Deeply expressive bronze statues of Raoul Wallenberg and Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas revealed the strength of the artist’s gift in portraying the inner life of his subjects, two brave rescuers of victims of Holocaust. The sculptures, commissioned by the IRWF, form part of ”The Rescuers Collection” of the Foundation. While observing the statue of Wallenberg, Rebbetzin Friedlander, who met Wallenberg as a 5-year-old girl in Budapest, commented, ”He was just like this.”

Larger-than-life puppets immediately captured the guests’ interest. Part of the theatrical inscenation of ”Stories from My Mother”, a play that Bulow wrote based on the war stories told by Bulow’s family members, the puppets represent the artist’s mother, grandparents, great aunt and great uncle, all Holocaust survivors. ”Stories from My Mother” had five well-received performances in Champaign, IL, in 1994.

”Alzheimer Madonna,” possibly the most famous piece showcased at the exhibit, owes its creation to Peter’s work as a psychiatric resident. It also expresses Bulow’s memories of his step-grandfather, Onkel, an Auschwitz survivor who eventually developed Alzheimer’s Disease.

”The Madonna/Venus in my sculpture is holding an old man who is at the end of his life, but she is in her prime. Together, they form a whole and circle around each other in a dance. The young woman, an image of energy and virility, and the old man, a symbol for memory, are bound together as they are in our own psyches, in which the young self and the old self coexist throughout our lives,” explains Bulow.

”We are delighted to showcase the art of Peter Bulow,” said Daniela Bajar from the IRWF. ”Not only is he a superior craftsman who uses various techniques in his artistic expression, but his work as a psychiatrist, and his personal experience of growing up listening to war stories of his family, have produced a rich, powerful mélange of impressions, insights and visions rarely embodied in one person. That unique perception is visible in all the art pieces presented at the exhibit, and it is what distinguishes Peter’s work from his contemporaries,” concluded Ms. Bajar.

Slide Presentation

See photos

To assist, by appointment only 212.737.3275

Unfortunately, the four candles represent the number of speakers rather than the number of victims – the list totals 24 names headed by Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, UN special representative in Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello and papal nuncio in Burundi Archbishop Michael Courtney. Of the other 21 names, nine were Iraqi and most died with Vieira de Mello in a suicide terrorist attack in Baghdad last August 19.

Referring to the date of the ceremony (May 13, traditionally an unlucky date), Ströje-Wilkens called September 11 the new unlucky day after the Twin Towers attack of 2001 and Lindh’s assassination last year – she also mentioned September as an unlucky month for the night’s host, Chile, where she was serving as a young diplomat at the time of the 1973 coup. Centring on personal reminiscences of her ”unique” late boss, her numerological speech managed to include most famous Swedes meeting violent ends in the last century such as Count Folke Bernadotte (1948), UN Secretary Dag Hammaskjöld (1961) and Prime Minister Olof Palme (1986).

Valdés described seeing Vieira de Mello last May on the eve of his fatal mission to Iraq – as serious, intelligent and dapper as ever. The host envoy stressed the variety of victims to terrorism with the ”exceptional” Lindh and Archbishop Courtney (who died at the end of the year) giving the church a new martyr in the thirdmillenium of its existence.

García Hamilton said that the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation’s work involved remembering death but also life – two Budapest ghetto survivors saved by Wallenberg during the Second World War were in the audience. Reminding his audience that Argentina had also seen horror, the historian pointed out that the 24 deaths showed that diplomats were not always decorative or ”good people sent abroad to lie for their countries” in Samuel Johnson’s definition.

Sotelo made the briefest speech because he preferred the tributes to the victims from his organization to come from elsewhere.

Apart from the many people present, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and United States Congressman Tom Lantos (another Budapest ghetto survivor) among others sent messages endorsing the event from abroad while local greetings came from first lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Supreme Court Justice Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni and Defence Minister José Pampuro, among others.

Among the Saviours of the Holocaust there were hundreds of diplomats from several countries that disobeyed immoral instructions in order to save the lives of thousands. It is worth mentioning here the names of Raoul Wallenberg (Sweden); Aristides de Sousa Mendes (Portugal); Monsignor Angelo Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII) and Hiram Bingham IV (USA), among many others.

In the spirit of those courageous men and women, the IRWF remembered the diplomats who passed away recently.

Ambassador Juan Gabriel Valdes, Swedish Ambassador, Madeleine Stroje-Wilkens; José Ignacio García Hamilton, Vice-President of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation and the Resident Coordinator of the UN System to Argentina, ad-interim, Juan Manuel Sotelo, spoke on the occasion.

Each one of them lighted a candle as sign of respect and grief for all and each of the fallen.

The ceremony included an exhibition of memorial panels produced by the IRWF, and the projection of a documentary of the UN in homage to the officials murdered in Baghdad.

Prestigious Argentine sculptress Norma D´Ippolito presented to Ambassador Valdés her sculpture “Homage to Raoul Wallenberg”, a gift from the IRWF to the Chilean people.

Within the frame of a packed auditorium some of the most important adhesions to the ceremony were read aloud; among them the ones signed by the President of Chile, Ricardo Lagos; Nina Lagergren and Louise von Dardel, sister and nephew of Raoul Wallenberg, respectively; Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand; John So, Mayor of Melbourne; Christian Ferrazino, Mayor of Geneva; Pavel Bem, Mayor of Prague; Klaus Wowereit, Mayor of Berlin; Rabbi Adrian Herbst; Director of the Latin-American Rabbinical Seminar and Monsignor Justo Laguna, Bishop of Moron, Buenos Aires.

• Photo gallery

The monument in Buenos Aires that pays tribute to Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat that saved one hundred thousand persons from Nazi extermination, was defaced with red paint.

The statue, the work of British sculptor Philip Jackson inaugurated in 1998 on the corner of Figueroa Alcorta Ave and Austria street, was intentionally vandalized.

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation reported that both the body as well as the face of the statue had been daubed several weeks ago. The organization requested that the local authorities clean the sculpture urgently.

Representatives of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, Ms. Perla Graisman, Ms. Elizabeth Brunson, and Mr. Harry Z. Kichel met President Freiberga and Dr. Janis Priedkalns, the Latvian Ambassador to the U.N., at a state meeting room at U.N. headquarters.

Ambassador Priedkalns welcomed the representatives and spoke kind words of Mr. Baruch Tenembaum, initiator of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. Mr. Tenembaum sent a special salutation from London on the occasion of the presentation of this tribute. The Foundation stems from ”Casa Argentina Interfaith Inter-America”, an entity that has since 1966 been promoting dialogue and understanding between Christians, Jews and Muslims worldwide. Casa Argentina has headquarters in New York, Jerusalem and Buenos Aires. Its activities span the range of artistic endowments, providing educational opportunities, issuance of commemorative stamps, sponsoring monuments and other public works that all seek to recall the bright sparks of heroism, solidarity and humanity embodied by Raoul Wallenberg. He was the Swedish diplomat who helped save thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II and was captured by the Soviet forces at war’s end. His whereabouts are unknown to this day. Another notable enterprise undertaken by the Foundation has been the construction of the world’s only Holocaust remembrance mural located in a Catholic place of worship, the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires.

President Freiberga has been very enthusiastic about joining the ranks of world-renowned political and religious leaders who make up the growing member’s list of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. Such notable examples are former U.S. President, Gerald Ford, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Elie Wiesel, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Stuart Eizenstat, Governor of New York State, George E. Pataki, California Congressman and Holocaust survivor, Tom Lantos. The list is expected to expand in the coming months.

The President of the Republic of Latvia is also interested in the Foundation’s work for more personal reasons. Her Excellency left Latvia when she was a young girl under dire circumstances as the Soviet invasion of her war torn land was beginning at the closing days of World War II. She grew up in the refugee camps of Germany before she relocated to Casablanca in then French Morocco. She pursued her university studies in Canada. For most of her life she was a devoted psychology professor at the Université de Montreal. In 1998 she was appointed director of the newly created Latvian Institute in Riga.

Much to her and other people’s surprise she was nominated for the presidency of Latvia in 1999. She won that post with 53 out of the 100 seats in the Latvian legislature.

As the newly elected head of state of the Republic of Latvia, President Freiberga is seeking to educate and inform the younger generations of the 20th century’s legacy and hard-learned lessons. As the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation seeks to teach the positive lessons derived from the last World War, President Freiberga pointed out to her own country’s example of heroism in times of state sponsored terror with the mention of Janis Lipke as a prime example of Latvian heroism and solidarity. Since coming to power in 1999, President Freiberga has led the way to a national movement towards acknowledging and understanding Latvia’s involvement in the genocide of World War II. The main essence of this undertaking can be seen in the Swedish to Latvian translation of a Swedish textbook on the Holocaust titled, ”Tell Ye Your Children”. Initiatives have already been implemented to educate Latvian teachers in the effective methodology in teaching the events of World War II to Latvia’s youngest citizens.

It is for the aforementioned efforts on behalf of President Freiberga that the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation has decided to bestow upon her the ‘Homage to Raoul Wallenberg” sculpture. In it, the name ”Raoul Wallenberg” embraces two pillars that refer to the permanency of the spirit of solidarity which inspired this great man. The unfolded shapes at the top of the sculpture make a direct reference to the many life-saving passports that were issued by Wallenberg. It was formed in bronze by the Argentinean sculptress, Norma D’Ippólito at the request of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.

Speech by Ambassador Dr. Janis Priedkalns

The unfolded shapes at the top of the sculpture make direct reference to the passports used by the diplomat.

The artwork is made in bronze (32.5 cm X 21.7 cm X 9.5 cm) by the Argentine sculptress Norma D´Ippólito at the request of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.

The sculptures ”Homage to Raoul Wallenberg” are located in:

1. the headquartes of the UNESCO, in Paris. Unveiled on May 1999. Presented by the IRWF to Federico Mayor, General Director of UNESCO.
2. the offices of U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos. Presented to the Congressman on May 1999 by the IRWF.
3. the German Embassy in Argentina. Unveiled on september 1999. Presented to Ambassador Hans Ulrich Spohn by the IRWF. Installed at the German Embassy in Buenos Aires as an historic testimony.
4. the Swedish Embassy in Argentina. Unveiled on december 1999. The sculpture was presented to Ambassador Peter Landelius by the IRWF and installed at the Swedish Embassy in Buenos Aires.
5. the Presidency of Latvia, in Riga. The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation presented the President of the Republic of Latvia, H.E. Vaira Vike Freiberga with the sculpture on May 15, 2000.
6. the offices of the Argentine daily newspaper La Nacion. Unveiled on January 2000 with a commemorative plaque remembering the heroic deeds of the Swedish diplomat. Presented by the IRWF to La Nación CEO Dr. Julio Saguier.
7. the US Embassy in Argentina. Unveiled on march 2000. Presented by the IRWF to the Chargé d’ affairs of the US Embassy, Victor Manuel Rocha. The sculpture is permanently shown at the consular section of the American Embassy.
8. the Vatican Mission to the United Nations. Unveiled on September 2000. Presented by the IRWF to Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State of the Holy See and to Apostolic Nuncio Monsignor Renato Martino.
9. the Presidency of Germany. Unveiled on March 2001 at the Presidential Residence in Berlin.,Presented by Baruch Tenembaum, founder of the IRWF, to the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Johannes Rau.
10. the Portugal Delegation in Manhattan. Presented on April 2001 to Mrs. Sheila Fleischacker, granddaughter of portuguese rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes.
11. the Embassy of Poland in Argentina. Unveiled on June 2001. Presented by the IRWF to the Polish Ambassador Eugeniusz Noworyta.
12. the Portuguese Embassy in Argentina. Unveiled on July 2001. Presented by the IRWF to Ambassador Augusto Seabra.

Norma D’Ippólito

She was born in Buenos Aires in 1943. Graduated at the Fine Arts National School Prilidiano Pueyrredón and at the Fine Arts National School Ernesto de la Cárcova. Diplome de Hautes Etudes Françaises, Paris 1974.

She was an Art History teacher at the Women Council Library (1976-1981). She gave the seminar ”Approach to the world of Shapes”, at the Belgrano University (1986).

Since 1980 she has received more than 20 awards, among others: Salón de Otoño San Fernando Sculpture Award, 1985; Second Prize in Sculpture, Belgrano University (1985); Second Prize in Sculpture, San Isidro Municipality (1987). Since 1978 she participates in the main Exhibition Halls in the country, National Hall, Manuel Belgrano Municipal Hall and Santa Fe Annual Hall, among others. Since 1984 she has organized individual exhibitions among which it is worth mentioning Wildestein Gallery, AMC Gallery, Suipacha Gallery, Belgrano University, Euroamerica Galleries (Barcelona), Euroamerica Gallery (New York).

She has been chosen to participate in: Arché Foundation Award MNBA 1983; Wildestein Gallery Exhibition of Argentine Art Today (1990); Palatina Gallery Exhibition in homage to Rembrandt (1991); AMC Gallery Retrospective Exhibition of the Argentine Sculpture of the 20th century (1992); Zurbarán Gallery (1993 and 1997). She has exhibited in Arte BA (1991-1994-1995-1996-1998).

Her artworks are owned by: San Martín de Tours Church, Buenos. Aires; Alcal Institute, Buneos Aires; Municipal Velodrome; Parque Patricios Municipal Recreational Center; Raggio Foundation; Chacabuco Park Recreational Center; 1st Infantry Regiment ‘Patricios’; Contemporary Latin-American Museum; Rally Foundation, Punta del Este, Uruguay; Huésped Foundation, Buenos. Aires; Private collections in Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay, Brazil, Canada, France, Israel and the USA.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Guido Di Tella headed the ceremony along with the Sweden’s Minister of Trade, Leif Pagrotsky, diplomatic authorities, and Mrs.Evelyn Szelenyi, Chief of Staff of US Congressman, Tom Lantos.

Baruch Tenembaum, Oscar Vicente, Natalio Wengrower, Sir Sigmund Sternberg, Guy Von Dardel, José Ignacio García Hamilton and Father Horacio Moreno attended the ceremony on behalf of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.

The monument consists of five columns, one of which is 7 meters high (23 feet) and has a pottery sphere on top. The sides have engraved writings that telling aspects of Wallenberg’s life and mission, as well as an extract of the joint resolution of the American Congress by which Wallenberg was declared Honorary Citizen of the United States of America in 1981. At the bottom of the columns a bronze briefcase, as it was left in a hurry, can be appreciated. It represents the unfinished work of the Swedish diplomat. The surrounding area is paved with granite from the Jewish ghetto of Budapest, which is Hungary’s contribution to the making of the work.

Along with Giuliani and Baruch Tenembaum, Argentine businessman and founder of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, were Nobel Peace Prize, Elie Wiesel; her Royal Highness, Princess Victoria of Sweden; Nina Lagegren, Wallenberg’s sister; Nane Annan, wife of the Secretary General of the UN; great Rabbi of Sweden and the work’s donor, Marcus Storch, the son of Hilel Storch,  who headed the World Jewish Congress and was the representative of the Jewish Agency in Sweden. In 1944, Mr. Hilel Storch worked with colleagues in the WJC in Sweden to recruit Mr. Wallenberg as special envoy to Budapest, and supported Wallenberg in this effort.

The piece of art, similar to the one erected in Budapest, is a creation of the Hungarian artist Imre Varga and was placed at the intersection of Raoul Wallenberg and Habarzel streets in the Israeli metropolis. Member of the Knesset Tommy Lapid, Keren Tel Aviv and the Municipality of Tel Aviv organized the ceremony. The statue was erected upon a initiative of ”Tzfon Hair” newspaper.

The statue adds itself to the more than thirty monuments in the five continents dedicated to Wallenberg, paying tribute to the man who saved the lives of tens of thousands of persecuted people by the Nazi regime in occupied Hungary in 1944. Wallenberg disappeared abducted by the Soviet army on January 17th, 1945. His whereabouts are still unknown in spite of the efforts carried out by his sister, Nina Lagergren and his niece, Nane Annan, wife of the UN Secretary General. August 4th, 2002 is going to be the 90th anniversary of Raoul Wallenberg’s birth.

IRWF officials Dr. Yoav Tenembaum, -who defined Raoul Wallenberg as a ”Hero without a grave”- and Mr. Daniel Rainer attended the ceremony.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf unveiled the 12, elongated bronze figures, which look like faceless people or gnarled dogs, on a stone walkway leading to the Baltic Sea waterfront. Nearby is a large bronze replica of Wallenberg’s signature, as it appeared on the many lifesaving passports he signed between June 1944 and January 17, 1945 when he was arrested by Soviet troops in Budapest. He was 32 years old at the time. His fate is still unknown.

Wallenberg -a member of one of Sweden’s wealthiest and most prominent families- distributed Swedish passports to Jews, which allowed them to stay in Budapest, Hungary. He won diplomatic protection for whole neighborhoods and organized the distribution of food and medical supplies. His efforts are credited with saving tens of thousands of lives.

Danish artist Kirsten Ortwed designed the memorial.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan; his wife Nane, Wallenberg’s niece; and Nina Lagergren, sister of Wallenberg attended the ceremony.

‘It’s great. It really triggers your imagination, and doesn’t allow you to remain indifferent. I hope it would become a meeting place for young children and their teachers to gather and hear about Raoul’s heroic acts.’- Lagergren said of the memorial.

Baruch Tenembaum, founder of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, expressed from New York:

‘No attack will prevent to continue with the erection of Raoul Wallenberg memorials commenced during the last years in Buenos Aires, New York, Toronto and other cities in the world’. He added that: ‘These atrocities instead of intimidating us, encourage us to work even harder. At the request of a Nina Lagergren’s idea we have initiated a campaign with the aim of naming schools all around the world with the name of Raoul Wallenberg; be it in Buenos Aires or in Peking.’

King Carl Gustaf XVI said that the work is ‘a great example to those of us who want to live as fellow humans’. The UN Secretary General said Wallenberg is ‘an inspiration for all of us to act when we can and to have the courage to help those who are suffering and in need of help.’