Fundraising for a Raoul Wallenberg International Roundtable

70 years after the end of WWII and 70 years after Raoul Wallenberg’s disappearance in the Soviet Union, the full circumstances of his fate remain unknown. To mark this anniversary, an international group of historians and Wallenberg experts have begun a new initiative intended to bring about a resolution of the case, the Raoul Wallenberg Research Initiative RWI-70 http://www.raoul-wallenberg.eu/articles/fundraising-for-a–international-roundtable/

The purpose of this initiative is to pool researchers’ knowledge and expertise in order to devise new ways of advancing the search for answers and, in particular, to facilitate access to all pertinent documentation in Russian and other international archives.

Please help us reach our goal, so that we finally discover the full truth about the fate of one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century. We urgently require funds to help cover the costs of travel and accommodations. 

As part of the new Raoul Wallenberg Research Initiative (RWI) we also intend to conduct a Raoul Wallenberg International Roundtable. This symposium is scheduled to be held in the late autumn of 2015 or early 2016, in either Budapest or Stockholm. It will bring together international researchers, historians and members of Raoul Wallenberg’s family to discuss how to obtain access to key documentation in Russian and other international archives.

At the planned Symposium we intend to prepare a Master List of questions pending in the Raoul Wallenberg case, through intensive discussion with international experts.

We then intend to:

• take this Master List to Moscow, with a small delegation of researchers, who will meet with Russian officials and archivists to address the problem of direct access to key documentation.

• prepare separate Master Lists of questions for other international archives We wish to ensure that even in this increasingly difficult political climate, the door on a constructive dialogue with Russian archivists and officials does not close entirely.

We have had an enthusiastic response from researchers – over seventy individuals and organizations have joined so far, so hopefully this initiative will at the very least make a strong symbolic gesture.

Current supporters of our efforts include the European Commission, B’nai B’rith, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, the Antal Ullein-Reviczky Foundation, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Professor Sabolcs Szita and the Holocaust Memorial Center, Budapest, Sweden’s Living History Forum and the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center. We have also gained the support of individual sponsors such as Jan and Peter Anger (the sons of Per Anger), the former Chairman of the Swedish Working Group in the Wallenberg case, Ambassador Hans Magnusson, the authors John le Carré, Alex Kershaw, Canada’s former Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler and Paul Martin, the former Prime Minister of Canada.

We are especially grateful that many Holocaust survivors and individuals saved by Raoul Wallenberg and the various rescue initiatives in 1944 have also joined in. So have the families of some of Raoul Wallenberg’s fellow prisoners in Russia.