On November 13 and 15 more than six hundred people attended the religious services remembering Raoul Wallenberg that took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Wallenberg, member of a Lutheran aristocratic family in Sweden, arrived to Budapest in his capacity of diplomat with the aim of rescuing the greatest possible amount of Hungarian Jews condemned to extermination by the National Socialist regime. Adolf Eichman ran personally the genocide plan in Hungary. Wallenberg disappeared in January of 1945 kidnapped by the Soviet Army after taking over the Hungarian capital.
The ceremonies took place in the main Synagogue of Argentina and at the Metropolitan Cathedral.
Among people present it is worth mentioning Ambassadors of Sweden, Israel and South Africa; Peter Landelius, Isaac Avirán and Aubrey N’Komo, respectively; Baruj Tenembaum, founder of Casa Argentina en Jerusalem; Sir Sigmund Sternberg; Guy Von Dardel, Raoul Wallenberg’s brother; Evelyne Szelenyi, Principal Private Secretary of US congressman, Tom Lantos; Stuart E. Eizenstat, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Treasury of the United States; Jorge Enríquez, Deputy Secretary of the City of Buenos; and religious officials belonging to the Lutheran Swedish, Armenian orthodox and Russian Orthodox Churches.
By the end of the religious service at the Metropolitan Cathedral the people present had the chance to contemplate the Mural remembering the Holocaust Victims and those killed by the Israel Embassy and Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) bombings, which is the only memorial of this kind within a Catholic church in the world.
A stamp dedicated to Raoul Wallenberg and issued by the Argentine Postal Service on an IRWF initiative is another of the enterprises in honor to this admirable man.
The IRWF collaborated with UNESCO in the organization of a worldwide exhibition dedicated to Raoul Wallenberg carried out in May 1999 in Paris, France.
