Governor Mario Cuomo signed a bill last week establishing October 5 as Raoul Wallenberg Day. The bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Alan Hevesi (Queens) and Senator Donald Halperin (Brooklyn) passed the Assembly by a vote of 145-0 and the Senate by a vote of 59-0.
Hevesi, president of the National Association of Jewish Legislators, said October 5 was chosen as Raoul Wallenberg Day “because it is the day that Congress gave him status as an honorary United States citizen” in 1981.
Hevesi observed that “this commemoration will provide lasting recognition of the heroic actions” of Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved more than 100,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps.
“In addition to other extraordinary efforts, Wallenberg saved 75,000 people in one day by convincing a German general to countermand official orders,” Hevesi recalled. “I am particularly indebted to this great man. Two of my relatives, an aunt and an uncle, were among those he saved. My uncle, who still lives in Budapest, has just celebrated his 80th birthday.”
Wallenberg was seized by the Russians after they liberated Budapest and disappeared in the Soviet Union. Although the Russians contend that he died some years ago, there are many who believe that he remains imprisoned somewhere in the USSR to this day. If alive, he would be 71 years old.
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