During WWII Wallenberg organized a clandestine operation in Budapest to save Jews condemned to die at the hands of the Third Reich. After he succesfully helped rescue 100,000 people, he was arrested and disappeared on January 17, 1945.

Artist Norma D’Ippolito (left) awards Ambassador Ferenc Szönyi (centre) the Walenberg Tribute sculpture, with Gustavo Jalife from the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation on the right

Budapest was Raoul Wallenberg’s theater of operations, a special Swedish envoy sent to save the lives of thousands of Jews Condemned to death by the Third Reich and his local allies. After the successful rescue of about one hundred people, Wallenberg disappeared on January 17, 1945, arrested by the Red Army at the doors of the Magyar capital.

There were many other distinguished diplomats who, along with Wallenberg, put their lives at risk for the neighbor; Charles Lutz, Giorgio Perlasca, Ángel Sanz-Briz, Apostolic Nuncio Angelo Rota and many others.

All of them, as well as several hundreds Hungarian citizens, were remembered in the moving ceremony presided by Ambassador Ferenc Szönyi who stressed the fundamental role that a person can play, even in the most dire circumstances, in the development of history. The ambassador also pointed out the educational work of the Wallenberg Foundation at schools and universities.

Volunteer Rodrigo Rendo spoke on behalf of the IRWF, giving an emotional speech that moved the audience, specially the many survivors of the Holocaust therein present: Jack Fuchs, Charles Papiernik, Diana Wang, Tomas Kertesz, Laszlo Ladanyi and Sozia Klawir.

The writer Peter Kiss read the poem ”Forced March”, by Radnoti Miklós, poet, former prisoner of different labor camps during the Holocaust. Miklós had been born in Budapest in 1909 and was executed by the Nazis in Absa, Gyor County, on November 9, 1944.

The evening was amused by the interpretation of the piece ”Alegro barbaro” by Béla Bártok.

To conclude, the Wallenberg Foundation, as usual, presented the Embassy of Hungary with the sculpture ”Homage to Raoul Wallenberg”. The piece was given to Ambassador Szönyi, by the sculptress, the prestigious artist Norma D’Ippolito.

Among the people present it is worth mentioning: Ambassadors Roberto Nigido, Italy; Antonio de Almeida Ribeiro, Portugal; Alexandru Micula, Rumania; Slawomir Ratajsky, Poland; Rolf Schumacher, Germany; Vatican Representative, Monsignor Nicola Girasoli; rabbis Abraham Skorka and Simón Moguilevsky; AMIA and DAIA representatives and Esteban Takács, President of the Hungarian Entities Federation in the Argentine Republic.

• Photo Gallery

Ten infinites: Depth of the beginning and depth of the end, depth of good and depth of evil, depth of the tall and depth of the short, depth of east and depth of west, depth of south and an only master. God, loyal King, rules all from the dwelling of his sanctity forever and ever

Séfer Yetsirá, chapter I, paragraph II

This fragment of the Creation Book that I have just mentioned has the aim of emphasize the subject that I am about to say next.

We are gathered to honor the memory of those men and women of different nationalities and beliefs who risked their lives to save people persecuted and murdered by the Nazi regime during the Second World War. People who, with a tremendous civic courage, admirable ethical values and a huge love for the neighbor paid, in many opportunities with their own lives, to save hundreds of thousands of Jews from dying in the hands of nazis.

Raoul Wallenberg, who was appointed by the Swedish government as first secretary of the embassy of this country to Budapest, during the nazi occupation of Hungary, managed to save about 100,000 Jews from deportation to the concentration camps and from being murdered by the Nazis. We can also mention people from many other countries, such as Arístides de Sousa Mendes from Portugal, Irena Sendler, from Poland, Giorgo Perlasca, Italian nationalized Spanish, Angello Roncalli, Italian Bishop who later in 1958 was named Pope John XXIII.

Among the Hungarian people there were thousands of men and women who gave everything from themselves to save Jews from a certain death. These people carried out actions of great courage and heroism during those years of lead, in which the violence and barbarism of the nazi occupation exercised all its oppression, not only over the Jewish Hungarian, but also over the rest of the Hungarians of good will. There is not a single letter in the alphabet that is not represented on this long list of Hungarian saviors; Maria Olt, Janos Toth, Tibor Almasy, Vera Demeny, Laszlo Burza, Maria Horvath, Ferenc Pusztai, Melinda Remenyi, are some of the women and men who make up this long list. To honor their memory and deeds must enlarge the commitment to defend the respect for life and peace of all people.

Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Hungary and started to work immediately for the rescue of the Jews deported to the concentration camps. He created special passports to grant Swedish nationality and avoid the deportations and later he even stopped trains from departing to the extermination camps. He also achieved that Adolf Eichmann was not able to conclude with his plans of the total deportation of the 700,000 Jews who lived in Hungary before the war.

In January 1945, the Soviets entered Budapest. Raoul Wallenberg disappeared on January 17, 1945, but his deed, like the one of Hungarian saviors who helped people in need, during such a tragic time of Humanity remains alive. Like Wallenberg, the Hungarian saviors, did not think of differences of any kind at the moment of saving the persecuted. For them, as it is written in Séfer Yetsirá, God rules all of us, and we are all alike and alike must be all rights.

Our commitment to honor the saviors of the holocaust victims must persist and contribute permanently to the defense of life and against any kind of terrorism yesterday, today and always.”

Crazy is someone who falls down
gets up and walks again
and with erratic pain
moves ankle and knee.
However, as if wings
he had, he moves again
the trench calls in vain
because he is not staying.
And if you ask for the reason
maybe I can still say this thing:
that waiting are a woman
and a more beautiful death.
Well it is crazy and naive,
because over each home
for so long already only
the wind embraces as it blows.
And pulled down the walls
and the plum tree
and it is filled with fear
the night in its country.
Oh! If I could believe: I carry
not only inside of me a
lot of valuable things and a
home to go back to.
If only there were! And like before
on the wide and old veranda
jam turning cold
feel the bee of peace humming,
and among sleepy gardens
I would pick up
sun through the foliage and fruits
that nude they would move
and Fanni would wait for me
blond next to the hedge,
and she would write a slow
shadow in the quiet morning
but yet maybe still is!
the moon is so round!
Do not keep going, friend,
Yell at me! And I get up!