Stockholm, Sweden
From EXPRESSEN, March 26, 2018 (translated from Swedish)
Raoul Wallenberg’s Family Poses 80 Questions – Requires Answers from the Government
Raoul Wallenberg’s family today demands new answers by the Swedish government about the destiny of the lost diplomat. They ask about 80 questions, and, among other things, want to know if there is still some secret information about the case. “It’s more than time to clarify what happened to him, we owe it to Raoul,” said Marie Dupuy, the niece.
Is the Swedish government still hiding some information about Raoul Wallenberg? Has it been done at the request of other countries? What consultations did Sweden have with Russia in recent decades on the case of the Swedish diplomat? These are just some of the questions Raoul Wallenberg’s relatives want to know.
80 questions to the government
On Monday [March 26], they sent a document with about 80 questions, not only to the government, but also to a number of authorities and organizations. Two years ago, they sent a similar questionnaire to Russia, which has not been given any answers.
“The Russians have got their list of questions, and now various Swedish authorities have their list. After more than 70 years, it will be more than time to get answers to all questions that have been asked for decades and to clarify what has happened to him,” Marie Dupuy, the daughter of Raoul Wallenberg’s brother Guy von Dardel, writes in an email.
“The family has always wondered why there was so little enthusiasm from Sweden to know more about Raul’s fate. If it had been different, he might have come home like so many other prisoners. We cannot help wondering. We have often been surrounded by silence. Silence speaks for itself but does not explain everything. I am optimistic that Sweden will open its archives, after so long there is no reason not to access them,” she writes.”
“Not Maximal Efforts”
“Sweden has not made maximum efforts to clarify Raoul Wallenberg’s fate. There are still a lot of archival materials that have not been released,” says Susanne Berger, historian and founder of the RWI-70.
“I hope that we will be able to utilize these resources together and answer the questions. We must all reject the thought that there is nothing more we can do,” she says.
The RWI-70 researchers suspect that Sweden could be concealing information about Wallenberg at the request of other countries. They point out that in 1981 Sweden agreed on Israel’s request to keep some information secret. Some information about the Wallenberg case came from Israeli agents in the then communist countries, and Israel did not want these sources to be known.
Therefore, researchers want an answer to the question if other countries, such as the United States and Russia, have also requested Sweden to keep confidential information. And if Sweden came with similar requests to other countries.
Sweden-Soviet Talks
The researchers want to know what deliberations Sweden and the Soviet Union had before members of Wallenberg’s family visited the Soviet Union in October 1989 at the special invitation of the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. They also want information about the US-Sweden discussions before the US intelligence service CIA’s Wallenberg material was released in 1994.
And they wonder how such secret conversations between countries could affect the ten-year investigation of Wallenberg’s fate conducted in the 1990s by the official Swedish-Russian Working Group.
“It is clear that Russian representatives on several occasions concealed important information and documentation from some Swedish members of the working group, including Professor Guy von Dardel, Wallenberg’s brother. There is more evidence that this was done intentionally. It is urgent to clarify what Swedish representatives knew about this behavior and how they reacted to Russian representatives concealing information,” writes Susanne Berger, who was a consultant to the Swedish-Russian Working Group in the 1990s.
Links to intelligence?
She believes that Sweden may still have information that could answer a series of open questions. For example, if there were any aspects of Raoul Wallenberg’s work, in addition to the purely humanitarian activity, that might have caused Soviet suspicions.
Such as links to Swedish or other intelligence services, possible negotiations on a separate peace or exploration by the West to keep Hungary out of the Soviet block after the war.
“Stalin would have considered all such things as breach of Swedish neutrality. Or as a hostile act of Sweden. Answering these questions can clarify why Wallenberg was arrested and, perhaps more importantly, why he was not released,” says Susanne Berger.