Amy Knight writes at the New York Review of Books “The FSB would not take such a significant step in the Wallenberg case without the approval of the Russian leadership. It is probably no coincidence that the FSB’s revelation about Wallenberg has been…
Your Excellencies, The Reference Group for Support to Independent Research on Raoul Wallenberg, established by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Sweden in April 2002 in order to advise the Ministry on research grants, has established the following guidelines for…
Ingrid Carlberg skriver för Dagens Nyheter; “I Sverige har mycket av det som skrivits om Raoul Wallenberg handlat om tiden efter den här ödesdigra januaridagen. Uppmärksamheten har kretsat kring efterforskningarna och mer eller mindre sannolika vittnesmål inifrån Gulag. Förvånansvärt få svenska historiker och författare har gripit sig an berättelsen om hans gärning i Budapest, i alla fall med något större sakdjup. Faktum är att de flesta böcker om personen Raoul Wallenberg har skrivits och publicerats utomlands, i första hand i USA.
Därför är Paul A Levines bok om Raoul Wallenberg i Budapest efterlängtad. Levine väljer att sätta punkt i januari 1945. Han koncentrerar sig i huvudsak på de sex månader som amatördiplomaten Raoul Wallenberg hann tillbringa i Budapest före fångenskapen. Levine ger också sin bild av bakgrunden till att just Raoul Wallenberg sattes att leda en i Förintelsens elfte timme framhastad, och synnerligen okonventionell, svensk amerikansk räddningsaktion för de ungerska judarna.
Google translation from russia. Rearranged by Maribeth Barber.
Radio Liberty published a letter from independent researchers Vadim Birstein and Suzanne Berger, a qualitatively new turn in the case of Raoul Wallenberg. Additional details of the case – in a conversation with one of the authors of the letter Vadim Birstein.
Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saved the lives of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews in 1944 by issuing protective passports to so-called “Swedish subjects” awaiting repatriation to their homeland. After the capture of Budapest by Soviet troops, he was arrested and taken to Moscow, where he was kept in the MGB inner prison in the Lubyanka. For many years, Stockholm unsuccessfully tried to discover the prisoner’s fate. In February 1957, Moscow officially made it known to the Swedish government that Wallenberg had died of a myocardial infarction on July 17, 1947, in Lubyanka Prison. In support of this version the Soviets presented a document–a report from the chief of the medical unit inside the prison, Smoltsov, addressed to Interior Minister Viktor Abakumov. This version did not satisfy the Wallenberg family, which holds high social status in Sweden.
In 1990, Vadim Birstein and current chairman of the Memorial Society, Arseny Roginsky, gained access to some of the archival collections of the MGB-KGB. In April 1991, I, as editor of the international department of the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, published an article by Vadim Birstein « The Mystery of the Prisoner number seven« , which presented the preliminary results of the study and questioned the official Soviet account of Wallenberg’s death. Subsequently, Moscow and Stockholm agreed to continue the work of the bilateral commission. However, in 2001, the Commission concluded that the search ended in a stalemate, and ceased to exist.
Ari Bussel writes at News Blaze; “For his 97th birthday, just a few months ago, the leading Swedish daily newspaper had an investigative piece to report to the Swedish nation and the world: Israelis are harvesting organs of Palestinians (males…
Leif Svensson från DN skriver att i Judiska museets arkiv i Budapest hittade Sessler en pärm plus tre listor från svenska legationen med namn på judar som fått skyddspass. Dokumenten är original och försedda med legationens stämpel. – Ingen forskare har…
Dear Mrs. von Dardel, dear Marie and Louise,
We are writing to you to share the information enclosed below. As you know, over the last few years, we have continued an often slow but productive exchange with the archives of the Federal Security Services of the Russian Federation (FSB). The latest round of discussions, in November 2009, have yielded a resounding surprise. In a formal reply to several questions regarding Russian prison interrogation registers from 1947, FSB archivists stated that « with great likelihood » Raoul Wallenberg became « Prisoner No. 7″ in Moscow’s Lubyanka prison some time that year. The archivists added that “Prisoner No. 7” had been interrogated on July 23, 1947 which – if confirmed – would mean that the Soviet era claims of Wallenberg’s death on July 17, 1947 are no longer valid. Never before have Russian officials stated the possibility of Raoul Wallenberg’s survival past this date so explicitly.
The Swedish Ambassador, Tomas Bertelman, and his staff responded quickly to the new information. In a letter addressed to Yuri Trambitsky, head of the FSB’s Central Archive, dated December 9, 2009, Bertelman asked Mr. Trambitsky for clarification, writing that “if this hypothesis is confirmed, it will be . . . almost sensational.”
We have also sent a detailed follow-up request to FSB officials, asking for more precise information about “Prisoner No. 7,” including procedural details pertaining to the assignment of numbers to prisoners under investigation, as well as possible steps to be taken to verify “Prisoner No. 7’s” identity and his fate after July 23, 1947. So far, Russian officials have not presented any additional information for their claim that “Prisoner No. 7” could be identical with Raoul Wallenberg.
We stress that an in-depth verification of the new information has to take place before any final conclusions can be drawn, but if indeed confirmed, the news is the most interesting to come out of Russian archives in over fifty years.
“MTI writes that a group of Holocaust survivors and heirs filed a lawsuit in Chicago on Thursday against several banks, including banks based in Hungary, demanding compensation of more than 2 million dollars. According to the plaintiffs, the National Bank…
Dr. Vera Parnes has just passed away. Vera Parnes was a very active women both in her professional work as to promote Raoul Wallenberg. She was born in Mosow, she had a scientific degrees include a Ph.D., Candidate of Medical…
Google translation from russia. Rearranged by Maribeth Barber.
Swedish businessman and diplomat Raoul Gustav Wallenberg was born on August 4, 1912 to one of the wealthiest families in Sweden. He studied at the University of Michigan (USA), where he received his diploma in architecture. In 1936 he went to work in Haifa (then part of Palestine).
He returned to Sweden in 1939 and became a partner in Kalman Lauer’s Hungarian export-import firm. In the summer of 1944, as the first secretary of the Swedish Mission, Wallenberg went to Budapest. Hungary, in March 1944, had been invaded by German troops. Taking advantage of his diplomatic immunity, Wallenberg saved, according to various sources, from 20 to 100 thousand Jews by issuing them Swedish passports. He placed them in specially purchased houses that were proclaimed as Swedish property, and thus were protected by international law. He also bribed German and Hungarian officials, promising ample supplies in exchange for Jewish lives.
On January 13, 1945, Wallenberg was arrested by the Soviet patrol in the International Red Cross building in Budapest. (In another version of the story, he came to the location of the 151st Infantry Division and asked for a meeting with the Soviet command. According to a third account, he was arrested at his apartment.) After being questioned, he was sent under guard to Debrecen for a meeting with the commander of the Second Ukrainian Front, Rodion Malinovsky, who wanted to speak with him. On the road he was again detained and arrested by military intelligence (in another account, he was sent to the headquarters of a group of Soviet troops after being arrested in his apartment).