Conference taveng::bagels

209.0. "Raol Wallenberg Remembered" by REGENT::MINOW (Martin Minow -- DECtalk Engineering) Thu Oct 09 1986 15:12

(Copied from the SCANDIA notesfile, note 145.0:

Associated Press Thu 09-OCT-1986 02:23                    Wallenberg Ceremony

    Where Are Daniloff Supporters When it Comes to Wallenberg, Hodel Asks 
    
                               By DAVE SKIDMORE
                           Associated Press Writer
    
    WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress and the media should exert as much pressure
    on the Soviet Union over the fate of anti-Nazi hero Raoul Wallenberg as
    they did over the arrest of journalist Nicholas Daniloff, Secretary of
    the Interior Donald Hodel says. 
    
    "Where are the editorial writers and the television commentators who so
    properly and passionately attacked the Soviets' arrest of Nicholas
    Daniloff?" Hodel said Wednesday at a ceremony dedicating a bronze
    plaque in memory of Wallenberg. Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat
    credited with saving the lives of thousands of Jews during the
    Holocaust. 
    
    Daniloff, a correspondent of U.S. News & World Report, was jailed on
    espionage charges in Moscow in August and released a month later in an
    arrangement that allowed an accused Soviet spy to go free. 
    
    "When the subject is Wallenberg's imprisonment and his disappearance,
    where is the Congress that is so quick to act when it has a sense of
    moral outrage on other matters?" Hodel said. 
    
    Hodel was joined by members of Congress and the Swedish ambassador in
    calling on the Soviet Union to reveal the full circumstances
    surrounding Wallenberg's imprisonment more than 40 years ago. 
    
    Sent by Sweden in the closing months of World War II to aid Nazi
    victims, Wallenberg was taken prisoner by Soviet forces in Hungary. In
    1957, the Soviets said he had died of a heart attack 10 years earlier,
    but rumors persisted long afterward that he was still alive. 
    
    The plaque in his honor is set in granite stone on the sidewalk of
    Raoul Wallenberg Place, a section of 15th Street near the Washington
    Monument renamed by Congress in December. It is across the street from
    the site of a U.S. museum being built in remembrance of Holocaust
    victims. 
    
    The plaque's inscription, written by Annette Lantos, wife of Rep. Tom
    Lantos, D-Calif, reads: 
    
    "Raoul Wallenberg's mission of mercy on behalf of the United States
    behind enemy lines during World War II is unprecedented in the history
    of mankind. He is responsible for saving tens of thousands of lives
    during the Holocaust. A shining light in a dark and depraved world, he
    proved that one person who has the courage to care can make a
    difference." 
    
    Mrs. Lantos and her mother, through Wallenberg's efforts, were able to
    flee Hungary to Switzerland in December 1944, according to Bob King, a
    Lantos aide. As a teen-ager, the congressman was sheltered in a safe
    house in Budapest set up by Wallenberg, King said. 
    
    Count Wilhelm Wachtmeister, the Swedish ambassador to the United
    States, said U.S. actions to remember Wallenberg aid Sweden in its
    efforts to learn Wallenberg's fate. "For the Swedish government and
    people, Raoul Wallenberg is alive until the evidence to the contrary is
    produced," he said. 
    
    Wallenberg, the scion of an influential Swedish family, was 32 when he
    was dispatched by the Swedish government to Budapest in mid-1944. In
    the six months before he was captured, he is credited with saving
    100,000 Jews from extermination through such ruses as issuing false
    Swedish passports and designating safe houses as Swedish territory.