Letters to the Country
Relatives of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who disappeared towards the end of World War II after being detained by the Soviet army, have filed a lawsuit against the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, says the Russian government is reluctant to “reexamine the dark elements of the Soviet past.” At the same time, the demand works as a certain allegory of memory and justice. Between July 1944 and January 1945 Wallenberg saved thousands of people condemned to death by Nazism and their allies in Hitler’s occupied Hungary. He disappeared with his driver, Vilmos Langfelder, on January 17, 1945. In 2006, at the request of the Foundation, Alexander Darchiev, then head deputy of the Russian Federation in Washington, DC, said: “Mr. Wallenberg most likely died in the USSR on July 17, 1947″. He further noted that “the death of Mr. Wallenberg lies with the USSR leadership of that time and on Stalin personally.”
Eduardo Eurnekian
Baruch Tenembaum
Wallenberg Foundation
President and Founder
www.raoulwallenberg.net
