The Soviet government has agreed to review evidence indicating that Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is still alive, the Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday.
The Post based its story on information provided by Canadian attorney Irwin Cotler, who recently returned from the Soviet Union.
Wallenberg is credited with saving tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps during the last year of World War II, when he was posted to the Swedish legation in Budapest. He was arrested by the Red Army there in 1945 and has not been heard from since.
The Soviets have contended for 40 years that Wallenberg died in prison in 1947. Cotler said he has collected 20 eyewitness accounts from people who claim they saw him alive as late as 1977, and the Soviet authorities have promised to study his brief, the Post quoted the attorney as saying.
Cotler said that officials of the Soviet Interior and Foreign ministries with whom he met had “spoken warmly” of Wallenberg. They praised his role in the “anti-fascist struggle” and referred to his fate as “an immense tragedy.”
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.
