The case of missing Swedish war hero Raoul Wallenberg will be raised for the second time in open sessions of the European Conference on Cooperation and Security at Madrid this week.
It has already been referred to briefly at the conference by Swedish Foreign Minister Ola Ullsten. In a brief introductory speech, Ullsten named Wallenberg, together with Soviet scientist Andrei Sakharov, as examples of men whose loss of human rights aroused “compassion and active involvement.” He also spoke of “all the unnamed victims of oppression” and deplored the denial of Soviet Jewry’s right to practice its religion or to emigrate to the land of its choice.
The Wallenberg case was also discussed last week in closed sessions and will again be raised publicly by Sweden this week. The United States and other Western delegations are also expected to voice concern about Wallenberg, the diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews in wartime Budapest and who was subsequently arrested by the Russians.
Wallenberg’s half-sister, Mrs. Nina Lagergren, will fly this week to Madrid from Stockholm to lobby delegations to raise the issue with the Soviet Union. In the past 18 months, Mrs. Lagergren has visited Israel, Britain and the United States in her efforts to publicize her campaign for her long last brother. In Madrid, Prof. Guy von Dardel Wallenberg’s half-brother, said He was “convinced” Wallenberg was still alive in the Soviet Union, Jespite Moscow’s claim that he died there 33 years ago. (By Maurice Samuelson)
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