Trying to find out the real mystery behind Raoul Wallenberg
Thursday, February 17, 2006. The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation reaches out to its some 200 members, who include Heads of State and Nobel Laureates and to all individuals urging them to send letters to the President of Russia, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, asking him to resolve Raoul Wallenberg’s mystery. Within a few weeks, copies of letters sent to the office in Russia have been pouring in and all have been diplomatic and forthright.
Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, went to Budapest, Hungary during the Second World War to save the lives that were destined for concentration camps under Hitler’s control. On January 17th, 1945, after being taken into Soviet custody, Raoul Wallenberg vanished. No one knows what happened to him and the means behind which to find him are not being met. Raoul Wallenberg was said to have saved one hundred thousand lives.
”I find it incomprehensible that the archives of the Soviet army would not still contain a record of the events that followed [Wallenberg’s] arrest,” writes Richard J. Roberts, chief scientific officer of New England Bio Labs, 1993 Nobel Laureate for Physiology or Medicine, and also a member of the IRWF. ”I would urge you, in the interests of settling this matter once and for all, to urge your colleagues with access to those archives to find the relevant documents, make them publicly available, and if Mr. Wallenberg is still alive, to reunite him with his family.”
Academic Zhores Alferov, Nobel Laureate of Physics in 2000, and also a member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, wrote, ”According to the report, expressing the Russian side of the [Swedish-Russian working group of 1991],” the possibility of investigating some new witnesses, who might have had useful information concerning Raoul Wallenberg, actually came to nothing. The publication of documents, that might in principle have opened up new opportunities, is presented by the group as extremely improbable.” Yet people abroad believe that some other documents, which could shed light to the fate of the Swedish diplomat, can be disclosed.”
If these documents really do exist, where are they? Why are they not being disclosed? Baruch Tenembaum, Founder of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation would like to stress to its members and the President of Russia that ”we are not seeking to place blame on anyone for Wallenberg?s disappearance. We have but one goal?to bring Raoul home safely, to his family and to his people.” The secret behind his disappearance may never be revealed, however, the Foundation promises to never stop trying. And until more is revealed, there is always the help of the citizens and members to help the IRWF towards its goal.
During the last few months the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation launched a worldwide campaign seeking answers into the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg. The Foundation started the Signature Campaign, in hopes to obtain 100,000 signatures, one for each of the lives Wallenberg saved and present them to the UN and the President of Russia asking them to provide any documentation as to Wallenberg’s whereabouts. More than 20,000 people from over 30 countries have signed.
The campaign website offers a link entitled, ”Send a letter to Mr. Putin!” which guides our members as well as online onlookers to write the President of Russia concerning Wallenberg?s return. Along with the fax number and address of the President, the web page also provides a link to Putin’s personal website followed by a possible draft of what to send.
To sign your name to the Signature Campaign, find out more about Raoul Wallenberg or the Foundation, please visit the website at www.raoulwallenberg.net.
