I am constantly reminded by my friends that the Jewish people owe a lot to righteous gentiles. I know I have an image of being down on Christianity and I am humbled when we discuss Christians such as Raoul Wallenberg to whom the Jews owe a debt of gratitude.
Raoul is responsible for saving tens of thousands of Jews from certain death in extermination camps in Hungary. He was able to get them out of the country and house them in Sweden because he was able to create forged passports.
At the end of the war he was detained by the Soviets {Yemach Shemo} and the Soviets claim he died while in custody. The circumstances surrounding his death are questionable and it is believed he lived until the late 80s...
This is from the wiki page on Wallenberg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_WallenbergRaoul Wallenberg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raoul Wallenberg (August 4, 1912 – July 17, 1947?)[1][2][3][4] was a Swedish humanitarian who worked in Budapest, Hungary, during World War II to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. Between July and December 1944, he issued protective passports and housed Jews in buildings established as Swedish territory, saving tens of thousands of lives.[5]
On January 17, 1945,[6] he was called into detention by the Soviets after they entered Budapest, and was reported to have died in March while in their care. The circumstances of his death have long been in question, with some disputing whether he died while in Soviet detention.
Wallenberg has been honored numerous times. He is an honorary citizen of Canada, Hungary, Israel and the United States. Israel has also designated Wallenberg one of the Righteous among the Nations. Monuments have been dedicated to him, and streets have been named after him throughout the world. A Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States was created in 1981 to "perpetuate the humanitarian ideals and the nonviolent courage of Raoul Wallenberg". It gives the Raoul Wallenberg Award annually to recognize persons who carry out those goals.
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Disputes regarding his death
Several former prisoners have claimed to have seen Wallenberg after his reported death in 1947.[44] In February 1949, former German Colonel Theodor von Dufving, a prisoner of war, provided evidentiary statements concerning Wallenberg. While in the transit camp in Kirov, en route to Vorkuta, Dufving encountered a prisoner with his own special guard and dressed in civilian clothes. The prisoner claimed that he was a Swedish diplomat and that he was there "through a great error."[35]
Renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal searched for Wallenberg and collected several testimonies. For example, British businessman Greville Wynne, who was imprisoned in the Lubyanka prison in 1962 for his connection to KGB defector Oleg Penkovsky, stated he talked to, but could not see the face of, a man who claimed to be a Swedish diplomat.[45] Efim (or Yefim) Moshinsky claims to have seen Wallenberg on Wrangel Island in 1962.[46][47] An eyewitness asserted that she had seen Wallenberg in the 1960s in a Soviet prison.[48] During a private conversation about the conditions of detention in Soviet prisons at a party reception in the mid-1970s, a KGB general is reported to have said that "conditions could not be that harsh, given that in Lubyanka prison there is some foreign prisoner who had been there now for almost three decades".[45] The last reported sightings of Wallenberg were by two independent witnesses who said they had evidence that he was in a prison in November 1987.[49]
A Swedish-Russian working group was set up in 1991 on Guy von Dardel's initiative[50] to search eleven separate military and government archives from the former Soviet Union for information about Wallenberg's fate.[26][51][52] Raoul Wallenberg's brother, Professor Guy von Dardel,[8] a well-known physicist, retired from CERN, was dedicated to finding out his half-brother's fate.[53] He traveled to the Soviet Union about fifty times for discussions and research, including an examination of the Vladmir prison records.[54] Over the years, Professor von Dardel had compiled a 50,000-page archive of interviews, journal articles, letters, and other documents related to his quest.[55] Many, including Professor von Dardel and his daughters Louise and Marie, do not accept the various versions of Wallenberg's death. They continue to request that the archives in Russia, Sweden and Hungary be opened to impartial researchers.[56] Wallenberg's niece, Louise von Dardel, is the main activist in the family and dedicates much of her time to speaking about Wallenberg and lobbying various countries to help uncover information about her uncle.[56]
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I recently heard a radio show on Israel National News which discussed plans to establish a Raoul Wallenberg day in Israel. I think it is appropriate to honor a man who sacrificed his life in order to protect so many Jews...