New York – A monument dedicated to the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg (1912- ?) was unveiled in the city of Tel Aviv on June 2002.
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.
