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Raoul Wallenberg: a duel with Stalin

    by Leonid Muchnik, Researcher of the Institute of Democracy and Human Rights, member of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Odessa city

    Whoever saves one life – saves the world entire.

    Talmud

    Link to the Ukrainian websites (https://vaadua.org/news/raul-vallenberg-poedinok-so-stalinym).

    The article in Russia

    The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) rightly said in his memoirs that Raoul Wallenberg “is one of those people who make not just all of Sweden but all of humanity proud” (1) . As long as Judeo-Christian civilization continues to exist, his fate is sure to move people, for he was one of its most praiseworthy examples that has lived among us. Humanity’s greatest good always begins with the ability to do good on behalf of other people. In saving the lives of the Hungarian Jews, Wallenberg made his own contribution to the development of all Western Civilization. It is apparent that through his acts of self-sacrifice over the course of several months in 1944, he fathered the standard of our attitude to human dignity which was subsequently laid down in perpetuity as the foundation of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For this reason, this article is dedicated to the sacred memory of a saint of many nations, Raoul Wallenberg (1912 – ?).
    As is well documented, in the period from 1933 to 1945, some 6,000,000 Jews were exterminated in Europe by the combined forces of Nazi Germany, their allies, and in addition their collaborators in occupied countries (2). Such ruthless mass murder of Jews while the entire world looked on was to become the single most unmitigated catastrophe in the history of the Jewish people.

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    We are appealing to the UN and the EU humanitarian agencies to help African refugees

      We are appealing to the UN and the EU humanitarian agencies to help African refugees

      Sunday, October 18, 2011. 
      The situation of the sub-Saharan refugees is becoming increasingly desperate: in Sudan, Egypt, Libya and all the other countries they are forced to take refuge in, in the hope of later reaching a country where they can apply for international protection or political asylum. The United Nations are playing an important role, particularly when it comes to setting up refugee camps. However, much more needs to be done and the interventions are not effective enough against these serious humanitarian tragedies. What is more, the UN and the EU institutions are not working alongside human rights defenders – except in rare cases – but rather with charities and humanitarian associations closely linked to governments, or too large to take completely independent and courageous steps. For years EveryOne Group has been appealing to the UN and the EU to set up a network of associations that could save lives and address the major challenges of civilization. We are not giving up. Here are the most recent appeals we have sent – alongside other humanitarian organizations – to the UN High Commissioners, the European Commissioner for Human Rights and other international humanitarian organizations. We are talking about serious cases, but where it is possible to avoid injustice and the killing of innocent people. We have also provided international authorities with the full names, mobile phone numbers and geographical references of both victims and perpetrators. We know that in some cases the High Commissioners and the European Commissioner are taking action to save the people reported by us. In other cases, unfortunately, nothing has not been done to prevent injustice and unfair treatment. However, we have great confidence in Mr. Guterres,  Mrs. Pillay, and Mr. Hammarberg. We are appealing to them to make a further effort to emerge from this bleak period together, where the lives of refugees, the marginalized and the poor seem of little importance.

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      The FSB Should Open Up the Wallenberg File

        Next year marks the 100th birthday of one of the 20th century’s most admired figures: Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution in World War II Hungary only to be swallowed up himself in 1945 by Stalin’s Gulag. Although Soviet leaders claimed in 1957 that Wallenberg had died suddenly in the Lubyanka prison on July 17, 1947, the full circumstances of his fate in Soviet captivity have never been established.

        In a recent interview with The Associated Press, the current chief of the Federal Security Service’s registration and archives directorate, Lieutenant General Vasily Khristoforov, emphasized that he, too, considers Wallenberg a hero and that FSB officials are doing everything to uncover more documentation. He strongly denied withholding any information that would shed light on the truth.

        Yet it is indisputable that Russian officials for decades chose to mislead not only the general public but also an official Swedish-Russian Working Group that investigated the case from 1991-2001. This group included official Swedish representatives as well as Raoul Wallenberg’s brother, Guy von Dardel. Russia did not merely obscure inconsequential details of the case but also failed to provide documentation that goes to the very heart of the Wallenberg inquiry.

        Chief among these are copies of the Lubyanka prison register from July 23, 1947. They show that a “Prisoner No. 7” was questioned on that day, six days after Wallenberg’s alleged death. Russian officials have since acknowledged that “Prisoner No. 7” almost certainly was Wallenberg. Researchers have yet to receive a copy of the full page of this Lubyanka interrogation register, in uncensored form, showing the complete list of interrogated prisoners and other details.

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