Ten infinites: Depth of the beginning and depth of the end, depth of good and depth of evil, depth of the tall and depth of the short, depth of east and depth of west, depth of south and an only master. God, loyal King, rules all from the dwelling of his sanctity forever and ever
Séfer Yetsirá, chapter I, paragraph II
This fragment of the Creation Book that I have just mentioned has the aim of emphasize the subject that I am about to say next.
We are gathered to honor the memory of those men and women of different nationalities and beliefs who risked their lives to save people persecuted and murdered by the Nazi regime during the Second World War. People who, with a tremendous civic courage, admirable ethical values and a huge love for the neighbor paid, in many opportunities with their own lives, to save hundreds of thousands of Jews from dying in the hands of nazis.
Raoul Wallenberg, who was appointed by the Swedish government as first secretary of the embassy of this country to Budapest, during the nazi occupation of Hungary, managed to save about 100,000 Jews from deportation to the concentration camps and from being murdered by the Nazis. We can also mention people from many other countries, such as Arístides de Sousa Mendes from Portugal, Irena Sendler, from Poland, Giorgo Perlasca, Italian nationalized Spanish, Angello Roncalli, Italian Bishop who later in 1958 was named Pope John XXIII.
Among the Hungarian people there were thousands of men and women who gave everything from themselves to save Jews from a certain death. These people carried out actions of great courage and heroism during those years of lead, in which the violence and barbarism of the nazi occupation exercised all its oppression, not only over the Jewish Hungarian, but also over the rest of the Hungarians of good will. There is not a single letter in the alphabet that is not represented on this long list of Hungarian saviors; Maria Olt, Janos Toth, Tibor Almasy, Vera Demeny, Laszlo Burza, Maria Horvath, Ferenc Pusztai, Melinda Remenyi, are some of the women and men who make up this long list. To honor their memory and deeds must enlarge the commitment to defend the respect for life and peace of all people.
Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Hungary and started to work immediately for the rescue of the Jews deported to the concentration camps. He created special passports to grant Swedish nationality and avoid the deportations and later he even stopped trains from departing to the extermination camps. He also achieved that Adolf Eichmann was not able to conclude with his plans of the total deportation of the 700,000 Jews who lived in Hungary before the war.
In January 1945, the Soviets entered Budapest. Raoul Wallenberg disappeared on January 17, 1945, but his deed, like the one of Hungarian saviors who helped people in need, during such a tragic time of Humanity remains alive. Like Wallenberg, the Hungarian saviors, did not think of differences of any kind at the moment of saving the persecuted. For them, as it is written in Séfer Yetsirá, God rules all of us, and we are all alike and alike must be all rights.
Our commitment to honor the saviors of the holocaust victims must persist and contribute permanently to the defense of life and against any kind of terrorism yesterday, today and always.”
June 22, 2004
