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RAOUL WALLENBERG

Pressuring Russia on Wallenberg’s fate ‘a matter of principle’

On the eve of a conference examining historical research on Raoul Wallenberg, historian Susanne Berger argues that more must be done to force Russia to open up records that could shed light on the still-disputed fate of the Swedish diplomat.

Pressuring Russia on Wallenberg's fate 'a matter of principle'

When Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Hungary in July 1944, he faced a nearly impossible task. He was asked to alleviate the despair of Budapest’s Jews while having few realistic options of providing meaningful aid at his disposal.

The challenges he faced were indeed daunting: an all-powerful enemy set on the physical destruction of a whole populace (as well as those trying to halt the annihilation), aided by a well-oiled bureaucratic apparatus to facilitate the crime. It would have been reasonable to conclude that, facing such murderous machinery, there simply was no remedy.

Instead, Wallenberg and his colleagues probed the system for weak spots, made it work for them, and exploited its bureaucratic nature to help their cause. As a result, thousands of people were fed, housed, clothed, and protected – and somehow managed to survive.

Yet when the rescuer himself became a victim following his arrest by Soviet forces in January 1945, the world fell largely silent.

After more than six decades of continued failure to establish exactly what happened to Raoul Wallenberg in Soviet captivity, some feel that any further inquiries about his fate are essentially futile.

Many Russian as well as Swedish officials encourage this narrative, insisting that at this point, no further information about Wallenberg’s fate can be found.

They promote this view even though many of these same officials privately express serious doubts about the clearly outdated, yet still valid, Soviet version of Wallenberg’s alleged death from a heart attack in July 1947.

Moreover, new research strongly indicates that highly relevant documentation remains available in Russian archives.

So, why do Swedish officials not make a more determined push for the truth? What serious obstacles do they face today?

An entrenched kleptocracy that uses targeted repression to intimidate the public. At its helm is a strong man whose centrally stated goal is to restore Russian state power to its former glory. To that end, the country’s new elite manipulate the news and the history books in order to shore up its internal power base.

Meanwhile, the judicial system is increasingly reduced to serving as a mere extension of these aims. “Putinism” may not send millions of Russians to the Gulag, but instead has put in place a system that slowly silences all critical voices by brutalizing or killing journalists, and – less cruelly, but equally effectively – by muzzling independent media outlets and human rights organizations by cutting off their funding and thereby preventing the public from hearing a full range of opinions and the ability to make educated choices.

Just last month, President Putin ordered the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to leave Russia. The move is yet another draconian step in Putin’s long standing effort to limit foreign influence of so-called non-governmental organizations operating inside Russian borders.

Many of these groups rely heavily on USAID funding, such as the human rights organization Memorial. According to a report by the Associated Press, at least 40 percent of Memorial’s budget comes from USAID grants. The agency’s roughly $50 million dollar annual allocation to Russia also funds numerous social projects devoted to education, health and the environment.

The Kremlin has long resented what it considers outside interference in its internal affairs and just recently the Duma passed a law requiring all group’s receiving financial aid from abroad to either register as “foreign agents” or to face a possible ban. This move labels these groups’ operations in not-so subtle ways as “anti-Russian” by implying they engage in subversive or possibly even criminal activities.

The step was followed by an equally serious new amendment passed unanimously in the lower house of the Russian Parliament on in September which expands the definition of high treason.

Under these circumstances, any efforts to discover the full facts about historical issues like the Raoul Wallenberg case or about the massacre of thousands of Polish officers at Katyn seem almost certainly doomed, since they require the cooperation of Russian historians and archival experts with international researchers.

Foreign observers have watched these developments with growing concerns, but many leaders of Western democracies have not spoken out forcefully against this new wave of repressive measures. In a strong commentary published September 19 in The Washington Post, David J. Kramer, the President of US-based Freedom House (itself a recipient of USAID funds) sharply criticized this silence, arguing that it plays straight into Putin’s hands and other autocrats like him:

“The United States should be pressing publicly and at the highest levels for Putin to reverse his campaign against NGOs, which is wholly inconsistent with internationally accepted norms”, Kramer adds.

Meanwhile, President Obama and most of his European colleagues have said next to nothing. A clear condemnation of Putin’s actions is necessary out of principle and to show support to those brave Russians who are fed up with authorities’ rampant corruption, abuses and heavy-handed tactics.

Western governments should show unwavering solidarity with those brave Russians.

The key word in Kramer’s analysis is “principle” — it is what distinguishes democratic societies from all others, namely that certain basic rights of individuals are inviolate, as a matter of law.

Similarly, when it comes to the question how to solve the Raoul Wallenberg case, the Swedish government and other associated democracies like the US, Israel, Canada, Germany, and Hungary should realize that they have real possibilities to act.

The term “democratic government” implies and ultimately involves all of us. And “all of us” should not simply throw in the towel and say “nothing more can be done”.

Instead, the Swedish government and all of us should emphasize that we continue to seek the truth about Raoul Wallenberg as a matter of principle; that we demand direct access to the many important records that currently remain classified in Russian archives; and that we will put forth these demands until researchers are finally allowed to conduct an investigation that meets the internationally accepted standards of scholarly review.

Let us study first-hand original Soviet-era administrative and investigative prison records; show us exactly which Swedish prisoners were held in Vladimir prison after 1947; let us review Soviet intelligence reports outlining Raoul Wallenberg’s contacts and activities in Budapest; and show us the deliberations of the Soviet leadership from 1947 to 1989, so that we can finally engage in a truly informed discussion.

Wallenberg’s immediate family has recently asked that both the Russian and Swedish governments formally reopen the Wallenberg case. Both countries should accede to this request and ensure that the still unanswered questions are effectively addressed.

In short, just like Wallenberg in Budapest, we should focus our mindset firmly on the steps that can be taken and the many things that can be done.

And “all of us” should insist that we will continue to seek justice for a man who unhesitatingly showed what it means to be true to one’s stated principles.

Such a strong public stance would send a powerful message, one that inextricably links the physical and moral courage Raoul Wallenberg displayed in Hungary sixty eight years ago with the spirit moving thousands of ordinary Russians to demonstrate for the preservation of their own fundamental rights and freedoms on the streets of Moscow today.

Susanne Berger

Susanne Berger is a US-based German historian heavily involved in research into the life of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who helped prevent the arrests of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Second World War.

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RUSSIA

Why I decided to sue the Russian FSB in a quest for the truth about Raoul Wallenberg

Marie Dupuy, the niece of Swedish Holocaust hero Raoul Wallenberg, explains why she and her family have filed a lawsuit against the Russian Security Services in an effort to clarify the circumstances of her uncle's fate.

Why I decided to sue the Russian FSB in a quest for the truth about Raoul Wallenberg
A monument in memory of Raoul Wallenberg in his hometown of Lidingö. Photo: Mark Earthy/TT

In spite of repeated requests for clarification, Russia continues to withhold key information about an unidentified “Prisoner no.7”, who was questioned in Lubyanka Prison together with Raoul Wallenberg's driver Vilmos Langfelder on July 23rd, 1947 for more than 16 hours. It remains unclear what Swedish officials may have known about the issue and why this and other important information was not shared with an official Working Group that investigated the Wallenberg case for ten years during the 1990s.

In November 2009, the archivists of the Central Archive of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) informed two researchers who had been investigating Wallenberg’s fate for many years – Vadim Birstein and Susanne Berger – that on July 23rd, 1947, a still unidentified “Prisoner No. 7” had been interrogated for over 16 hours in Lubyanka Prison.

Based on circumstantial evidence, the FSB archivists concluded that “Prisoner No.7” with “great likelihood was the missing Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg”. However, FSB officials refused to provide a copy of the actual entry for “Prisoner No.7” as it appears in the Lubyanka interrogation register, nor did they permit researchers to review this page in the original. Instead, the FSB released only a heavily censored copy of the page in question. It showed that two other prisoners had been questioned together with “Prisoner No. 7”, on the same day, for more than 16 hours. They were Wallenberg's driver, Vilmos Langfelder, and Langfelder’s cellmate, Sandor Katona. Clearly, something quite dramatic had occurred to warrant such a lengthy interrogation.


Photo: Marie Dupuy

On those two days of July 22nd and 23rd 1947, close to a dozen prisoners were questioned and immediately placed in strict isolation, most of them for many years. As it turns out, all the men had a direct connection to Wallenberg.

Wallenberg had been arrested by Soviet forces in Budapest in January 1945, after he had saved the lives of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. He was taken to Moscow where he was imprisoned for at least two-and-a-half years. Soviet authorities announced in 1957 that Wallenberg had died suddenly of a heart attack in his cell on July 17, 1947, but the full circumstances of his disappearance have never been clarified.

The proper identification of “Prisoner No. 7”, therefore, goes to the heart of the Wallenberg case, in particular the question of whether he really died on July 17th, 1947 or if, in fact, he survived some time after this date – as FSB archivists allege.

READ ALSO: Russian court to hear plea for files on vanished Holocaust hero Wallenberg

In December 2013, I decided to file my own request for access to the register, as Wallenberg's niece. I received a formal reply from the FSB Central Archive in which archivists informed me that, unfortunately, a review of the original Lubyanka interrogation register for July 22-23, 1947, “is not possible”. They provided no specific reason for their refusal.

Once again, the FSB officials failed to present a full copy of the requested register pages or a detailed description of the entry for this mysterious “Prisoner No.7”, as I had specifically asked for in my letter. I repeated my requests several times, the most recent application being denied earlier this year.

Naturally, I wonder what the FSB is hiding.

Certain notations on the page? Names of other, still unknown prisoners held in Lubyanka Prison in 1947? The name of the interrogator for “Prisoner No.7”? The entries are by now 70 years old and should no longer be subject to the official Russian 30-year secrecy requirements.

Russian privacy laws, too, should not apply to this particular entry, since the full identity of “Prisoner No.7” would remain shielded, plus Russian officials have regularly revealed the name of MGB (Ministry of State Security) investigators that appear in these very registers. Even the 75-year rule governing “personal documents” should be waived in this case, since – according to both Russian and international law – victims of repression and their families have legal Right to the Truth about their ordeal. Consequently the records of victims of repression may not be kept classified.

If not Wallenberg, who could this “Prisoner no. 7” held in Lubyanka in July 1947 be? An unknown cellmate of Raoul’s in Lubyanka Prison, perhaps? Someone who had been active in Hungary in 1944-45? The matter must be fully clarified, because it could provide vital clues to our investigation. For a variety of reasons I have become quite sceptical about the FSB’s claim that no positive identification of this prisoner is possible.

I wonder even more when the FSB refuses me access to documentation that was clearly available to Russian officials as far back as 1991, at the start of an official, bilateral Swedish Russian Working Group that went on to investigate the question of my uncle's fate until 2001.

The information about a “Prisoner No.7” being questioned for 16 hours, together with two other persons very closely associated with Wallenberg, should have been thoroughly examined in the course of that 10-year investigation. Yet it was not, since Russian never formally disclosed the information to their Swedish colleagues. Russian officials simply verbally informed the Swedish side of Langfelder's lengthy interrogation, but never mentioned a “Prisoner no.7” or produced a copy of the relevant page.

For still unexplained reasons, the Swedish side failed to insist on obtaining such a copy. The Chairman of the Swedish side of the Working Group, Hans Magnusson, was allowed to review all register records, but apparently did not notice the entry for July 23rd, 1947.

The information should and would have received serious scrutiny because the Working Group had received an important statement from Boris Solovov, a former investigator in the MGB’s 3rd Main Directorate, 4th Department, which in 1947 oversaw the Wallenberg case. In several interviews Solovov had told Swedish and Russian officials that at some point in 1947, he had been asked by his superior officer to deliver a package to the MGB archives. This package carried the label: “Contains materials related to ‘Prisoner No.7’”. It was to be opened only by the “head of MGB” (Viktor Abakumov).

Even more interesting is the fact that Solovov had indicated explicitly that he knew in 1947 that Wallenberg was this particular “Prisoner No.7”. Solovov further testified that his superiors had prepared a complex diagram designed to keep track of prisoners whom they wanted to place in isolation because they knew of Wallenberg’s presence in Soviet captivity. In fact, Solovov stated that “Prisoner No.7” was included in this diagram.

[It is important to understand that Solovov made these statements many years before the release of the more recent information from 2009, concerning an interrogation of a “Prisoner No.7” on July 23rd, 1947.]

In retrospect, it upsets me greatly that Russian officials apparently intentionally withheld this highly relevant information during the official inquiry in 1991-2001. My late father, Guy von Dardel, fought for over six decades to learn the full circumstances of Raoul’s disappearance. He had agreed to join the Working Group as an official member, trusting that the investigation would be conducted in good faith, from both sides.

Instead, we are now left with the obvious question of what other documents and insights Russian and possibly Swedish officials shave not shared and why. Since the end of the Working Group, a number of other documents have emerged that were not previously shared with researchers. As it turns out, Russian officials repeatedly lied when they stated that the formal Archival-Investigation file of Wallenberg's longtime cellmate, the German diplomat Willy Rödel, had not been preserved.

Some years ago it became clear that the documentation has, in fact, survived. In spite of numerous requests we have yet to see a special MGB file that contains this very documentation about Rödel and other foreign diplomats who died in Soviet imprisonment during the years 1945-1947. Is Wallenberg's case among this collection? Over the strenuous protests of researchers, Swedish officials never insisted on access to the material. The issue attains added urgency in light of the miraculous “discovery” of Raoul's personal possessions in September 1989 – a few weeks before members of our family travelled to Moscow, on the invitation of Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

I took the step of filing a formal legal claim against the FSB very reluctantly and only after all other efforts of obtaining the requested information failed. Neither I nor anyone in my family holds any resentments towards Russia. Those who worked with my father know how he enthusiastically and unreservedly embraced the Russian people.

READ ALSO: Family of Holocaust hero Wallenberg sues Russia's security service

Last September, I and other members of Raoul's family traveled to Moscow to personally submit a comprehensive catalogue of all currently unanswered questions to Russian representatives from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) and the FSB. Our requests concern records that Russian officials can and must share before the question of Wallenberg's fate can be fully laid to rest. So far, we have not received any satisfactory answers or access to the requested documentation.

While Russia clearly holds the key to the Wallenberg mystery, I want to emphasize that the Russian government does not stand alone when it comes to restricting access to information. Important gaps also remain in the Swedish case record. Time will tell why Sweden's passivity in the case was so extreme, what Swedish (as well as possibly U.S. and British) authorities knew about his fate and if there was perhaps an unspoken understanding [with Russian counterparts] to keep the official Wallenberg inquiry within ‘safe’ parameters – and if so, why?

Members of Wallenberg's family and researchers will meet on September 14th-15th in Stockholm to address these and other unsolved questions at the third Raoul Wallenberg International Roundtable. They will be joined by other families of Swedes disappeared, past and present, members of the Swedish Foreign Ministry, as well as international legal experts, historians, journalists and human rights defenders.

Together we will explore options for how we can more effectively enforce the Right to the Truth, which includes finding new ways of obtaining access to still classified documentation in both Russian, Swedish and other international archives. This includes the submission of a catalogue of unsolved questions to Swedish authorities in the Wallenberg case. More than 70 years after Wallenberg's disappearance, it is high time that justice is done and all facts about his ordeal finally come to light.

READ ALSO: Sweden declares Holocaust hero Wallenberg died in 1952

This is an opinion piece written by Marie Dupuy, niece of Raoul Wallenberg.