The post-war Swedish government was seriously questioned for its responsibility in the disappearance of the diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, and for its inaction in not strongly demanding the actual appearance of the man who was the savior of thousands of Jews in Hungary during the time of the Holocaust directly from Russia, the Argentine branch of the Foundation which bears his name reported today.
Wallenberg was kidnapped in mid-January 1945 in Budapest by the forces of the Soviet army which accused him of committing espionage in Hungary, territory in which throughout the terrible Holocaust, he saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews using diplomatic methods and other non-conventional ones, which certainly were very effective.
In Argentina, the Wallenberg Foundation has begun to complete an arduous job in pursuit of vindicating the memory of this humanitarian savior, and, in the City of Buenos Aires there is a statue to his memory.
It is fitting to emphasize that the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation was created in Argentina by Baruch Tenembaum, who for many years has coordinated a worldwide campaign to find Raoul Wallenberg, having succeeded in obtaining the support of 55 heads of state and numerous organizations from the five continents.
Tenembaum assured that ”the report confirms what we have been claiming for years concerning the responsibility of the post-war Swedish government, that did not firmly claim for Wallenberg’s honor, nor did it sufficiently investigate to find out his whereabouts and final destiny.”
The report of the international commission, published today in Stockholm, reveals that while Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat, his work was strongly supported by the government of the United States.
Chosen as an inspector during the War for being a citizen of a neutral country (he was born in Sweden in l9l2), Wallenberg got permission from the Nazi government to design 4,500 passports to be distributed among Swedish citizens who still lived in Hungary, but, nevertheless, he tripled that number and risked his life on numerous occasions in order to distribute those safeconduct passes in the proper centers of concentration.
Even more, there was numerous testimony from those who had seen him climb to the roofs of the ´´Death Trains´´, in which the Jews were transported to the places where they would be assassinated and from there, distribute the insignias with the blue and yellow colors to try to save lives.
In order to give refuge to the people he saved from death, he rented not less than 32 buildings in Budapest which he camouflaged as Swedish libraries and Red Cross centers of his country, so that they would have the Swedish flag, and, at the same time, diplomatic immunity.
