© C.G.McKay
In my talk “Three Puzzles” delivered at a symposium on Wallenberg at Utrikespolitiska Institutet in Stockholm in December 2007, I devoted a section to the so-called “Smit Connection”. By this turn of phrase, I meant partly Raoul’s friendship with the young Dutch girl Berber Smit and partly the fact that Berber’s father, Lolle, the Philips manager in Budapest, was an active player in Allied underground activities in Hungary during the war. “The Smit Connection” was yet another vivid reminder- if it were needed!- of how Wallenberg’s mission was carried out against a background of delicate interacting forces, many of which were not readily perceptible. Nor could it have been otherwise, given the situation occasioned by war.

In spite of the sharply worded conclusions by two Swedish Commissions – the Swedish-Russian Working Group from 2001 and the Eliasson Commission from 2003 – that Russian efforts to investigate Raoul Wallenberg’s fate in the Soviet Union have been deeply flawed and evasive, the Swedish government has shown no urgency to ensure that researchers can review material deemed vital for clarifying the circumstances of Raoul Wallenberg’s disappearance in Russia. Wallenberg, a young Swedish businessman-diplomat who helped to protect thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution in wartime Hungary, was arrested by Soviet forces in January 1945 and subsequently taken to Moscow. In 1957, Soviet officials announced that he had succumbed to a heart attack in prison in 1947 — a claim which has never been substantiated.

Read More »Sweden refuses to press Russia for Key Files in the Raoul Wallenberg Case

Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (1912-?) Swedish business man and diplomat.

The question of what exactly happened to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg after his 1945 disappearance in the Soviet Union remains one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of the Cold War period.

In July 1944, Wallenberg was selected to go to Budapest to help protect the local Jewish population from fierce Nazi persecution. His humanitarian mission was supported and financed by the U.S. War Refugee Board and other entities, including the American Joint Distribution Committee.

Wallenbergärendet – liksom IB-affä- ren – kom att förfölja de socialde- mokratiska regeringarna decennium efter decennium. För att kunna sätta punkt för dessa båda ”affärer” tillsattes två kommis- sioner. I Wallenbergfallet erhöll kommis- sionen namnet. ”Kommissionen om den svenska utrikesledningens… 

Wallenbergmonument Det finns 31 offentliga minnesmonument över Raoul Wallenberg runtom i världen, spridda över fem kontinenter – ett faktum som sannolikt är föga känt i Sverige. Om dem står att läsa i en intressant och angelägen avhandling som tyska konstvetaren… 

There is a new UN Convention on Disappearances now open for signature.
Would Russia be willing to become a party? Some of its provision are these:

…”Accurate information on the deprivation of liberty of any person and on his or her whereabouts, including information on any transfer, the identity of those responsible for the deprivation of liberty, and the authority in whose hands the person has been placed, shall be made immediately available to the person’s counsel or to any other persons having a legitimate interest in the information.

How a country’s economic interests influence its political decision making, including its human rights policy, is a timely question. While the political aspects of the Raoul Wallenberg case have been discussed at length, its economic dimensions have been largely ignored. There are indications that Swedish business interests came to bear quite significantly in all major phases of the case: Raoul Wallenberg ‘s selection for the humanitarian mission to Budapest; his work in Budapest; and his arrest and imprisonment.

Dear Sir, You have requested that the Riksdag’s Comitte on the Constitution examines the case Raoul Wallenberg trhough your email 28th of August 2007. With reference to your letter, I hereby…-> More