Community Magazine April 2012

Upon his release from prison, Grueninger found it hard to get a job as an ex-convict and struggled to make a living. Although he lived the rest of his life in poverty, he never regretted having aided the Jews. “It was basically a question of saving human lives threatened with death,” he said in 1954. “How could I then seriously consider bureaucratic schemes and calculations?” In December 1970, following media protests, the Swiss government sent Grueninger a letter of apology. Even then, his case was not reopened and his pension was not restored. It was only in 1995 that the Swiss federal government finally annulled his conviction, posthumously. In 1971, a year before his death, Yad Vashem awarded him the title of Righteous Among the Nations. Raoul Wallenberg Of all the diplomat-rescuers of the Holocaust, none has achieved the degree of fame and recognition as the Swedish architect Raoul Wallenberg. This year marks the 100 th anniversary of Wallenberg’s birth (August 4, 1912), and the Swedish government has officially designated 2012 as “Raoul Wallenberg Year.” In June 1944, at the behest of the American War Refugee Board, Wallenberg, scion of the famous and wealthy Wallenberg family, arrived in Budapest to take up the post of first secretary in the Swedish Legation. The remaining Jewish population in the city, numbering some 200,000, lived in fear of sharing the cruel fate of their brethren who had already been deported to the death camps. In the span of six months, Wallenberg, in a display of unrivalled daring, initiative and humanity, saved as many as 100,000 Jews from the Nazi death machine. Outmaneuvering the Arrow Cross forces and Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi architect of the mass deportations, Wallenberg established Swedish diplomatic safe houses, issued the famous Schutz-Passes (protective passes), and even climbed onto the roof of a train headed to Auschwitz and handed out protective passes through the train doors, ignoring the orders of the Germans and the Arrow Cross to get down. He even succeeded in convincing the Nazis Adolf Eichmann and Major General Gerhard Schmidthuber, the supreme commander of German forces in Hungary, not to destroy the Budapest ghetto with its 70,000 Jewish inhabitants, by warning them that if they did so, after the war they would be hanged as war criminals. In addition to hiring and protecting some 340 Jewish workers in his offices, Wallenberg also received valuable assistance from his colleagues in Budapest, Carl Lutz and Per Anger. Since his disappearance into the Soviet Gulag on January 17, 1945, the legend and reputation of Raoul Wallenberg have become a worldwide phenomenon. The official Soviet claim was that Wallenberg died of a heart attack in a Moscow prison on July 17, 1947, but many suspect that he lived on in the Gulag prisons long beyond that date. In spite of his mysterious disappearance, over the years numerous streets, institutes, prizes and scholarships have been named after him. Just this past March, legislation passed to co-name 13th Avenue in Boro Park “Raoul Wallenberg Way” in commemoration of Raoul Wallenberg’s centennial. Memorials to Wallenberg appear in many countries and cities, and he is an honorary citizen of the United States, Canada and Israel. However, for years, his native country, Sweden, did not show the same eagerness to honor his name or to discover the truth about his fate. It was only in 1997 that an official memorial in his honor was erected in Sweden. Perhaps now, in this Raoul Wallenberg Centennial Year, the Swedish government will finally take serious initiative to lead the effort in resolving the mystery surrounding Wallenberg’s fate by insisting that the Russians open all their archives surrounding this hero of humanity. Aristides de Sousa Mendes On June 13, 1940, the German army invaded Paris. A mixed multitude of refugees, including Jews, French, Czechs, Belgians, Dutch, Austrians, and Germans opposed to Hitler, filled Bordeaux’s streets and public areas anxiously hoping for visas to escape to the Iberian Peninsula. The dire situation required a serious and momentous decision on the part of Sousa Mendes, Consul of Portugal. Some nine months earlier, in September 1939, after Germany invaded Poland, Portugal, under the right-wing dictatorship of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, opted for neutrality. The Portuguese government sent a document, Circular 14, to all the Portuguese consulates prohibiting the issuance of entry visas to Russians, Jews, and all refugees who did not have the possibility of returning to their country of origin and/or did not have means of financial support. The Germans were rapidly advancing on Bordeaux, but Portuguese authorities were forbidden from issuing visas to help save innocent civilians. Then, a French rabbi named Haim Kruger, who was to become a good friend to Sousa Mendes, came to see the consul. The rabbi and the diplomat spent an entire night talking, after which Sousa Mendes spent three tormented days and nights alone in his room. Finally, he made the heroic decision to disobey the Circular 14. He later wrote about his feelings in reaching this difficult decision: “If I was disobeying orders, I preferred to be with Gd and against the human beings, rather than with the human beings against Gd.” Born July 19, 1885, Aristides de Sousa Mendes worked in several different localities before his appointment as Consul of Portugal. He spent time in French Guiana, Zanzibar, Curitiba and San Luis do Maranhao, and San Francisco. In 1929, he his family settled in Antwerp, Belgium, where he served as the Portuguese Consul- General. In 1936, the Belgian king, Leopold III, appointed him dean of the diplomatic corps. In 1938, he was named Consul of Portugal in Bordeaux, France and settled in the Rue Quai Louis XVIII. Following his decision to follow his conscience, several refugees were even invited to live with him in his house. On June 17, 1940, Sousa Mendes began his life-saving work in earnest – even as the city was being bombed by German planes. He 32 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE