On September 28th a ceremony under the auspices of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation (IRWF) took place at the residence of the German Ambassador to Argentina, Mr. Hans Ulrich Spohn. This event was undertaken within the framework of the educational program titled, ”Diplomacy and the Holocaust”.
During the course of this event, the Embassy accepted as an historical testimony a sculpture created by the Argentine artist, Norma D’Ippolito, dedicated to Raoul Wallenberg. Dr. Natalio Wengrower, Vice-President of the NGO presented the sculpture to the Ambassador.
The German Ambassador declared, ”the new generations are obliged to acknowledge the horrors brought about by Nazism”. With visible emotion he added, ”I am aware that it must be very difficult for some people present to be here on German territory”. He ended his speech by toasting for the Jewish New Year, and said ”Shana Tova” (Happy New Year) on the ocassion of the Rosh Hashana 5761, which began on the evening of September 29.
Similarly, historian José Ignacio García Hamilton and Professor Carlos Escudé also delivered speeches to mark the occasion.
During the meeting, Senator Adolfo Gass was distinguished by the IRWF for his impressive diplomatic trajectory. Father Horacio Moreno and Peter Landelius, the Swedish Ambassador to Argentina, presented Gass a painting titled ”Basilica of the Annunciation-Nazareth”, a piece of art exclusively created by Argentine painter Raúl Soldi in 1967 for the interfaith organization.
The IRWF was the first NGO that acknowledged the gesture by the German President, Johannes Rau, when on February 16, 2000 he asked for forgiveness before the Israeli Parliament for the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler.
The educational program ”Diplomacy and the Holocaust”, whose latest presentations were held at the Diplomacy School of the Argentine Foreign Office and at the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations in New York, continues to educate people about the diplomatic figures who went so far as to give up their lives thereby conveying through their deeds the message that there should be no norms nor bureaucratic rules set above the ethical and moral convictions of an individual.
