[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 70 (Tuesday, May 24, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1077-E1078]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF RAOUL WALLENBERG

                                 ______
                                 

                              TOM LANTOS-

                            of california -

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 24, 2005

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, later this week, the distinguished Swedish 
Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Jan Eliasson, will give 
a briefing to members of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on the 
life-saving humanitarian work of Swedish citizen Raoul Wallenberg.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a particularly appropriate time for us to recall 
Wallenberg's sacrifices to serve his fellow man. Earlier this month, we 
celebrated the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, 
and shortly before that we marked Yom HaShoah, the Day of Holocaust 
Remembrance. In January the United Nations General Assembly held an 
extraordinary session to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of 
Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps during World War II.
  This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the disappearance of 
Raoul Wallenberg. After courageously saving the lives of tens of 
thousands of people in Budapest during the Holocaust, Wallenberg was 
arrested by Soviet troops in January 1945 and disappeared into the 
Soviet gulag. His action during the Holocaust in Hungary led the 
Israeli Knesset to bestow upon him the title ``Righteous Among the 
Nations'' (``Righteous Gentile'').

[[Page E1078]]

  Born in August 1912 in Stockholm, Sweden, Raoul Gustav Wallenberg, 
could have lived out his life in luxury and relative obscurity as a 
member of one of Sweden's most prominent families. At the University of 
Michigan in 1935, he earned a bachelor's degree in architecture with 
honors, as well as a medal for his outstanding academic record. After 
returning to Sweden from America, he worked for the family business 
selling building supplies in South Africa, and he worked in a bank in 
Haifa, in what is now Israel.
  In Haifa on the eve of World War II, he met many Jews who had escaped 
the horrors of Hitler's Germany, and he became an impassioned defender 
after hearing tales of horror under the Fascist state.
  In March 1944, Mr. Speaker, the Germany army invaded Hungary, and 
Adolf Eichmann arrived in Budapest to supervise the deportation of 
Hungarian Jews to the Nazi death camps. At the request and with the 
support of the United States government, Raoul Wallenberg arrived in 
Budapest in June of 1944. Over the following six months, he became a 
legend at saving Jewish lives, and his remarkable heroism and creative 
efforts are now repeated with respect and awe around the world.
  When the Soviet Army finally liberated Budapest in January 1945, 
Wallenberg believed, or at least hoped, that he was finally safe, and 
he went to the headquarters of the Soviet military command in eastern 
Hungary to report on conditions in Budapest and to ask for food and 
medicine for the surviving victims. The Soviet officers did not believe 
his story. They were convinced that he was an American spy. He was 
arrested on January 17, 1945, and he has never been officially heard 
from since that day.
  Mr. Speaker, the Russians have never provided a full and complete 
account of the disappearance of Wallenberg. Numerous sightings of him 
within the brutal Soviet gulag were reported for decades after his 
untimely disappearance in Hungary. These sightings raise serious doubts 
about the official Soviet position that he died of a heart attack in a 
prison near Moscow in 1947.
  In February of this year, 2005 the Israeli Knesset honored Wallenberg 
by officially granting him the title of ``Righteous Among the Nations'' 
(``Righteous Gentile''). President Moshe Katzav and Prime Minister 
Ariel Sharon spoke with great eloquence about his heroic and selfless 
actions. Many close family members were present for the wonderful event 
honoring this great man.
  Last October, the city of San Francisco in my congressional district 
extended honorary citizenship to Wallenberg, just as the United States 
by Act of Congress did 23 years earlier. Raoul Wallenberg is the second 
person after Sir Winston Churchill to receive honorary United States 
citizenship. His bust, which was placed in the United States Capitol 
Building, is seen by tens of thousands of visitors to our Capitol every 
year.
  Mr. Speaker, as we mark the 60th anniversary of the triumph of the 
democracy and freedom over Nazi brutality and horror, I invite my 
colleagues to join with me in commemorating the heroic actions of Raoul 
Wallenberg. His gift to the world is not merely the tens of thousands 
of lives he saved, but as important is the inspiration he is to so many 
people around the world.

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