1987. május (53-73. szám) / HU_BFL_XIV_47_2
íi «<NMfeARMM Sffli 24/0 tittta R»»»«(l Street, LONOOM, WC l T'1.01-4*0 m< u • G. Kraui 64/87/E/ 15%ay, 1987 Raoul V/allenberg's Statue Has Been Unveiled in Budapest. A Memóriái Soeech V/as Delivered on Behalf of the Hungárián Democratic Q-p-position. More than 4o years laté, Ra°ul v/allenberg's statue, Imre Varga's work was unveiled at 3 pm this afternoon in Budapest. As it is well”known, RaoulV/allenberg saved tens of thousands of Hungárián Jews during the last years of the war by issuing Swedish safe“ conduct papers, creating "protected houses" or by alternately bullying and bribing the Gestapo. He was arrested by the Soviet military command in 1945 > taken to the Soviet Union and although many people met him subsequently in the Gulag world of prisons and concentration camps, there is no certain nev/s of his fate. A statue was first erected to him in April, 1949, which disap- peared the night before its unveiling v/as to have taken piacé, next to appear in Debrecen on the Biogal factory’s courtyard, without the insciption. It did nőt tarry long here, however, bút soon found itself in Budapest again, in the garden of one of the clinics in Üllői Road. V/allenberg’s name v/as nőt to be mentioned fór forty years, yet a small, nondescript Street in the XlIIth district of Budapest boré his name all through these decades. Nor is the fate of the new statue, erected at American urging, less wonderful. It had been standing on its site fór a month, when the unveiling ceremony v/as finally officially postponed. It v/as to have taken piacé on the 2nd of May. Members of the World Jev/ish Congress, whose executive committee was in session in Budapest from the 6th .to the 8th of May had to piacé their wraiths on a monument nőt yet officially unveiled. In the mean- time the "Magyar Hirlap" /Hungárián Uev/s/ published a leader about V/allenberg which made it clear fór the first time that V/allenberg had fallen victim to the Stalinist éra. The article provoked a heated reply in the "Uj Tükör" /New Mirror/ and the rumour spread that the "Magyar Hirlap" lost an editor through disciplinary procedure. The day of unveiling was in no hurry to come. Media v/ould nőt even hazard a conjecture of the date. Nevertheless, last week the date of the unveiling filtered out, and unofficial pamphlets printed on a toy printing set blazoned forth the fact that the unveiling v/ould take piacé on the 15th of May at 3 pm. It is tipical of the extent of hesitation and secrecy that the designated. grammar school's choir and orchestra v/ere nőt notified until the last moment to get ready to provide musical accompaniment to the merry-making over the statue. The actual unveiling was attended by a crov/d of 3oo under the watchful eyes of the police. After singing the Hungárián national anthem a speech was made on behalf of the Budapest Council follov/ed by the address of the Patriotic National Front. Then Andris Bálint, actor,. recited "Forced March" by Miklós Radnóti. Students of the Stephen I Grammar School performed choral music by Bartók and Bach. Wraiths were placed on the pediment by rep- resentatives of the Budapest Council, the Patriotic National Front, the Hungárián Jewish Community, V/allenberg’s family, the Swedish embassy and the American V/allenberg Committee.
