More than 100 people, among them Naphtali Lavie, Israel’s Consul General in New York, and Hans Andersson, Acting Consul General of Sweden in New York, gathered here last Thursday to mark the 71st birthday of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved an estimated 100,000 Hungarian Jews during World War II and then disappeared in the Soviet Union after being arrested by Russian troops in Budapest in 1945.
The birthday observance took place opposite the United Nations building. It was sponsored by the Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. The observance began with a wreath-laying ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial Wall on Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, in memory of the many victims of the Nazis whom Wallenberg was unable to save, and then proceeded to the Isaiah Wall across the street from the UN headquarters.
According to Rachel Oestreicher Haspel, president of the Wallenberg Committee, similar public Wallenberg birthday observances were held in Stockholm, Jerusalem, London and Philadelphia.
Lavie and Andersson paid tribute to Wallenberg’s courage in saving the Jews. They called upon the Soviet Union to disclose to the world the fate of Wallenberg and to release him if he is still alive.
Participants in the ceremony carried 71 balloons, marking Wallenberg’s 71st birthday. The ceremony ended with cutting of a birthday cake. “We firmly believe that Wallenberg is alive and therefore we are celebrating his 71st birthday today, ” Mrs. Haspel declared.
ISRAELI STAMPS COMMEMORATE WALLENBERG
In Washington, in a ceremony yesterday on Capitol Hill, Israeli Ambassador Meir Rosenne presented 14-Shekel stamps commemorating Wallenberg to present and former members of Congress who have been active in pressing the Wallenberg issue. The stamps contain a picture of Wallenberg and a line from the Book of Proverbs, “But the path of the just is as the shining light.”
Receiving the stamps were Sens. Claibome Pell (D. R.I.), and Daniel Moynihan (D. N.Y.) and former Sen. Frank Church of Idaho; Reps. Peter Rodino (D. N. J.), Jack Kemp (R. N. Y.), Don Bonder (D. Wash.) and Tom Lantos (D. Cal.) and former Rep. Edward Derwinsky of Illinois, who is now the State Department counsellor.
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