JERUSALEM - “Wallenberg saved us; we did not save him”: Israel marked the 60th anniversary of Raul Wallenberg’s efforts to save thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.
A special Knesset session was held for the first time Tuesday to commemorate Raul Wallenberg’s work
to save tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis during the last months of World War II.
Knesset Member Yosef Lapid (Shinui), who described how Wallenberg had saved his mother, said Wallenberg was the Jews’ last hope to stay alive, but he was forgotten once the war had ended.
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“After the war we were so busy with our grief and destruction that we had forgotten Wallenberg, and, for some reason, the Swedish government forgot about him as well,” he said.
Lapid said Wallenberg was the greatest rescuer of Jews during the Holocaust.
“We bemoan his personal fate,” he said. “His story should be learned in every Israeli school for eternity.”
Diaspora Minister Natan Sharansky, who initiated the special proceedings, said Wallenberg’s story must be learned so “our children would know that even in a dark period, when evil took over the world, one brave and determined man was able to save tens of thousands of Jews.”
“He was like a beacon that illuminated the dark skies,” he said.
Wallenberg’s two nieces were also on hand for the special remembrance session in the Knesset.
Wallenberg’s niece Louise de Dardel said he did not only save lives, but he salvaged the Jews’ dignity as well.
“When the Nazis treated them like human dirt and people began to lose the faith in their right for life and honor," she said. "He showed them they deserved someone who would risk his life to save them.”
Threatened a German commander
During his tenure as a Swedish diplomat in Hungary, Wallenberg managed to save thousands of Jews by issuing them Swedish “protective passports” and taking them under his consular protection.
In December 1944, upon learning that Hungarian Nazis planned to murder the 70,000 Jews remaining in the Budapest Central Ghetto, Wallenberg warned a Nazi commander he would make sure the commander would be hanged as a war criminal if he would allow the massacre to occur.
The general ordered the conspirators to desist, and the lives of 70,000 Jews were saved.
When the Russian army entered Budapest on January 13, 1945, they took Wallenberg into custody and accused him of being an American spy; he was never heard from again.
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