National House of Representatives

Buenos Aires, April 6th 2006

The President of the Russian Confederation
Mr. Vladimir Putin

Recent history includes chapters full of aberrations which have not yet been reported in their entire truth. There is no doubt that all those that ” disappeared”, no matter what their ideology might have been, are an affront to the democratic and civilized order of the nations. It is a well known fact that no one should be convicted or punished without a previous trial, during which his rights for a legitimate defense are guaranteed.

No matter what the person is accused of: only the rule of the Law must establish if he is guilty or innocent. In times of crisis these principles are not obvious. In the great upheavels that stir societies, great acts of injustice take place, throwing a shadow of mistrust over men’ s good will. No more can be added when innocent men, not guilty ones, are ill-treated by the all-embracing powers which, cynically protected by messianic and foolish ideologies, take upon themselves the ability to judge and punish everybody.

What sort of man was Raoul Wallenberg, but a just and innocent one?

What other reasons, apart from honor and pity could have induced him to sacrifice his life to save those of other hundreds of thousands?

What impulse of fraternity for the people pursued, made him face the Nazi savagery in its worst moment when their defeat was obvious and their homicidal fury was let loose in complete anarchy, without any control?

Mr. President, wrong has already been done. It is impossible to repair all the damage caused to a solidary man of great courage, who was uselessly sacrificed at a moment when human lives were worth much less than the bullets that cut them short. During that period when humanity reached an extreme feeling of violence and the Second World War was coming to an end, Raoul Wallenberg ”disappeared” in the hands of the Soviet authorities. We can’ t judge the Soviets for this presumed mistake, because in the general madness that swept through the agony of the Third Reich, everybody, except the victims, made mistakes and had plenty of motives to deplore the many mistakes committed.

After 61 years from those tragic days, it is not important to know who were those responsible, but to know only the nude truth of the facts. Both Raoul Wallenberg’ s memory and his family have the right to know what became of his honorable life up to his last minutes. Mr. President, it is for this reason that I am joining the long list of personalities who are just as touched as I am, to request that you disclose that fundamental and unknown part of the life and death of Raoul Wallenberg.

His courageous and altruistic personality deserves, after so many years of his disappearance, to rest in the peace of the Righteous.

Being sure of the good will that guides you as President of your great nation, it is an honor for me to send you my kindest regards.

Jorge Reinaldo Vanossi
Argentine Congressman

Translation: María Pensavalle

Original en español

The one person who can solve this mystery and help us all bring Raoul home is the President of the Russian Federation. The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation asks you to write to the President of the Russian Federation to find out the destiny of the Swedish diplomat.

If each of us sends a letter, the President of the Russian Federation will have to react! Join us, help us bring Raoul Wallenberg home!!

You can reach the President of the Russian Federation through his website at:

http://president.Kremlin.ru/eng/articles/send_letter_Eng1a.shtml,

by fax at 7-095-2443188 / 7-095-2302130,
or by mail at 4, Staraya Square, Moscow, 103132 – Russia.

We will appreciate receiving a copy of such letter to add to all the notes of support and enquiry we receive, and the list of signatures of over 20,000 that have already endorsed the efforts of our worldwide campaign.

Here is a short text you can choose to copy-paste to the online form and/or via mail:

Dear President,

It has been sixty years since Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands during World War II was captured by the Soviet army. His fate is still unknown. One thing is certain – he is still in your country.

Mr. President, you have the opportunity to perform a historical humanitarian deed. You can find Wallenberg’s whereabouts and reunite him with his family.

You, Mr. President, can be a hero by freeing a hero.

Help us bring Raoul Wallenberg home.

Thursday, February 17, 2006. The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation reaches out to its some 200 members, who include Heads of State and Nobel Laureates and to all individuals urging them to send letters to the President of Russia, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, asking him to resolve Raoul Wallenberg’s mystery. Within a few weeks, copies of letters sent to the office in Russia have been pouring in and all have been diplomatic and forthright.

Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, went to Budapest, Hungary during the Second World War to save the lives that were destined for concentration camps under Hitler’s control. On January 17th, 1945, after being taken into Soviet custody, Raoul Wallenberg vanished. No one knows what happened to him and the means behind which to find him are not being met. Raoul Wallenberg was said to have saved one hundred thousand lives.

”I find it incomprehensible that the archives of the Soviet army would not still contain a record of the events that followed [Wallenberg's] arrest,” writes Richard J. Roberts, chief scientific officer of New England Bio Labs, 1993 Nobel Laureate for Physiology or Medicine, and also a member of the IRWF. ”I would urge you, in the interests of settling this matter once and for all, to urge your colleagues with access to those archives to find the relevant documents, make them publicly available, and if Mr. Wallenberg is still alive, to reunite him with his family.”

Academic Zhores Alferov, Nobel Laureate of Physics in 2000, and also a member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, wrote, ”According to the report, expressing the Russian side of the [Swedish-Russian working group of 1991],” the possibility of investigating some new witnesses, who might have had useful information concerning Raoul Wallenberg, actually came to nothing. The publication of documents, that might in principle have opened up new opportunities, is presented by the group as extremely improbable.” Yet people abroad believe that some other documents, which could shed light to the fate of the Swedish diplomat, can be disclosed.”

If these documents really do exist, where are they? Why are they not being disclosed? Baruch Tenembaum, Founder of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation would like to stress to its members and the President of Russia that ”we are not seeking to place blame on anyone for Wallenberg?s disappearance. We have but one goal?to bring Raoul home safely, to his family and to his people.” The secret behind his disappearance may never be revealed, however, the Foundation promises to never stop trying. And until more is revealed, there is always the help of the citizens and members to help the IRWF towards its goal.

During the last few months the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation launched a worldwide campaign seeking answers into the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg. The Foundation started the Signature Campaign, in hopes to obtain 100,000 signatures, one for each of the lives Wallenberg saved and present them to the UN and the President of Russia asking them to provide any documentation as to Wallenberg’s whereabouts. More than 20,000 people from over 30 countries have signed.

The campaign website offers a link entitled, ”Send a letter to Mr. Putin!” which guides our members as well as online onlookers to write the President of Russia concerning Wallenberg?s return. Along with the fax number and address of the President, the web page also provides a link to Putin’s personal website followed by a possible draft of what to send.

To sign your name to the Signature Campaign, find out more about Raoul Wallenberg or the Foundation, please visit the website at www.raoulwallenberg.net.

See the letter to Mr. Putin

The one person who can solve this mystery and help us all bring Raoul home is the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.

The Parliament of the City of Buenos Aires adheres to the international claims regarding the whereabouts of Raoul Wallenberg and urges the National Government to express itself on this issue before international organizations and the Russian Government.

REASONS

The Raoul Wallenberg Foundation has its headquarters in Buenos Aires, New York and Jerusalem. It was created in 1990 as an integrated movement, by people of different religions, to rescue the lives of those anonymous heroes that during the Second World War died or risked their lives to save others, in order to appraise them and point to them as an example for young people; in truth, this is the culmination of a study started thirty years ago by John XXIII. We must remember that John XXIII was a papal nuncio in Istanbul and supported Raoul Wallenberg during the Holocaust in saving thousands of Jews. This foundation is the culmination of a long process and most surely will be understood as an expression of brotherhood for all nations.

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who in 1944, thanks to a North American initiative, headed a mission to save all Jews living in Budapest, from extermination by the Nazis. Helped by other diplomats, he gave out Swedish identity cards- a neutral nation at the moment of the war- and gave refuge to those that were being persecuted.

Raoul Wallenberg descended from an old Swedish family who had founded a very important bank. His grandfather was a diplomat who represented his country in China, Japan and Turkey. His father, an officer in the Royal navy, died young and Raoul’s grandparents were in charge of his education. His childhood and his youth were happy and unconcerned times for him. After having finished his law studies in France, he turned to another profession: architecture, and traveled to the United States to study. A short while before the beginning of the war, he visited Palestine and took the opportunity to become familiar with what at that moment was the main subject of the Jewish community: the project to create a National Jewish Home. As of this visit, his identification with the cause of the Jewish people, became even stronger. When the war broke out, even Sweden was not an appropriate place to exercise his profession as an architect, therefore Wallenberg had to change his occupation. He took up business and began to manage an international commercial enterprise, the ”Mellaneuropeiska Handells A.B.”. His partner, Koloman Lauer, a Hungarian Jew, slowly became his intimate friend. Wallenberg learnt from him what was happening with the European Jews. In Lauer’s home he met a group of Jews who had escaped from Germany and from other countries occupied by Hitler, and had the opportunity to hear their tales of horror about persecutions.

Wallenberg had another source of information: his uncle, the banker Jacob Wallenberg had a close relationship with Carl Gordeler, ex mayor of Leipzig and one of the leaders of the resistance of the German uprising who prepared the conspiration of the 20th. of July 1944. In 1943, Gordeler went to Stockholm and gave Wallenberg a petition for Churchill, which he had to convey to London.

Raoul Wallenberg considered it his duty to help those who were being persecuted. The struggle of the Danish resistance, which had managed to transport more than 6.000 Jews to Sweden, marked him deeply. At that moment he convinced himself that both the diplomatic notes and the official negotiations were useless, and that if he wanted to succeed, he would have to take greater risks and violate the established legality.

When Lauer’s family began to be in danger due to the effects of the German pressure on Hungary, Wallenberg decided to help and save them. At the same time, he decided to do the same for the greatest possible number of Hungarian Jews. He spoke Hungarian fluently and knew Budapest well thanks to his countless business trips. But when he requested his visa, all sort of difficulties arose. There was also the question of how to obtain the means, in Hungary, essential for him to do things quite seriously. Circumstances helped him to solve these questions little by little. The War Refugee Board, entity created by president Roosevelt to aid victims of racial persecutions, considering that the Swedish nationality was an advantage for these activities, therefore assigned its affairs in Stockholm to the chargé d’affaires of the embassy, Ivar Olsen. Very soon Olsen, informed of Wallenberg’s objectives, created a plan: he destined him to ” Section B”, which represented the interests of the Soviet Union in Hungary and provided him with plenty material resources.

Wallenberg received this plan with great enthusiasm, but first he had to overcome a big difficulty: he was not a career diplomat. Diplomatic immunity was indispensable to him, especially after German troops had entered Hungary. Finally, after long negotiations, Wallenberg was named Secretary of the Embassy. At the beginning of July 1944, after spending a few weeks in the Foreign Office to learn about the prevailing situation in Hungary, he set off for that country. It was quite clear that his mission would be difficult and dangerous. He couldn’t be given precise instructions and he would have to improvise on the spot. He was given two lists: one with the names of the politicians with whom he had to be very careful and discreet , and another, with the names of some Jews whom he had to try to save in the first place.

By his own initiative,”Section B” of the Swedish embassy in Hungary had already granted 650 ”protection passports” to Jews who could prove any sort of bond with Sweden. This fact produced conflicts with the Hungarian and German administrations, who refused to recognize the validity of the passports. From the moment of his arrival in Budapest, Wallenberg began to be personally responsible of granting ”the passports” and for this reason he created a ”Section C”. Till that moment, the passports didn’t look like real documents, because they were certificates and provisional receipts. Wallenberg changed them, giving them the appearance of real documents, with the Swedish shield and the photograph of the holder, whilst he signed each one of them. On the other hand, he granted them in favor of the different countries represented before the Hungarian government by the Swedish embassy. A short while after his arrival there were 5,000 documents in circulation, authorizing the holder to go back to Sweden or to one of the seven countries that she represented” when the military situation allowed it”. In the meanwhile the holder of the document was under the protection of the Swedish embassy. ”Section C” in the embassy became the principal refuge for the Jews. On the other hand, following this stimulating example, embassies of neutral countries, the Nunciature, the churches of other confessions and the Red Cross, also began to extend certificates of protection. It was quite clear that these documents were not in accord with the international protocol and that they were efficient only if the local authorities ”looked the other way”. But Wallenberg was not satisfied with giving out these safe-conducts. Personally he was busy establishing connections with the Hungarian authorities and the administration services and, also with the German services, obtaining releases. He did not ignore the influence that Adolf Eichmann had on the members of the Sztojay cabinet, nor that deportations continued in the provinces. New anti-Jewish laws had been issued in the country and the persecution of Jews on the streets continued.

Wallenberg managed to get an interview with Sztojay and succeeded in getting him to refuse a German ultimatum on the deportation of Jews from Budapest. He even obtained a promise of collaboration from influential people in the city’s public life, like Horthy, to save the Jews of Budapest. When the pro-nazi sympathizers of ” Crosses of Arrow” tried to take power, Horthy won them to it and named Lakatos as Prime Minister. Wallenberg had a meeting with him and asked him to dismiss Eichmann and his staff and turn over to the Hungarians the administration of the detention and work camps. The new chief of government accepted the suggestion and passed it on to the German ambassador Veesenmayer, who surprisingly sent it on its course. Thanks to his many informers, Wallenberg knew well what was happening with the Jews in Budapest and that deportations had not been annulled but only postponed, for fear of the reaction of the neutral observers in the city. The Germans went on sending small convoys to Auschwitz, and sometimes Wallenberg managed to pull out a few victims who were already on the railway platform.

Round-ups were cause for concern. Wallenberg, with his ambassador’s authorization, registered about thirty buildings owned by Jews, as Swedish property and put them under Swedish protection; thousands of Jews found refuge there. The German reply to Horthy didn’t take long. His government was dismissed, the authority was passed on to the hands of Szalassy, chief of the Crosses of the Arrow, and Horthy was deported to Germany. Eichmann went back to Budapest and the government declared that ” protection passports” were not worth anything. From that moment the rights of the Jews were restricted. In this period, the road to Auschwitz had been cut off by the soviet army and Eichmann organized a march on foot towards Vienna, of about 25.000 people, most of them women. Thousands died during the march: of hunger, thirst and fatigue. Wallenberg followed them with a caravan of trucks loaded with food and medicines, trying to separate the greatest number of people with their ”protection passports” from the column. But as the guards were Hungarian, they could verify what type of documents those were and this led to the failure of his intentions. Wallenberg managed, with the help of the baroness Kemeny, wife of the Minister of the Foreign Office, for Szalassy to acknowledge his passports. In exchange for this, he promised her the protection of the Swedish government once the allies had won the war.!

At the same time as the soviets were getting near to Budapest, the city was being dominated by chaos, which got much worse when gangs of Hungarians and Germans organized collective murders in the Saint Stephen park.15.000 Jews are estimated to have died in three weeks. The 15th. of January 1945, the soviets entered in the city. Wallenberg sent an agent to see his ambassador, asking permission to place himself with his Jewish protégés under the soviets. All communications with Stockholm had been interrupted and the ambassador authorized him under his own responsibility. On the 17th. of January Wallenberg was seen entering his office accompanied by an officer and two men of the soviet military police. He picked up some things, he called his assistant Muller and his cashier Biro, to whom he gave money and told them that he was under the custody of the soviet police and that together with his friend and chauffeur Debreczen he was on his way to see marshal Malinowski. He himself ignored if they had to consider themselves prisoners or not.

After this, nobody saw Wallenberg again even though every effort was put in the search. In July 1945, the Jewish community of Budapest sent him a message through the Swedish Foreign Office, in which they informed him that the recently reconstructed Jewish hospital, would be called Wallenberg Hospital. But the message received no answer. Later on a monument was inaugurated in his honor in the Saint Stephen’s Park , which had been the work of the sculptor Patzay, representing an athlete fighting with a serpent and at its foot all his heroic feats. In March 1946, when the whole personal of the embassy in Budapest went back to Stockholm, the soviet embassy in Hungary confirmed to the Swedish government that Wallenberg was under the ”protection” of the red army. His

fate moved the Swedish public opinion, and there were several summons in parliament, a ”Wallenberg commission” was created, he was proposed as candidate to the Nobel Prize for Peace, and infinite diplomatic steps were taken with Moscow, a petition with more than a million signatures was sent to Stalin asking for his release. But during more than ten years the soviet government always gave the same answer: they knew nothing of Wallenberg. When after Stalin’s death the period of revision of soviet politics began, in 1957 Gromyko announced that a prisoner called Wallenberg had died of a heart problem in 1947 in the prison of Lubianka in Moscow. Notwithstanding, prisoners of different nationalities, later set free from the soviet prisons and concentration camps , assured that after 1947 Wallenberg was still alive and some of them remembered having talked to him around 1950 or 1951.

The mystery around Raoul Wallenberg’s fate, a witness of the tragic days of the Second World War who victoriously defied an authoritarian system to be help his fellow men, has not yet been revealed. His humanitarian and courageous activity, helping the Jews in Hungary, allowed him to enter in the gallery of the ”Righteous Gentiles of the World”, those gentiles that defied all sorts of risks and put their own lives in danger, and demonstrated that even in the worst moments there can be a profound sentiment of solidarity and humanity. Let us then honor the memory of all of them …

Having said this I request the approval of the present project.

Translation: María Pensavalle

The full text of the document is being delivered by email to all G8 leaders: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Canada) President Jacques Chirac (France) Chancellor Angela Merkel (Germany) Prime Minister Romano Prodi (Italy) Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (Japan) President Vladimir Putin (Russia) Prime Minister Tony Blair (United Kingdom) President George W. Bush (United States of America); as well as the following officials in Sweden: Prime Minister Göran Persson Foreign Minister and head of the U.N. General Assembly, Jan Eliasson Cabinet Secretary Hans Dahlgren.

TIME FOR A BOLD MOVE – OPEN LETTER TO THE G8 SUMMIT

Fifty years after Nikita Khrushchev’s famous speech condemning Stalin’s crimes, full access to all documentation in Russian archives could finally solve the question of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg’s fate.

St. Petersburg, historic residence of the Russian czars and President Vladimir Putin’s political home base, has known ruthless power as well as enlightenment. Meticulously refurbished over the past decade, the city is ready at last to present itself to the world for the upcoming G8 meeting on July 15-17, a powerful symbol of the new Russia.

But a two weeks before the eight strongest industrial nations gather against this magnificent backdrop, the new Russia knows it has work to do. Despite President Putin’s defiant stand at the ”State-of-the-Nation” address last month, the mounting international criticism of the country’s record on democracy and human rights is taking a toll. U.S. Senator John McCain has called for an outright boycott of the meeting and the Financial Times recently reported that if U.S. President George W. Bush attends the gathering, he may choose to publicly ”snub” Putin.

Russia, for its part, is not sitting idly by. On May 1, the Financial Times reported in a front page article, that the Kremlin has hired one of the world’s leading public relations firms, Ketchum, to polish its public image.

We suggest instead a simple thing President Putin can do that would secure Russia the admiration of the world.

Russia could make a historic gesture by finally presenting what it really knows about the fate of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews in World War II. Wallenberg was arrested in January 1945 by Soviet forces – in flagrant violation of the rules of diplomatic immunity and neutrality – and taken to Moscow where he disappeared. His fate and that of his Hungarian assistant, Vilmos Langfelder, remain unknown.

The Russian government claims Raoul Wallenberg died in Soviet captivity in 1947 but it has never provided conclusive proof for this assertion. President Putin has expressed his respect for Wallenberg’s achievements while arguing that all direct evidence concerning Wallenberg’s fate has been destroyed long ago. That claim is firmly rejected by almost all Wallenberg experts due to overwhelming evidence that Russia has withheld critical documentation.

A decision by President Putin to reveal the true circumstances around Raoul Wallenberg’s disappearance would be a courageous act and would send a strong signal for greater openness, public accountability and respect for international law, including minority and individual rights. Sixty-one years after the event, no state secrets can possibly stand in the way of telling Wallenberg’s family and the world what really happened to a compassionate and heroic man who is an honorary citizen of the United States, Canada, Israel and Australia.

Sweden, too, could use this opportunity for a bold move of its own. As a representative of the European Union, Sweden should invite to Russia Raoul Wallenberg’s sister Nina Lagergren and his brother, Dr. Guy von Dardel, as special guests of the Swedish Prime Minister and the Swedish Embassy during the G8 meeting. Rather than constituting a provocation, such an invitation would underline the importance Sweden insists it attaches to solving the case.

The presence of Raoul Wallenberg’s next of kin in St Petersburg or Moscow would offer them the opportunity to conduct meetings with Russian officials and to seek support from the international community. Russia could finally answer the seventeen still pending questions that were posed by the Swedish Working Group at the end of its official report from 2001 and that Sweden has made clear Russia needs to answer in full before any binding conclusions about Raoul Wallenberg’s fate can be drawn. [All questions can be found at http://www.raoul-wallenberg.asso.fr]

Russia can then present the important documentation related to the Raoul Wallenberg case which is known to exist in Russian archives and which the family has repeatedly requested. Until now, Russia has refused access to what it broadly terms ”operational material,” but it simply has to allow a full review by Wallenberg experts and qualified historians, if a credible investigation is to take place.

There are three compelling reasons for requesting such a review:

1. The discovery of Raoul Wallenberg’s personal belongings in Russian archives seventeen years ago raised fundamental questions. The material is the strongest indication to date that Wallenberg’s personal and investigative file/s still exist today. More importantly, it may well be evidence that he lived longer: If Raoul Wallenberg died in 1947, his possessions and valuables should have been confiscated by the Soviet state within six months of his death. Instead, they were available in 1989 and, in a generous gesture, were returned to his family by Soviet authorities.

2. Just as critical are numerous witness testimonies, including that of a former female employee at Vladimir prison, where Wallenberg is reported to have been incarcerated at various times after 1947. From a series of different photographs, she repeatedly and consistently identified a picture of Raoul Wallenberg not previously published in the international press, directly associating his captivity in solitary confinement with the death of a Ukrainian prisoner in a nearby cell. The verification process for this and other testimonies was cut short in 2001 before it could be completed.

3. There is also important new information, outlined by the Deputy Director of Russia’s ‘Memorial’ Society, Nikita Petrov, in his recent book, ”The First Chairman of the KGB Ivan Serov,” (Moscow/Materik, 2005). Petrov shows that after years of insistent denials by the Russian government, highly relevant information about Raoul Wallenberg’s cellmate in Lefortovo prison in 1946/47, Willi Rödel, a German diplomat, survives today in Russian archival collections, as do important investigative files of other prisoners linked with the Wallenberg case. Despite repeated requests, these files were never made available to the Swedish-Russian Working Group during its ten year investigation (1991-2001).

It is now clear that Rödel was killed in October 1947, that his case was discussed at the highest levels of the Soviet government and that the Russians have known about this for decades. Yet, only a few documents were previously released, which stated that Rödel had died of natural causes.

If Russian officials as late as the 1990’s chose to actively mislead investigators, how can we believe that they have told all they know and have on file about Raoul Wallenberg?

Petrov’s and the previous findings all reinforce one central question: Is the flimsy documentation of Wallenberg’s alleged death in July 1947 really due to destroyed or removed papers, and the wish to protect Soviet leaders who not only knew of but who had ordered Wallenberg’s arrest? Or – since key documentation is preserved about the death of Wallenberg’s cellmate and other foreign diplomats, – do we not have a formal death certificate or autopsy report for Raoul Wallenberg because he did not die at that time?

Sweden and other concerned countries, in particular the United States, have not effectively challenged Russia on these issues and there are no signs that they are vigorously demanding access to the withheld material. Sweden claims that the Raoul Wallenberg case remains very much an official item on the current Swedish-Russian agenda. Russia, however, clearly can do far more than it has done until now to solve the Wallenberg mystery. The current stalemate is therefore unacceptable.

For Russia it is time to lay the cards on the table: Did Raoul Wallenberg die in July 1947, and if so, how? Or did he live longer and if so, what happened to him?

President Putin rightfully points with pride to a 70 percent approval rating and other accomplishments, such as a steep drop in Russia’s overall poverty rate. Democracy, he says, takes time. Mr. Putin certainly has the right to highlight the glaring contradictions and downright hypocrisy of other foreign leaders when it comes to telling the truth and maintaining respect for the rule of law. But this does not change the fact that without real information, accountability and law, no democracy can grow.

By finally presenting the truth about Raoul Wallenberg, who has become a symbol of humanitarian action, President Putin would let the world know where he stands. The PR experts at Ketchum will have a hard time matching that.

Argentina

Prof. Elena Cohen Imach [Psychologist and poet]
Ricardo A. Faerman [President, Confederación General Economica]
Dr. Benjamín Horacio Koltan [Psychologist]
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
Ricardo Monner Sans – [Human Rights Lawyer]

Australia

Frank Vajda [Raoul Wallenberg Committee]
Jan Anger (son of collaborating Swedish diplomat Per Anger)
J. S. Dammery
Dr Daniel Talmont, Sydney Australia

Canada

Marcel Collet [Director]
Prof. Irwin Cotler [former Canadian Minister of Justice]
Jacques Coutour [Producer]
David Matas [Human Rights lawyer]
The Raoul Wallenberg International Movement for Humanity

Estonia

Mart Laar [Former Prime Minister of Estonia]

Finland

Pentti Peltoniemi [Journalist]

France

Louise von Dardel [Raoul Wallenberg's niece]
Marie Dupuy [Raoul Wallenberg's niece]

Germany

Susanne Berger [Independent expert to the Swedish-Russian Working Group
Christoph Gann [Author]
Wolfgang Kaleck [Human Rights Lawyer]
Dr. Andras Kain [President, Raoul Wallenberg Loge]
Eleonore Kius [Wallenberg expert and Human Rights activist]
Petra Isabel Schlagenhauf [Human Rights Lawyer]
Pastor Annemarie Werner [Vaterunser Kirche, Berlin]

Great Britain

John Le Carré
Gitta Sereny

Holland

Dr. Gerard Aalders [historian]

Hungary

Dr. Ferenc Orosz [Presidium member, The Raoul Wallenberg Association]

Israel

Casa Argentina en la Tierra Santa
Max Grunberg [Raoul Wallenberg Honorary Citizen Comittee]
Larry Pfeffer [Jerusalem Wallenberg Committee]
Malkiel Tenembaum [Casa Argentina en Jerusalem]
Yoav Tenembaum [Historian]
Solly Ganor, Holocaust survivor

Japan

Dr. Pamela Rotner Sakamoto, author and historian

Mexico

Dr. Renata von Hanffstengel, Director of the Institute for Intercultural
Research Mexico-Germany

South Africa

Tracey Petersen, Education Officer, Cape Town Holocaust Centre, 88 Hatfield Street, Cape Town, 8001, SOUTH AFRICA
Dr Ivor Shaskolsky, Cape Town, South Africa.

Sweden

Roger Älmeberg [Editor]
Maria Pia Boëthius [Historian]
Lena Einhorn [Holocaust researcher and author]
Prof. Stig Ekman [Historian]
Ingemar Karlsson [Editor and historian]
Prof. Georg Klein – [Scientist and author]
Gerald Nagler [Chairman of the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights]
Anders Pers [Former Editor-In-Chief of Vestmanlands Läns Tidning]
Arne Ruth [Former Editor-In-Chief of Dagens Nyheter]
Tuve Skånberg – [Member of Parliament]
Per Tistad [NIR]
Prof. Dennis Töllborg [University of Gothenburg]
Claire Wikholm – [Actress]

United States

The Angelo Roncalli International Committee
Charles Fenyvesi [Journalist]
Ari Kaplan [Independent expert to the Swedish-Russian Working Group]
Dr. Amy Knight [Historian]
Dr. William Korey [American Jewish Committee]
Prof. Mark Kramer [Harvard University, The Cold War History Project]
Prof. Marvin W. Makinen [Independent expert to the Swedish-Russian Working Group]
Susan Ellen Mesinai, Founder, ARK Project; Independent expert to the Swedish-Russian Working Group]
The Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States, Ltd.
Eric Saul, [Director, Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project
Institute for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in the Holocaust]
Prof. Christopher Simpson [The American University]
Prof. Hugh J. Schwartzberg [Raoul Wallenberg Committee of Chicago]
Kate Wacz born Kadelburger, Budapest, Hungary, rescued by Raoul Wallenberg
Marissa Roth, family saved by Raoul Wallenberg
Knud Dyby, Danish Rescuer of Jews and others
William T. and Abigail Bingham Endicott (son-in-law and daughter of Diplomat Hiram Bingham IV)
GILBERTO BOSQUES TISTLER (Grandson of Mexican Ambassador Gilberto Bosques)
Rositta E. Kenigsberg, Daughter of a Holocaust Survivor, Executive Vice President, Holocaust Documentation & Education Center, Inc.
David Rubinson, Executive Producer: SUGIHARA Conspiracy of Kindness
Lawrence Baron, Nasatir Professor of Modern Jewish History, San Diego State University
Represenative Joel Judd, Colorado House District 5
Ferne Hassan, American Jewish Committee
Laurence Jarvik, Producer-Director, Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?
Peter R. Rosenblatt (lawyer and former U.S. ambassador)
Alan and Sheila Granwell
Aaron and Courtney Cohen
Alexis Granwell
Marilyn Gilbert, Attorney At Law, Civil Rights Litigation
Steven T Geiger, of Palo Alto, CA, USA, Retired Engineer, saved by Carl Lutz in 1944
Dr. Wayne Grossman
Zoe Grossman
Klara Firestone – Founder and President of Second Generation of Los Angeles (Children of Holocaust Survivors) and community leader and activist
Renee Firestone – Holocaust Survivor, world famous Holocaust Lecturer, fashion designer, community leader and activist
Rabbi Irving Greenberg
Liebe Geft, Director of the Museum of Tolerance, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles, California

This question is constantly being asked by relatives of Wallenberg, as well as the members of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, which has recently launched the international campaign ”Let’s bring Raoul Home,” which calls for distinguished personalities to write letters to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin asking for the release of vital information on Wallenberg’s case. ”There is one man in the universe who may solve the mystery,” writes Baruch Tenembaum, the founder of the IRWF, ”This person is you, Mr. President.”

In a letter to the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, Andrey Denisov, Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, writes that the current government of Russia has little to do with the disappearance and death of Wallenberg, as the ”responsibility for the death of Raoul Wallenberg rests with the USSR top government officials of that time, [specifically former dictator Joseph Stalin].” He also states, ”No documents proving the fact of death of the Swedish diplomat in the USSR were ever found,” but ”circumstantial evidence collected shows that Raoul Wallenberg lost his life in the USSR on July 17, 1947.”

Scholars and researchers agree that the answer should be more precise and offer real evidence. Whether Wallenberg is alive or not, he deserves to return home.

Years may pass, but the questions remain. As Yuan T. Lee, Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry, writes, ”The past is never dead, it is not even past. Only by repairing the past can we start life again. [Putin's] role in this task could be not only decisive, but historic as well.” Shimon Peres agrees, stating, ”For humanitarian motives, and in order to allow the Wallenberg chapter in history to be closed in as dignified a manner as befits a personality of [his] caliber,” the world appeals to Putin to do what is right and to ”heal an open wound” caused by Wallenberg’s disappearance.”

National Senate

Buenos Aires, April 5, 2006
H.E. Vladimir Putin
President of The Russian Federation

Dear Mr. President,

I have the pleasure to address myself toYour Excellency to inquire about the whereabouts of the Swedish Diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Consequently I am joining an international movement that has already gathered over 20.000 signatures. The purpose of the campaign is to recuperate a man who never hesitated to risk his own life to save thousands of people in the Hungarian territory, condemned to death by Adolph Hitler’s genocidal plan.

Raoul Wallenberg’s deeds represent truly historical and universal humanitarian values like solidarity for the defenseless and unjustly harassed, and courage to defend everyone’s right to live. As an Argentinean legislator, I consider that the international community, and especially the free countries, must make the maximum effort to endorse the campaign that prompts the appearance of the Nordic hero.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Carlos A. Rossi
Argentine Senator

Translation: Ileana Cheszes

Original en español

National House of Representatives

Buenos Aires, April 18, 2006

Mr. President of Russia
VLADIMIR PUTIN
4, Staraya Square, Moscow, 103132
Russia

Dear Sir,

My name is Omar de Marchi and I am a National Representative for the province of Mendoza, Argentine. Through the International Foundation Raoul Wallenberg, whose background is known worldwide because it is supported by more than a hundred Heads of State and eighty Nobel Prize laureates.

I learnt that you, Mr. President, would be the only person capable of revealing the mystery of the fate of the Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of people condemned to death by Adolf Hitler´s genocide plan in Hungary.

Mr. Wallenberg represents everlasting values that know neither cultural nor geographic boundaries: solidarity and civic courage.

In Argentina, where human rights were violated in the past, we should not overlook the significance of this outstanding figure in the history of humankind.

Mr. Wallenberg was arrested by the Soviet Army in January 1945 and until today his fate is still unknown for there are versions that assure that he died in prison in 1947, but there are also people that saw him alive during the seventies and eighties.

I apologize for any inconvenience my request may cause you and hope to have your invaluable assistance for the clarification of this situation.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Omar de Marchi
Argentine Congressman
President of the Mendoza Democratic Caucus

Translation: Luciana Palleiro

Original in Spanish

National House of Representatives

Buenos Aires, April 18th, 2006

The President of Russia
Mr. Vladimir Putin
_________________________

Dear Mr. President,

We hereby request you, in your capacity of President of that great country, to conduct an urgent investigation to determine the whereabouts of the Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg.

It was stated in the past that he died in prison in 1947 due to a heart attack. But there is evidence indicating that he was seen alive in the ’70s and ’80s.

We hope that this letter will be added to the other 20,000 already sent to you, because not only the undersigners but also all the citizens of the countries that fight for the Human Rights are waiting for a favorable answer.

Those rights have inspired the great men of history, such as Raoul Wallenberg to save lives during the obscure and dark decade of the biggest genocide in the history of mankind: the Holocaust.

Yours sincerely,

Pedro Juan Morini.
Argentine Congressman

Translation: Belén Closas

Original en español