“The world is a very dangerous place to live, not because of the people who do evil, but because of those who just watch and let it happen”.
Albert Einstein
On April 20 and 21, 2004 the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation and the Public Law I Department of the Buenos Aires Law University presented the international seminar “Diplomacy and the holocaust” at the Red Room of the above mentioned university.
The educational program “Diplomacy and the holocaust” is a project of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation (IRWF) launched on December 9, 1999. The initiative promotes the many diplomats who saved thousands of people during the Holocaust (1933-1945).
“Amidst a general crisis of values we believe that the deeds of many public servants who helped tens of thousands of people threatened by State terrorism by disobeying express orders of their governments must be promoted, especially at schools and universities”, pointed out Baruj Tenembaum, founder of the IRWF.
The program, in which take part diplomats and academics of different countries, focus on the necessity of keeping the validity of individual freedoms, freedoms of expression, of religion and the inalienable right to life; values under the continuous threat of totalitarian practices and fundamentalism of different kinds.
Raoul Wallenberg is the Swedish diplomat who, between 1944 and 1945, in the course of his mission to Budapest, saved tends of thousands of people, mostly Jews, by issuing security passports. In January 1945 he disappeared kidnapped by the Soviet Army. His whereabouts still remain a mystery.
The ambassadors of France and Poland, Francis Lott and Slawomir Ratajski respectively, the writer Uki Goñi and the diplomat and Public Law professor, Juan Sola participated in the ceremony.
The presentation was made by the writer José Ignacio García Hamilton, vice-president of the IRWF and the coordination and moderation of the debates will be in charge of Dr. Edgardo Costa, Public Law professor, Political Sciences and member of the IRWF.
