Ex-communist Europe
Raoul Wallenberg
Remembering Raoul
Oct 15th 2010, 16:27 by A.L.B. | BUDAPEST
THE last time Gabor Forgacs (pictured) saw Raoul Wallenberg was on January 6th 1945 at number 6 Harmincad street, in downtown Budapest. Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat, and a scion of a powerful banking family, who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews during the war by issuing them with Swedish papers, placing them under Swedish protection, and intervening at deportation and execution sites. During the war the Swedish diplomatic representation rented the third floor of this building from the Hazai Bank, and Wallenberg turned it into a haven for Jews and a base for his rescue operation. Mr Forgacs, then a teenage boy, was working as a messenger for the Swedes and became Wallenberg's runner.
Today the imposing stone building on Harmincad street is the site of the British embassy. This morning in Budapest a memorial plaque commemorating Wallenberg was unveiled on the wall of the building. October 15th is an apt date: on this day in 1944 the Arrow Cross took power in Hungary in an SS-aided coup. Wallenberg never considered himself a hero, says Mr Forgacs. These were terrible times: the Arrow Cross ran amok through the besieged city, shooting Jews, men, women and children. The Russians were advancing, raining down shell and mortar fire. Teddy Jobbagy, Wallenberg’s driver, died after being hit here by shrapnel. But Wallenberg went to work every day and did his job. He even kept proper accounts.
Wallenberg may not have thought himself a hero, but he was one, and today's poignant ceremony helped ensure that the memory of his courage, and that of his helpers, endures. Especially now. In Hungary, like much of Europe, intolerance, racism and xenophobia is on the rise. The far-right Jobbik party, no friend of Hungary’s Jews or Roma minorities, won 16.7 per cent of the vote in April elections, making it the third-largest party in parliament. The British embassy, like numerous EU legations, has taken a strong stand against racism and last year helped launch a campaign, ZARE (Music Against Racism).
Wallenberg was captured by the Russians on January 17th 1945 in Budapest and soon disappeared into the maw of the gulag. His fate remains a mystery. Number 6 Harmincad street, Budapest, is one of the places his memory, and his legacy, lives on.
Eastern approaches deals with the economic, political, security and cultural aspects of the eastern half of the European continent. It incorporates the long-running "Europe.view" weekly column. The blog is named after the wartime memoirs of the British soldier Sir Fitzroy Maclean.
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It is not possible to make an official inquiry to Rusia regarding the fate of Raoul Wallenberg?
I am sorry that we missed out the accents on these Hungarian names.
It is not yet possible to use diacritical marks in the print edition of The Economist because our publishing software does not have the right character set. However we do try to use the diacritical marks correctly in our online material and on most blog posts we succeed.
I wrote about this issue here
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/06/diacritical_marks
and pointed out that the logo for this blog is in fact a compilation of the different peculiarities of the region's alphabets.
Regards
The Author (though not of this particular post)
Atheistic Elitist, you wrote that the article is "openly anti Soviet / Russian". Yet any anti-Russian sentiment is so well hidden that I cannot find it, and I've examined the article in detail in order to find the misspellings of Hungarian names. Let's consider the two references to Russians in the article: "the Russian were advancing" and "Wallenburg was captured by the Russians". These are facts and the language is neutral. The word 'advancing' is commonly used to describe the forward movement of an army and is rarely used pejoratively. The word 'capture' is also commonly used to describe the moment an army occupies a location or, in the sense used here, when it physically restrains an enemy combatant. Indeed, I think use of the word 'capture' is pro-Russian. Given that Wallenberg was not an enemy combatant, a more appropriate term would be kidnap or abduct.
Once again The Economist displays diacritical discrmination* against the former communist countries of Europe. In the article these names are misspelt: Gábor Forgács and Teddy Jobbágy.
*The Economist consistently neglects the diacritical marks in Albanian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovakian but seems to have no problem with those in French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. In the past three days they have managed lycée and Ferronière, but have failed to correctly spell the name of the Hungarian and Kosovan Prime Ministers: Viktor Orbán and Hashim Thaçi.
This all makes perfect sense to me. Read between the lines and think logically. The world is not all black and white, good and bad, savory and sweet, you know. I believe Soviets had their reasons for detaining him, and I'm not questioning those at all.
What I do question is the way this article has been composed. I believe it is not unbiased, it's openly anti Soviet / Russian and I'm really sad that the Economist actually did publish such a piece of propaganda. If a reputable magazine, such as the Economist, does not find this to be hate speech, than I fear we may be slowly slipping into the maw of something far worse than the gulag.
Ok, but why would 'Stavka' order it? If 'he was a diplomat from a neutral country helping Jews' is really the whole story here, then I cannot see any conceivable reason why would the Russians risk disappearing a diplomat and a hero at that. Creating martyrs is a risky business!
@Utumno
Your question "WHY" is valid but don't make a mistake of considering this as a communist ideological act. He was arrested by the Russian military command clearly on specific orders from the Kremlin, i.e. the Soviet Supreme Command known as Stavka. Headed by Stalin himself the Stavka exercised 'life or death' authority during the war years and no Soviet military commander would make such a decision without clear Stavka orders.
Why would the commies arrest a diplomat of a neutral country (worse yet- a hero!) and send him to prison to rot and die? I am not asking because I doubt it - they most probably did - but I am simply marvelling at the twisted logic here. What could they possibly gain from this barbarism besides bad publicity?
They avoided Wallenberg revealing information that they didn't want revealed. Stalin successfully prevented the truth about Katyn emerging. The question to ask is "What was the ratio of Jews killed by the Germans to those killed by the Russians?" In 1945, besides the deportation of Balts, Poles, Vlasovite Russians and other eastern European unfortunates, there was also deportation of Jews EAST from the camps. As with Katyn being thought for decades to be a German crime (and one for which the Soviets actually hanged innocent German officers) so the mass murder of Jews was to be entirely foisted on the Nazi government. Readers should ask themselves, "What was the ratio of Polish officers murdered by the Germans to those killed by the Russians?" For this latter question, the answer is as close to zero as makes no difference. For the first question, readers must do some very politically incorrect research of their own.
yea, you can start the research by recognizing the fact that there is no evidence in any archives that it were actually the Russians who killed polish officers near Katyn. There is firm scepticism among historians who explore this story that it actually was the way its brought to common people. Interesting fact indeed. So its no more than a populist opinion with a smack of prejudice. GL with further research.
A quick google search on "Gorbachev Katyn" brings up the snippet that state documents demonstrating that the Katyn murders were not a German crime were handed by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to the Polish government even before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The New York times ought to convince on this:
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/14/world/upheaval-in-the-east-gorbachev-h...
I think we are owed the names of those alleged historians of whom lennoxRU claims "There is firm scepticism among historians who explore this story ..." The truth is that any academic historian who still persists in attributing the Katyn murders to the Germans is simply an uninformed incompetent.
"Wallenberg was captured by the Russians on January 17th 1945 in Budapest and soon disappeared into the maw of the gulag."
Most likely deep into the cellars of the Moscow Lubianka prison. Putin must know the truth and most certainly has the powers to produce the documents. Is he unwilling to do so because this would disturb peaceful retirement of some of his former KGB superiors who have Wallenberg's blood on their hands ?
Dimodyk just relax, you post all around al the topics on TE and each comment is full of hatred and prejudice against the Russians. Its a nazi attitude. You should really look deeper.
Didomyk is actually one of the few commenters on Russia whose opinion is both informed and worth pondering. Within living memory, Ukraine lost multiple millions deliberately starved to death and the flower of the nation's intellect ground away in torture chambers. There is no hatred and prejudice against Russians in stating this. Simple historical facts, unfortunately. Ignorant people try to paint this as a nazi attitude and urge Ukrainians to look deeper. Ukrainians, however, have looked into the very depths and their history can only produce a shudder.
No one ever said it didn't happen. Its the prejudice that are questioned. One thing is to say a fact, another is add color by depicting "evil communists trying to deliberately kill the Ukranians and that the policy was aimed at the Ukranian intellectiual heritage". Its the story perverted. There is no even such nation as Ukranians, they are just Russian themselves, and no one ever in the big Russian lands treatened them differently.
So by saying 'collectivization' was aimed at specific nations is like charge the Russians or their government at that time with nazism, which Dimodyk and you are trying to do. By doing this you yourself show preference for one country and hatred for another, so your gun fires back at you.
Why talk about collectivization anyway. If to speak about WW2, the context of this article, why not to mention that it was the soviet people who saved the world, who suffered losses more than other nations combined (including ally and nazi) to allow your grandparents born your parents.
There's nothing to say here other than "what a total badass". This guy needs a better publicist, because he should already have had an A list film made about him.
One can only pray that someday the archives of the Soviet security services get made public, so Wallenberg's fate can be known. Not likely to happen while folks who were members of that service are in power in Russia, of course. But one can still pray for it to happen.
Why are you so sure the Russians are to blame?
"One can only pray that someday the archives of the Soviet security services get made public, so Wallenberg's fate can be known". - But what if nothing is gonna ever become public because there is no any secret because there is nothing to hide? And you'll become even more sure of your prejudiced opinion..
Do you what is "presumption of innocence", the pillar of the "modern and civilized" western world? Or it doesn't work here because gere the matter concerns the Russians, who are "evil indeed"?
Open your mind my friend and stop thinking by using stereotypes some propaganda machined told you.