House Units Approve Honorary Citizenship for Raoul Wallenberg

A bill granting honorary United States citizenship to Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who rescued 100,000 Hungarian Jews from the Nazis, was recommended for approval today by two subcommittees of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Rep. Tom Lantos (D. Calif.) who sponsored the bill, noted that this would be only the second time Congress has granted honorary citizenship to a foreigner. The only other such grant was to Winston Churchill.

The bill also calls on the Soviet Union, which is believed to be holding Wallenberg ever since he was arrested by the Red Army in Budapest in January, 1945, to reveal Wallenberg’s whereabouts and to free him.

Lantos, who himself was rescued by Wallenberg when he was 16 years old, told a joint meeting of the Subcommittees on Europe and the Middle East and Human Rights and International Organizations, that Secretary of State Alexander Haig has assured him that President Reagan supports the legislation.

STATE DEPARTMENT CAVEAT

The Administration did not send a representative to today’s hearing. Instead, Richard Fairbanks, Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations sent a letter in which he said the Department does not object to the bill. But, he noted,

giving Wallenberg honorary citizenship, “does not confer on the United States any new international legal right, duty or privilege on which basis to confront the Soviets on their indefensible incarceration of Wallenberg.” However, he stressed that the action “would serve to underscore the seriousness in which the American government and people view Soviet behavior in the Wallenberg case.”

Fairbanks added that the U.S. plans to “continue to express our concern over the Wallenberg case at every appropriate opportunity and to continue to cooperate with the government of Sweden and all other interested parties to obtain a clarification of Wallenberg’s fate.”

Rep. Jack Kemp (R. N. Y.) in supporting the bill, read a letter from Rabbi Abraham Cooper, of the Simon Weisenthal Center for Holocaust Studies at Yeshiva University of Los Angeles urging the Foreign Affairs Committee to demand of the government full documentation of the Wallenberg case. Cooper charged that the State Department and other government agencies had only released about 80 percent of the documents in the case.

The Committee also received a statement from former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie which outlined the background of the Wallenberg mission, Wallenberg then a young businessman was sent to Hungary by the Swedish government and the request of the U.S. War Refugee Board.

COMPANION BILL IN SENATE

Lantos said he hoped Congress would be able to adopt the legislation by July 9, the 37th anniversary of Wallenberg’s arrival in Budapest. He said he has 275 co-signers to his resolution. Sen. Claiborne Pell (D. R.I.) who has introduced a companion resolution in the Senate says he has 51 co-sponsors and hopes the Senate Foreign Relations Committee can hold hearings soon. Pell stressed that the U.S. has an obligation to Wallenberg and his family. “Certainly our country owes it to Raoul Wallenberg to try to secure for him the same life and liberty he brought to so many others,” he said.

Another Congressional witness today, Rep. Millicent Fenwick (R. N.J.) said that Wallenberg “was in this terrible century … an example of a hero in the ancient classic mold.” She said he saw people suffer and acted regardless of their religion. Lantos noted that granting Wallenberg honorary citizenship would show posterity that the U.S. did something to help the victims of the Nazis. “He acted for the conscience of our country and now we must act for him,” Lantos said.

While the Soviet Union claims that Wallenberg died while in prison there, Lantos said he believes he is alive because many independent witnesses have described seeing a Swedish prisoner in Soviet prisons. Lantos described Wallenberg’s effort to save Jews and others from the Nazis. He said he was forever improvising documents that people were able to use for their rescue. He said Wallenberg’s example had a “multiplying” effect because other Embassies began to follow his lead in helping Jews and began issuing documents to help Jews leave. He noted that his wife, Mrs. Annette Lantos was saved by Portuguese papers.

Mrs. Lantos founder and chairman of the International Free Wallenberg Committee testified that the Swedish diplomat “gave a deep comfort not only through his rescue efforts but also through the realization that there was at least one man out there in the free world who heard and responded to our cry of anguish.” She told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Jewish community needs to do more to speak up for Wallenberg.