Behind the Headlines Wallenberg May Still Be Alive

The Chief Rabbi of Hungary has publicly indicated that Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg could still be alive nearly 40 years after his imprisonment in the Soviet Union. Rabbi Laszlo Salgo referred to Wallenberg two weeks ago at a crowded service in the main synagogue of Budapest commemorating the 40th anniversary of the massacre of 600,000 Hungarian Jews.

In the course of an emotional 40-minute sermon delivered in Hebrew, Salgo recounted Wallenberg’s daring rescue of thousands of Budapest Jews and described him as a “tzaddik” and “chassid umot ha olam” — one of the righteous among the nations.

Then in a key passage which startled his thousand-strong congregation, he exclaimed: “If Raoul Wallenberg is alive, we wish him all the best wherever he may be. If not, may his soul be forever interred with the souls of the living.”

Since 1957 the Soviet Union has maintained that Wallenberg died in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow on July 17, 1947, of a heart attack. Suggestions that Wallenberg was still alive, based on later sightings of him in prison, have been bitterly attacked by the Soviet Union as cold war propaganda, and Hungary, as aloyal member of the Soviet bloc, has previously made no attempt to question the Soviet view.

OFFICIAL HUNGARIAN INTEREST IN WALLENBERG

Prof. Israel Singer, New York-based executive director of the World Jewish Congress and a participant in the Budapest ceremonies, said he believed that Salgo’s statement on Wallenberg had been made at the behest of the Hungarian government. The sermon is the second recent sign of official Hungarian interest in the case of Wallenberg and his activities in wartime Budapest.

The official Budapest historical review “Historia,” recently investigated in a long feature article the mysterious disappearance shortly after the war, of a statue commemorating Wallenberg’s exploits which had been erected on the banks of the Danube.

The statue depicting a man striking a snake, now adorns a pharmaceutical factory in the city of Debrecen. It has been stripped of its inscription to Wallenberg and now officially symbolizes the fight against disease.

The article has sparked speculation that the Hungarian authorities are considering transferring the statue to its original Budapest site and consecrating it to its original purpose. More references to Wallenberg may be heard during the World Lutheran Conference which is to be held in Budapest in the first week in August and coinciding with the 72nd birthday of Wallenberg.

Hungary’s growing readiness to discuss this hitherto embarrassing subject is partly a response to worldwide interest in Wallenberg outside the Communist bloc which culminated in him being made an honorary citizen of the United States.

However, it also coincides with greater official readiness to examine the Nazi Holocaust in Hungary which caused the deaths of three quarters of the country’s pre-war Jewish population between March 1944 and the Russian conquest of Budapest nearly a year later.

Singer, who headed the WJC delegation at the Hungarian commemorations, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency they were unique in Eastern Europe to the extent that they mourned the Jews as the principal victims of Hitler. This contrasted particularly with Poland and the Soviet Union where the Jewish experience in the last war is usually submerged in that of the nation as a whole.

In one of his own addresses during the Budapest ceremonies, Singer berated Hungary’s Roman Catholic church for its silence during the Holocaust. He said that his comments went down well with the Hungarian Communist leaders.

WIDELY REPORTED IN THE MEDIA

He also was struck by the strong Israeli representation at the ceremonies even though Hungary and Israel do not have diplomatic relations. The ceremonies were covered by Israeli television and the newspaper Maariv, Singer said.

Spread over three days, from May 13-16, they were also reported daily on the home and overseas services of Hungarian radio. According to the Hungarian Radio monitored in London, the events of May 13 included a service at the Jewish cemetery in Kozma Street, attended by representatives of the Hungarian Jewish community, Hungarian churches, and foreign Jewish organizations, and of state and social bodies.

In the synagogue service the same day the speakers were Chief Rabbi Salgo; Gyula Kallai, chairman of the Patriotic Peoples Front; Catholic Cardinal Lasszlo Lekai; Singer; as well as the chairman of the Moscow Jewish community; the Council of the Association of Jewish communities, and the American Section of the World Federation of Hungarian Jews. The meeting had been opened by Imre Heber, president of the Board of Hungarian Jews.

On May 14, Deputy Prime Minister Istvan Sarlos met the visiting World Jewish Congress delegation led by Singer. The same day saw the ceremonial opening of the newly renovated Jewish Museum in Budapest by Budapest Deputy Mayor Richard Nagy.

It included an exhibition of photographs and memorabilia of the “Tragedy of 40 Years Ago.”

(The building is on the site of the birthplace of Theodor Herzl, whose effigy appears on a mural there.)

On May 15, Hungarian Jewish leaders laid wreaths at memorial plaques in the city to commemorate the deported Jews.

On May 12, the newspaper Magyar Hirlap carried an article by history Professor Gyula Juhasz on the start of the Jewish deportations and on Hungarian public reaction to it.

The article, entitled “The Necessity of Suffering,” was quoted by Hungarian radio as saying that 40 years had to be long enough for Hungarian society to face objectively the events of the past” without false self-acquittal and excessive, repeated accusations.”

It was only in this way that “purification” could be achieved, which was in everyone’s interests. Exceptions could not be made in seeking historical truth, it said.