old.) But they found no other person to send and Raoul Wallenberg took the assignment

As a Swedish citizen he was attached to the Swedish embassy in Budapest, but he behaved as if he were free from any diplomatic restrictions.

Immediately he started his great work of rescue: he established an office, hired 400 Jewish volunteers and advised them to remove the yellow star and told them: ‘You are now under diplomatic protection; you are working for the Swedish government.’

Wallenberg invented a special Swedish passport, the Schutzpass.(passport of protection) It was a colorful, imposing, official looking document. With permission from no one, he announced that it granted the holder immunity from deportation to the death camps.

Using his American funds, Wallenberg scoured the city for buildings to rent. He eventually found thirty-two, which he declared to be “extraterritorial buildings” protected by Swedish diplomatic immunity.

Wallenbergs’s  ‘safe houses’ and ‘Passports of protection’ saved thousands of Jewish lives. He didn’t know any fear and confronted Nazis and even Eichmann, who wanted to avoid a conflict with the ‘neutral’ State of Sweden. Nevertheless they hated Raoul Wallenberg  and referred to him as a ‘Jew Dog’ ; and when his car was blown up, he started to hide his sleeping places.

When the Red Army approached  Budapest, the Nazis stepped-up the violence against Jewish people and planned a massacre. That’s why Wallenberg decided, that especially in such a moment his presence was indispensable. So he remained in Budapest till the Red Army arrived.

On the 17^th of January 1945 he was invited to a conversation in the Russian military headquarters.

From that day none of his friends and family saw him again. No trace remained; even a proof of his death was not given.

He paid his saving work with his freedom and probably with his life.

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation strives to keep alive the memory of this courageous and humanitarian young man. And the foundation tries to teach the deeds of Raoul Wallenberg as an example, how single human beings can make a difference, even when facing the darkest of regimes .

The interest of the Foundation didn’t stop at the historical point which marks  the military defeat of the Nazis.

The Nazis themselves didn’t disappear: they found new identities in South-America, but also in Europe and in the new founded Federal Republic of Germany. Very soon they entered high political and diplomatic positions – openly or with assumed identities. No one wanted to investigate the atrocious Nazi Crimes.

A friend of mine told me that even in our days a story was unfolded about  a persuaded SS-man, who lived till now – his Nazi background well known by all his neighbours– as a respected person in his village.

Not so respected were the very few people who tried to investigate the Nazis and their deeds and careers. They were as few, as the people who, during the war, tried to fight against the Nazis, the way Raoul Wallenberg did. And these few people were met with hostility and insulted as denigrators of their countries.

The public disliked more the investigators than the Nazi-criminals.

So, not only between 1933-45 civil-courage, humanity, bravery, honesty and straightforwardness were asked, but also in the years and decades afterwards

While Nazis could easily  arrange their careers, the surviving victims were restricted, fooled with empty promises and very little money (called reparation), they were suspected and controlled. And they had to fight to lead a normal life.

The very few persons who stood at their side didn’t get the honour they deserved.

I must tell you it is an honour for the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, and especially for me: a citizen of the country of the perpetrators  to present the award of the Wallenberg foundation to Beate and Serge Klarsfeld.

Beate Klarsfeld came here as an ‘au-pair-Girl’ and the first survivor she met was Serge Klarsfeld, who was going to become her husband.

She was touched by the fate of the Nazi-victims. And very much like  Raoul Wallenberg she decided to fight for justice for the victims. Both Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, devoted their lives to unmask Nazi-criminals and fight for the rights of the survivors and the murdered Jewish people.

When Beate Klarsfeld accused the German Chancellor regarding his previous Nazi-career, she lost her job.

When she revealed his Nazi-past in a way that the people could not ignore, only the French citizenship saved her from being thrown to a German jail.

The former Gestapo-Chief of Paris responsible for nearly 76 000 deportations – although convicted in France – lived openly in Germany, because there didn’t exist an extradition treaty between these two countries.  And Germany did not  judge his crimes, because he was already judged in France. So he lived unchallenged. Beate and Serge Klarsfeld tried to  kidnap him. It was a pity, that they didn’t succeed. Although they revealed his Nazi-past and crimes, an arrest warrant was issued against Beate and Serge Klarsfeld. To bring him finally to jail Beate Klarsfeld had to risk and to experience herself a German jail. Kurt Lischka and his companions were finally punished – with a few years of jail.

Meanwhile well known as ‘Nazi-hunters’ Beate and Serge Klarsfeld began to live a dangerous life: threatened, receiving a parcel bomb, they decided to continue their endeavours.  Their car was blown up to pieces, same as Raoul Wallenberg’s car. The Nazis didn’t change their methods between 1944 and 1979.

Beate and Serge Klarsfeld were decidedly involved in finding and convicting Klaus Barby the Gestapo Chief and ‘slaughterer’ of Lyon.

Nazis unmasking in Bolivia, arrested in Syria, where Nazi-criminals, for example the deputy of Eichmann, could hunker down – an adventurous life. But a laborious and troublesome life   - fighting as David against Goliath. Two people, who make a difference.

Two people who worked for righteousness.

Two people who devoted time and energy to keep alive the memory of the victims,

- ad example with the book of Serge Klarsfeld in 1978, where at the first time all the names of the deported and murdered French  Jews were written to keep them in mind,

- ad example with an exhibition about the deportation of 11000 Jewish children from France to the death-camps. ‘Special trains to death’: French people know this exhibition very well. In Germany the rail-company tried to prevent the exhibition, because it reveals the companionship of the rail-company and the Nazis.

The sons and daughters of deported French Jews found help, support and solidarity in the Klarsfeld foundation.

The Klarsfelds revealed French Nazi-collaboration and succeeded to get some ‘reparation money’ by the state of France for the victims.

Much more time would be required to mention all what Beate and Serge Klarsfeld had done.

Fighting worldwide against anti-Semitism, Nazism, for righteousness against the oblivion: that was the great task, for which they dedicated their life and power with civil-courage, humanity, bravery, honesty and straightforwardness.

I specially would like to thank Beate Klarsfeld, because she demonstrated that there is a possibility to leave the German-Nazi-history, not denying, but revealing and changing and starting a new face of Germany. She personifies the real honour of my country.

Thanks a lot!

Pastor Annemarie Werner

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation

The ceremony took place at the Mémorial de la Shoah, salle Kelman, 17, rue Geoffroy-l’Asnier, Paris, on Sunday, 16 January, at 4:00 p.m. The ceremony was conducted by Mr Jacques Fredj, director of the Mémorial de la Shoah. Alain de Toledo, member of the Wallenberg Foundation and Louise von Dardel, Wallenberg’s niece, were among the special guests of the event.

Special representative of the Wallenberg Foundation, Pastor Annemarie Werner, head of the Vaterunser Congregation in Berlin travelled to Paris in order to bestow the Wallenberg Award upon Mr. and Mrs. Klarsfeld.

“It is an honour for the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, and especially for me, a citizen of the country of the perpetrators of the Shoah, to present the award of the Wallenberg foundation to Beate and Serge Klarsfeld”, stressed Pastor Werner. (Read complete speech of Pastor Werner here.)

From Australia, Dr. Frank Vajda, head of the Free Wallenberg Australian Committee, welcomed the award: “Heartiest and most sincere congratulations for this act of bestowing the Raoul Wallenberg Award to these most worthy and wonderful people, who have done so much to try to redress the injustice created by the Shoah and who themselves become a symbol of “never forgetting”!

Ann Froman, American artist, saluted the event. “Bless you, for this wonderful honor to two most deserving people. Beate and Serge Klarsfeld. I had the great pleasure of meeting Beate Klarsfeld, in Seattle WA. It was in the early 80’s when I was having an exhibition there. She was so informative and brave for all they have done. May the hunt still go on.”

Among other recipients of the Wallenberg Award were French intellectual, André Chouraqui; Spanish journalist, Eduardo Martín de Pozuelo and Swedish diplomat, Peter Landelius.

About Beate and Serge Klarsfeld

Mrs. Klarsfeld is the daughter of a Christian, German-born, regular Wehrmacht soldier. She lived in Germany during the Second World War. At the age of 21 she travelled to Paris to study and work. In 1963 she met Serge Klarsfeld who introduced her to the French intellectual milieu, and became interested in the fate of the Jews during the Holocaust.

Serge Klarsfeld was born in Bucharest, Romania. He is a writer, historian and lawyer. His family moved to France at the beginning of the Second World War. In 1943, his father was arrested by the SS during a raid in the city of Nice, being deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was murdered. Serge, with his mother and sister survived the war. He obtained a degree in advanced studies in history at the Sorbonne and in political science at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris.

More on Beate and Serge Klarsfeld at the official website:

http://www.klarsfeldfoundation.org/

About the Wallenberg Award

The Raoul Wallenberg Award was created with the goal of distinguishing those people who demonstrate integrity in their conducts, outstanding performance in their respective occupations, and firm and continuous support of non-governmental organizations. The Raoul Wallenberg Award was presented for the first time in 2000, thereby bestowing upon the 21st century a much-needed welcoming message of hope.

About the Wallenberg Foundation

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation is a global-reach NGO with offices and correspondents in New York, Jerusalem, Buenos Aires, Berlin and Rio de Janeiro. More than 200 heads of state and Nobel Prize laureates comprise its Honorary Board. Its founder is Mr. Baruch Tenembaum. Its main mission is to research, document and divulge the legacies of the rescuers of victims of the Holocaust, focusing on the creation of educational programs.

Video of the ceremony

On the occasion, the ”Raoul Wallenberg Award” was presented by Mr Tenembaum to Professor Nathan André Chouraqui, one of the most celebrated intellectuals of the XXth century. The award recognizes his life time career and dedication to the promotion of the values of dialogue and understanding in the interconfessional area. Professor Chouraqui is a member of the International Angelo Roncalli Committee.

Renowned international lawyer and humanist, Dr. Samuel Pisar, delivered a speech on behalf of the Wallenberg Foundation along with Jean Pierre Bendahan, Vicepresident of the IRWF.

The IRWF created this award to stimulate all people of good will who have demonstrated through their life an unwavering commitment to upholding the humanitarian values which Raoul Wallenberg stands for.

The Raoul Wallenberg Award was presented for the first time in the year 2000. It was received then by businessman Oscar Vicente and former Swedish Ambassador to Argentina, Peter Landelius. In 2002 the recipients were Israeli Ambassador Hertzl Inbar and Spanish Congressman Gustavo de Arístegui.

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation is an NGO that carries the name of the Swedish diplomat, savior of tens of thousands of Jews and others persecuted by Nazism. Its mission is to educate within the example of the values of solidarity and courage manifested by the Saviours of the Holocaust.

The Raoul Wallenberg award was presented to Ms Rachel Bernheim, of Kibbutz Yakoum, as a tribute to a life devoted to tell the atrocities of the Holocaust through her personal story, promoting the values of solidarity and civic courage that characterized the feats of Raoul Wallenberg and the Saviours of the Holocaust.

The moving award ceremony was co-sponsored by the host, Ambassador Robert Rydberg, of Sweden and by Ambassador Atilio Molteni, of the Argentine Republic.

Mr Rydberg opened the ceremony, welcoming the guest and highlighting the contribution made by Ms Barheim in her quest to divulge the story of the Holocaust.

Mr Danny Rainer, Member of the Executive Board of the IRWF, pointed out that this ceremony coincided with the celebration of the National Day of Sweden, the country on which behalf, Raoul Wallenberg committed his heroic deeds during WWII.

Paraphrasing an excerpt of Ms Bernheim’s book – ”Earrings in the Cellar”, in which Rachel tells us the story of her mother hiding her posessions before being taken to the concentration camp, so that ”her dear daughters, will have something to start with when you return”, Mr Rainer pointed out that very much like her mother, ”Rachel has conveyed to us the corageous story of her life, so that we, those who have been lucky to live in a free world, will have something to start with”.

A deeply moved Ms Berman thanked the IRWF, the Swedish and Argentinean Ambassadors, for having bestowed such an honor upon her.

Mr Rainer took the opportunity to salute the Swedish people on their national day and, on a personal note, to wish success to Ambassador Rydberg, who’s about to conclude his successful mission in Israel and to thank him, on behalf of the IRWF, for his warm cooperation with our Foundation.

Judge Baltasar Garzon and Congress representative and 2002 Raoul Wallenberg Prize honoree Gustavo de Aristegui handed out the distinction. Diego de Ojeda, General Director of Casa Sefarad – Israel; Miguel Puente Pattison, Chief Press officer of the European Commission; and Danny Rainer, Vice-President of the Wallenberg Foundation, accompanied them in the presentation of the Wallenberg Medal and Diploma.

”This award transcends the journalistic work. I believe that the young generations of Spain should be educated on the Holocaust in the way the Wallenberg Foundation is doing in other parts of the world,” said de Pozuelo.

The Raoul Wallenberg Award has been established with the aim of recognizing those individuals who excel in their exemplary conduct, solidarity spirit and outstanding performance in their respective occupations, as well as continuous and careful support of NGO’s. The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation is an educational NGO founded by the argentine entrepreneur and humanitarian Baruch Tenembaum and the late US Congressman Tom Lantos.

Casa Sefarad-Israel is a Spanish institution created with the aim to foment relations of friendship and cooperation among Spain, Israel and the worldwide Jewish community through the creation of projects in the fields of politics, economic, science, and culture. The organization aspires to be an instrument of public diplomacy together with other similar institutions: Casa de America, Casa Asia, Casa Arabe, and Casa Africa.

Since 1993 as Vice-President of the non-governmental organization Casa Argentina en Jerusalem and since 1997 at the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, he has put together, in an exemplary way, activities that are geared toward an issue that is constantly spoken and written about but is very seldom marked by any substantial actions: the co- operation between a business corporation and a non-governmental organization.

It is in this environment of achievement and constant reflection on complex problems in which Vicente creates an educational and harmonious organizational profile. He does this together with two other entrepreneurs for whom life wasn’t always a bowl of cherries either: Baruch Tenembaum, an Argentine ‘gaucho’ born in Las Palmeras, one of the Baron Hirsch colonies in the Santa Fe province and Natalio Wengrower, head of SICA, a leading electro-mechanical company.

Fruits of this labor produced other events such as the Raul Soldi fresco at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth; the ”Righteous Among the Nations” and ”Diplomacy and the Holocaust” programs, initiatives that seek to make known deeds of non-Jewish people who saved Jews during the Holocaust; the 1995 interview with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican along with Emilie Schindler; his presence in 1996 at the Organization of American States in Washington DC along with Argentine author, Adolfo Bioy Casares in order to present a new educational program and the unveiling, along with Nobel Peace Prize winner, Lech Walesa, of the Mural dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust erected inside the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires in April 1997.

Resume

• 1938: Was born in Cañuelas on July 4. Married Perla Rocco. Two children.
• 1965: Obtains the title of Mechanical Engineer at the La Plata University.
• 1966: Engineer of Petroleum Mining at the National University of Buenos Aires.
• 1966-1970: Works for YPF in the Salta and Mendoza provinces. Drilling, Termination, and Reparation of Petroleum Wells Division.
• 1970: Enters Perez Companc Shipping Company as Neuquén Camp Operations Superintendent.
• 1978-1982: General Manager of Perez Companc S.C.
• 1982-1997: Vice-President of Perez Companc S.A.
• Since 1988: President of the Chamber of Hydrocarbons Producing Companies.
• 1992: Co-founder of the BCSD (Business Council of Sustainable Development) in Argentina. President up to the beginning of 2000.
• Since 1997: Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Perez Companc S.A.

Apart from Swedish, his mother tongue, Peter Landelius is fluent in German, Spanish, French, English, and Russian. Through the years, he has published two books of essays and a number of literary and political newspaper articles. In an extensive career as a translator, he has become the Swedish voice of some of the best hispanic writers: i.a., Pablo Neruda (” 20 love poems and a desperate song”), César Vallejo (”Full of world” – collected poems), Julio Cortázar (”Hopscotch”), Gabriel García Márquez (”Love in the times of cholera”, ”Cronicle of a death foretold” and others), Ernesto Sábato (”On heros and graves”), Eliseo Diego (”The days of your life” ), Mario Benedetti (”Another notion of fatherland” ), Benito Pérez Galdos (”Fortunata and Jacinta”), and Leopoldo Alas ”Clarín”(”La Regenta”).

In 1982 he won the literary prize ”Novella” in Sweden and in 1986, the Royal Silver Medal for Fine Arts in Spain. In 1991, the Swedish Academy of Science awarded him the Letterstedt prize, and in 1993, he won the national Elsa Thulin prize for translation. His diplomatic endeavours were distinguished in 1996 with the Order of the Liberator in Venezuela, the Quetzal Order of Civilian Merit in Guatemala, the Order of Military Merit and that of Civilian Merit in Spain, and the Order of Civilian Merit in Peru.

This unusual and successful combination of diplomatic and intellectual virtues make Ambassador Landelius an example to younger generations and public servants for his honesty, his capacity, and his human values.

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• 1943 : born in Solna, Sweden. Married to Nancy Julien, four children.
• 1965-67: LLD , with an emphasis in international law, and a BA in Russian language and civil law, Univ. of Uppsala.
• 1967: Attaché, Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
• 1968: Second secretary, London. 1970: Second secretary, Permanent Delegation to the OECD.
• 1971 : Private secretary to the Foreign Minister, Stockholm.
• 1974 : First secretary, Havana.
• 1975 : First secretary, Permanent Delegation to the OECD.
• 1978: Director a.i., UNESCO Liaison Office, New York.
• 1979: Deputy director, Swedish Information Service, New York.
• 1980: Deputy director, Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
• 1983: Minister, Madrid.
• 1987: Ambassador, Guatemala, San Salvador, Tegucigalpa.
• 1989: studies at CFIA, Harvard University, USA.
• 1990 : Adviser (European affairs), Office of the Prime Minister, Stockholm.
• 1991: Ambassador, Caracas, Port of Spain, Bridgetown.
• 1997: Ambassador Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Asunción.

In the past few days I have been informed of the projected construction of a monument to the Righteous Among the Nations in front of the River Plate river in Buenos Aires. Proposed by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, it consists of a suspended concrete platform that points like an arrow towards Jerusalem. Under it we find an ecumenical chapel. The 15,670 names of the people who silently fought against the Shoah are going to be engraved on one of its concrete walls. The triangula structure as a whole, with its man-made coastline, penetrates the solemn and powerful course of the river.

I believe that this monument, the first of its type in the world, perfectly sums up the life of Raoul Wallenberg and those who, like him, make us recall that ethics and dignity should never be abdicated to power: there, on the plaque raised towards the heavens, we find the elevation of those, who with much danger and sacrifice, managed to go above everyday interests and ponder the interests of humanity as a whole. The river, challenging and uncertain, looks like that threatening power that we must face if we wish for the triumph of reason over cruelty. This is the line between the powers of compassion and the forces of hate. Over this frontline, located with unparallel precision, is a place for ingathering and solidarity. A place where all the creeds can meet. I believe that there, at that conjunction, the exemplary lives of the Righteous Among the Nations will be adequately represented.

These works invite us to alway remember that we should never let good be silenced. Edmund Burke said, ”All that is needed for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.” Raoul Wallenberg saved 60,000 lives in Hungary, but, had there been other who did the same, had they not closed their eyes to the barbarianism, the history of the twentieth century and the dimensions of suffering would have been different.

It is for this reason that the works of art in New York, London, and Buenos Aires or the educational projects undertaken by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation in Argentina under the leadership of Baruch Tenembaum, press us to never lose sight of justice and compassion. This is a task that no one, much less Heads of State, should abandon to Providence. All men should remain active, organized and disposed to risk themselves when it comes to preserving integrity and sympathy. Without them, not only politics, but rather life itself loses meaning.

With all this in mind, I have no choice but to whole-heartedly integrate myself, in my position as an Honorary Member, to the Foundation’s initiatives, lauding the work of its members and congratulating the winners of the ”Raoul Wallenberg 2000” Award, businessman Oscar Vicente and Ambassador Peter Landelius, for preserving,through their dedicated hard work, the memory of one of the greatest heroes of the past century.

With immense sadness, philosopher Theodor Adorno said that after Auschwitz it was impossible to think. I believe that the task now is to maintain our thoughts and hearts alert so that Auschwitz, and all the other holocausts that ail our planet, should simply remain a bad memory and never again threaten us as an impending reality.

Congratulations on your work and may God accompany us.

Andrés Pastrana Arango
President of the Republic Colombia