Mayor Edward Koch, who today unveiled a new street sign honoring Raoul Wallenberg, called on the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to disclose the fate of the Swedish diplomat who saved more than 100,000 Hungarian Jews from the Nazi Holocaust. Wallenberg was arrested and imprisoned by the Red Army when it liberated Budapest 40 years ago.
In a ceremony at the Isaiah Wall across from the United Nations, Koch unveiled a street sign designating the west side of First Avenue from 42nd Street to 49th Street as “Raoul Wallenberg Walk.”
“It is not clear if we are naming this street in his (Wallenberg’s) honor or in his memory,” the Mayor declared, adding: “We would like the Soviet Union to ascertain that.” He noted that despite the fact that the Soviet Union declared that Wallenberg died in July 1947, there have been many witnesses over the years who reported seeing the Swedish diplomat alive somewhere in a “Soviet Gulag,” Koch said.
Calling Wallenberg “a modern saint,” Koch said that today’s unveiling of the “Raoul Wallenberg Walk” is a symbolic act, one of many to come,” to insure that his name will be remembered in history.”
Magnus Faxen, the Swedish Consul General in New York, said that today’s event is in Wallenberg’s honor not in his memory because “we consider him still alive.” He said that efforts to discover the fate of Wallenberg will continue and thanked the City of New York for the honor it rendered the missing diplomat.
The ceremony, which was also attended by members of the City Council and the Wallenberg Committee of the United States, ended with the singing of “We Shall Over Come,” by the All City Concert Chair.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
