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00:05from their cells and led out to the exercise yard wallenberg's fate remains an enigma even
00:15for the russians who now honor him
00:25roll wallenberg was born near stockholm in 1912. his mother mai is still mourning the tragic death
00:34from cancer of her young husband a swedish naval officer he comes from a rich and influential
00:41family but dies just three months before rowell's birth there was something very special about how
00:49from the very start and my mother of course she really adored him he was a joy of her life
00:58i idolized him because he was you know he was very clever and very bright and very sweet
01:08raul's mother remarries when he is six
01:13his paternal grandfather gustav wallenberg becomes a major influence in his life carefully guiding his
01:19grandson's education gustav a successful businessman turned diplomat is a link between his grandson and
01:29the family's banking and business resources
01:34the wallenberg's commercial interests are run by raul's cousins marcus and jacob
01:40their holdings include many of sweden's major companies and extend worldwide
01:47raul is urged by his grandfather to go to college in the united states
01:52he enrolls at the university of michigan's school of architecture his grandfather writes to him
02:00my dear boy what i want you to get there is not schooling but life contact with young americans
02:08so that you can learn how to develop into a well-organized fighter ready to make his way in the
02:14world
02:19raul graduates in 1935 with honors and is encouraged by his grandfather to travel the world
02:25he works for half a year in south africa and then heads to palestine his grandfather wants raul to
02:32learn the banking business and with gustav's connections he gets apprentice work at a bank in
02:38the city of haifa raul writes his grandfather that his banking experience there doesn't offer much
02:45and that he may not be particularly suited for this work he says his temperament is better suited to a
02:51positive line of work rather than sitting around saying no yet haifa leaves an indelible impression
02:59upon raul for the city is teeming with refugees who had flagged germany by the thousands to escape hitler's
03:05brutal anti-semitism ambassador per anger raul's future colleague believes the refugees had a major
03:14influence on him he came to haifa and there he meets the first jewish refugees and i'm quite convinced
03:22that when he saw that and heard their stories that he said to himself this can't go on i have
03:28to do
03:28something i have to do something in germany under the nazis jewish businesses are shut
03:44as adolf hitler's anti-semitic brutality intensifies jews are beaten and imprisoned atrocities that soon
03:52spread across europe when raul returns to sweden he expects to find a job in the wallenberg enterprise
04:04but he's disappointed when offered no satisfactory position within the company
04:10his cousin jacob refers him to an import export company in stockholm run by a hungarian jew kalamon
04:17lauer he is impressed by the young man and hires him on the spot raul is soon negotiating deals
04:23throughout europe including several in budapest
04:31europe is embroiled in world war ii beginning in 1939 hitler's armies storm through france and the low
04:39countries eastern europe and the soviet union
04:44hungary has become an ally of germany and is left unscathed early in the war
04:50but hungarian fascism is on the rise and life becomes increasingly difficult for the jews
04:59they are cut off from public jobs education and cultural life
05:04many are sent to forced labor camps but do not yet face large-scale deportation to the nazi death camps
05:14early in 1944 that is about to change hitler suspects that his ally hungarian leader admiral miklos horty
05:22wants to pull his country out of the war the fur summons the unsuspecting horty to a meeting
05:29and then abruptly orders nazi troops to storm into hungary leaving horty with limited power
05:42so i saw the german motorized troops from the motorbikes first and the trucks and the army
05:50and unending a number of german soldiers coming in that sunday morning was the beginning of the end for
06:02us and that was the beginning of the end of my youth because from that moment on when the german
06:08marched the german army marched across the danube on all the bridges of budapest from that moment on
06:17every day and different law came into existence that curtail jewish life in budapest the nazis
06:27methodically start deporting jews from the countryside outside of budapest they are rounded up house by house
06:34given minutes to throw a few articles of food in sacks or suitcases they're herded into waiting cattle cars
06:47the nazi heading the operation is adolf eichmann he makes good his goal of liquidating the jews
06:54in the provinces within two months nearly 450 000 are sent to the death camps of auschwitz burkenau
07:05the gas chambers perform their gruesome work around the clock killing 12 000 men women and children a day
07:16for the jews in budapest life is a nightmare work is almost non-existent businesses and property are
07:24confiscated they're crammed into buildings marked by yellow stars and are restricted by curfew
07:32we were only allowed to leave the house between 11 and 5 p.m and one day i left the
07:41house
07:43two minutes before 11 and we were taken to a concentration camp which was in hungary
07:52and which was such a collecting place for the travel to auschwitz buildings in the city center become
08:01an overcrowded ghetto for hungary's jews they fear the same fate as millions of other european jews
08:09in fact eichmann has been planning their liquidation
08:12he wants the killing machine to do its job before the end of the war
08:19for by 1944 the allies have turned the tide of the war nazi forces are halted in the east by
08:26the
08:26red army and steadily retreat on the western front the german military gears up for an expected
08:33allied invasion of the french coast led by the united states washington has essentially ignored
08:41the slaughter of jews in europe the u.s state department is indifferent to hitler's final solution
08:49saving jews in europe is not one of its priorities
08:55it is not until early in 1944 that president roosevelt is persuaded by treasury secretary henrik
09:02morgentho to set up the war refugee board
09:13eli rosenbaum heads the justice department's unit tracking nazis in the united states
09:19he echoes criticism of fdr's sluggish reaction to the holocaust it was very very late to be launching
09:27such an effort so much could have been done earlier the failure to act was emblematic of the allied response
09:37to
09:38knowledge about the holocaust for years the war refugee board uses neutral sweden as one of its
09:45operations centers in europe its representative in stockholm ivor olsen finds the swedish government
09:53willing to cooperate in the rescue effort to save budapest's 200 000 jews they're the last surviving jewish
10:01community in europe under nazi domination kalamon lauer wallenberg's prominent business partner is asked
10:09by olsen for recommendations for a man to head a rescue mission in budapest he enthusiastically recommends
10:16raul for the post the impressive 31 year old swede is picked for the job funding for his operation is
10:24channeled through the u.s war refugee board and financed by american jewish organizations but he goes to the
10:31hungarian capital under diplomatic cover a secretary of sweden's legation
10:38like the swedish government the wallenberg companies play a double role in world war ii
10:45as a corporation in a neutral country the wallenberg enterprise was selling to both sides of the of the
10:55war in europe one of their many companies was manufacturing ball bearings without ball bearings
11:03a military enterprise comes to a screeching halt the famous industrialists of sweden jakob and marcus
11:11wallenberg really played an important role for the swedish economy during the war
11:17jakob wallenberg were mainly focusing on maintaining economic contacts with germany
11:24whereas his brother marcus mainly focused on relations with the western allies
11:31to defend their economic interests more or less globally
11:37among those interests is tungstrom a budapest electronics company co-owned by hungarian and german
11:44shareholders its management includes jews the wallenbergs want to save from the nazis
11:51raul hastily leaves for budapest ivor olsen writes washington that raul has left stockholm in a hell of a
11:59hurry without funds for preliminary expenditures he is fearless motivated anxious to confront the nazis
12:07he could have lived his entire life in stockholm in security maybe even luxury
12:13and surely in in a state of of happiness joy with his friends with his family but when he heard
12:21the story of what was going to happen to hungarian jews he left everything and then
12:33raul wallenberg a privileged eager young man enters the hungarian capital on the 9th of july 1944
12:42his job is not that of a typical diplomat
12:44when raul arrives at the swedish legation on the buddha side of the hungarian capital he unexpectedly
12:51sees a huge waiting crowd they are jews pursuing special swedish passports shoots passes that provide
13:00protection from the nazis his colleague per anger explains that only 650 protective passes have been
13:08distributed limited to those jews with swedish connections rule is determined to produce an
13:15issue as many shoots passes as possible and he looked at that and then that's typical for ral
13:21wallenberg with his imagination and he was an artist also said oh we can do this much more spectacular
13:29we should have we do it in the swedish colors and with the swedish emblem with the swedish coat of
13:36arms on
13:36so in no time he had the idea of this big productive passport which was very impressive and i think
13:45towards the end we assessed the situation we found that about say 15 20 000 people were in the holder
13:54of
13:54this passport wallenberg senses greater danger ahead for budapest's jews writing to his mother
14:02were surrounded by a tragedy of immeasurable proportions wallenberg expands the rescue operation
14:10when he got this task he saw it not only from the point of view of humanitarian mission but as
14:18a very
14:19practical task of saving lives the swelling rescue activities create tension within delegation staff
14:28they are taking up much of their time and limited office space they feel he has jumped into his job
14:34with too big a splash they were upset because roll wallenberg had then occupied the whole embassy
14:39and the whole garden was full of applicants and of course that prevented the embassy to fulfill their
14:47ordinary jobs raul moves most of his rescue operations to offices across the river to the pest side of the
14:55city
14:57he recruits jewish professionals and managers who had lost their jobs his staff eventually expands
15:03to nearly 400 people a young hungarian elizabeth casa casser serves raul as a translator and he knew no fatigue
15:15not no hours nothing he was available to talk about something any time of the day or night
15:24a perfectly dedicated man raul wants to increase the protection of jews with shoots passes by establishing
15:32diplomatic safe houses marked by swedish flags with the help of red cross official alexander casa casser
15:39and his wife elizabeth he gets reluctant hungarian officials to authorize the plan
15:47budapest becomes a target for allied bombers they rain havoc day and night nobody was safe and yet
15:55when they started bombing our raul got out wherever he was he always had his bicycle there
16:01he got on his bike and he bicycled to the orphanage because the children need him he would try to
16:10cheer
16:10up the children in the homes in the in the orphanage reassure literally play with us
16:20and then he'd be gone until he showed up again so we looked forward to these visits
16:28vera gutkin has been separated from her parents in a desperate effort by wallenberg's staff to save the
16:34child from deportation my father had heard about this legendary swede who was giving out schutz passes
16:41and uh he hid my mother in a bombed out apartment house and went to the swedish embassy he did
16:48not get
16:49caught on the way and he was lucky enough to find wallenberg in residence and went five minutes he not
16:56only had a schutz pass for my mother and himself but he found out he still had a little girl
17:02and we were reunited and the three of us were taken to one of the protected houses
17:10under pressure from neutral countries admiral horthy has ended large-scale train deportations
17:19in a sudden and ill-prepared move in mid-october 1944 admiral horthy declares an armistice to get
17:26hungry out of the war i remember very well that day his proclamation in the radio and we were very
17:34happy we were dancing in the street because he said today every normal human being know in hungary
17:43germany lost the war so put down your arms don't fight anymore
17:53but an hour or an hour and a half later the salasi regime the aero cross regime took over the
18:01radio
18:02station and then the killing started all over again it was mass murder all over in budapest thousands
18:10and thousands of jews were killed they collaborated fully with the german nazis so there was really no
18:18uh line of separation between the hungarian thugs and uh and the german thugs they worked together
18:27they had the same values they had the same hatred for jews and and they they both represented
18:37the ugliest aspect of of human beings they picked up people women and children and they tied them
18:48together and they shot them to the river cattle cars are pressed into service again by adolf eichmann who
18:59accelerates deportations by rail from budapest to the death camps wallenberg repeatedly rushes to the
19:06train station to save hundreds of the human cargo then ss officer and wallenberg started a shouting match
19:14which everybody heard but we didn't know what it's all about finally after arguing they said whoever
19:21has a swedish schutzpass come forward and show their schutzpasses at the end when they wanted to deport me
19:29to auschwitz that should spare saved my life i luckily i had it with me but sparing jews is hindering
19:40adolf eichmann's master plan
19:44he accepts a dinner invitation from wallenberg who urges the nazi to end the deportations
19:50eichmann refuses and warns him that if necessary he could be eliminated despite his diplomatic status
19:57but raul remains unharmed the germans must have had kind of a standing order not to violate the
20:05swedish embassy because they were anxious especially towards the war to not to break the diplomatic
20:13relations with sweden attempts to alter eichmann's agenda has little effect thousands of jews are herded
20:21into the central ghetto making it easier to starve them into submission
20:28death is everywhere we were taken into the ghetto
20:35in front of me a couple of people were killed because they were not moving fast you know these
20:41were older people and uh um that was i had to step over them frozen dead bodies were stacked up
20:50from the
20:50floor to the floor to the ceiling there was no place to take them or bury them just took them
20:57in as you
20:58went on the street you tumbled over that body frozen dead bodies that this is how it was
21:09in november when trains diverted for war transport are no longer available to eichmann
21:15he devises a more sadistic way to deport the jews to the camps they were driven on the on the
21:23so-called death marches and there was snowing and there was winter and and uh it was a terrible sight
21:30which you never forget to see this and see how they were pushed to walk these people old people
21:39killed children everybody many of them died on the way or were killed on the way
21:45we left a lot of people behind dying of cold and when we slept outside we were covered with snow
21:51and
21:53my edges of my foot was cross-bitten and
21:59the shoes that we had were pretty bad and clothing just what we could carry
22:04uh so it was a it was a pretty horrible way of marching wallenberg continuously appears along the
22:13route of the death marches he intimidates and bluffs arrow cross guards into releasing scores of jews
22:20at times even promising the release of captured germans in exchange
22:24the aero cross commander said here is your list you agent of bloody jews to which wallenberg replied
22:36tell me what's your name i will take 15 jews from here and i will exchange them for two captured
22:45german
22:45officers but if you do not give me these 15 people i will report this to german headquarters
22:53and i will tell them that you don't care about your comrade german officers
23:01the war is closing in in budapest german defenses on the perimeter of the city give way
23:07soviet troops battle in the city's outskirts
23:13the swedish legation staff in buddha goes underground for protection
23:17and wallenberg visits his colleagues for the last time
23:20i said 12 wallenberg now you stay here because now you have done everything you could possibly do
23:28and stay here with us now we are hiding all over as you are hiding in pesto but why don't
23:33you hide
23:33with us somewhere here we are together and then he said i can't do that because i can't stop stop
23:40this
23:41i can't return to sweden without knowing that i have done to save as many people as is possible
23:49the germans plan to destroy the ghetto with 70 000 jews crammed inside
23:56they're called off when a german general is warned that wallenberg will hold him responsible for the mass
24:02killing after the war raul plans to meet the soviet army commander in the city of the brechen to get
24:10support for his blueprint to protect and restore the jewish community in budapest
24:16he encounters a red army patrol and is interrogated three days later raul and his driver are escorted
24:23out of budapest by soviet soldiers it is january 17th 1945 he carries a briefcase full of money and
24:33important documents he tells an aide i'm not sure whether i'm their guest or a prisoner
24:41it is no accident that wallenberg is detained according to a written note dated january 18
24:48the soviet military aid states we've taken him into protective custody
24:54raul is never again seen in the free world
25:04wallenberg has mysteriously disappeared the other swedish diplomats are finally
25:09returned to their home soil in april 1945. when we came home to sweden of course our families
25:18were standing waiting for us and that was raul wallenberg's mother she still had a hope that
25:22raul wallenberg was with us but he wasn't
25:28the trip that raul wallenberg has taken is one way
25:34to a moscow prison a soviet diplomat informed stefan sodebloom the swedish envoy in moscow
25:42that wallenberg is under the protection of the soviet military
25:47in february soviet ambassador to sweden alexander kolontai reassures raul's mother not to worry
25:55her son is safe in the ussr adding that it would be best not to make a fuss about it
26:00the ambassador
26:01suddenly recalled to moscow she has apparently divulged too much
26:09sweden seems afraid to press its powerful neighbor to the east about raul
26:14now all of a sudden the whole political situation is going to change in the baltic now the sovi's will
26:20take over and be careful now don't do anything which would irritate the soviets that's more
26:27list as i understood it we couldn't understand it and it was a great tragedy that
26:38they didn't stand up for all
26:43the wallenberg cousins concerned about their own business interests
26:47appear even less inclined to pursue the issue the only party willing to pressure the soviet union
26:54about wallenberg is the united states offering the swedes its full support we owed him every effort
27:01that could be made to save his life unfortunately the indications are that both the wallenberg family
27:08and the swedish government rejected offers by the united states to be of assistance
27:15the swedish envoy sodobloom flatly rejects the u.s offer what good would it do he skeptically asks his
27:23foreign ministry a draft of a secret state department cable to the american embassy in moscow
27:29notes that sweden is reliable information that wallenberg is alive strangely a crossed outline states
27:37even if the info is true the soviets will never produce wallenberg alive and with that the americans
27:45back off the wallenberg case many still criticized the united states for not approaching the soviets
27:51directly the united states had a special interest in him they hired him why weren't they demanding
28:00that he'd be released in 1946 stockholm's envoy sodobloom meets with soviet leader joseph stalin
28:10according to sodobloom's own dispatch he tells stalin that wallenberg probably was a victim of robbers
28:17or an accident in budapest the mind-boggling character of their representation in moscow
28:28soviet leader joseph stalin that wallenberg who was a member of the united states of the united states
28:31this guy is stupid stupid constantly on his refrain his repeated refrain that he died
28:43i think in all fairness one could say that perhaps we did not do everything that we should have done
28:51uh immediately after the war when in terms of pushing the issue at the right time at the right
28:56level suzanne burger is a journalist and an independent investigator researching the wallenberg case for
29:03years there's some very clear signs that sweden was not pushing very hard for raw wallenberg's release
29:10for example they never reacted very strongly to any kind of office of exchange or never actively sought an
29:17exchange when other countries like switzerland did so with their swiss diplomats two swiss diplomats captured
29:25by the soviets are exchanged within a year hints by the kremlin point to a possible prisoner exchanged for
29:31wallenberg the answer was flatly the swedish government doesn't act that way which i thought
29:40i couldn't accept that but the swedish guy took that stand we are not going to negotiate with the
29:46soviets in that way in exchange of spies if there are soviet spies here they are sent back to soviet
29:55union that's it
29:57more than two years passed before the kremlin officially comments on the wallenberg case
30:03on august 18th 1947 deputy foreign minister andre virginski informs the swedes a careful
30:11investigation has established that wallenberg is not in the soviet union and he is unknown to us
30:19but as the soviets release captured military prisoners in the early 1950s
30:25word reaches stockholm that several had been in contact with wallenberg and his driver
30:33as evidence builds about wallenberg's presence in moscow prisons
30:37the soviets make a stunning announcement in february 1957. responding to increased swedish pressure
30:45deputy foreign minister andre gromyko informs the swedes that yes wallenberg has been our prisoner
30:51but he's dead gromyko's 1957 memorandum states that a careful investigation disclosed that wallenberg died
31:01presumably of a heart attack in moscow's lublyanka prison 10 years before on july 17 1947. the only
31:11evidence is a handwritten report from the prison's medical officer colonel smoltsov addressed to moscow's
31:17top security officer victor abakumov smoltsov could not possibly have been
31:24there on july 17 1947 because he had been retired from his job as the chief health officer of lubianca
31:43in march march 21. smoltsov is no longer alive in 1957. the security chief abakumov has been executed
31:52during a purge in the communist party the soviets produce no other witnesses but over the years many
32:00more released prisoners testify to wallenberg's presence in numerous locations in the notorious gulag
32:07a russian psychiatrist tells a prominent swedish colleague in 1961 that wallenberg is in a mental
32:14hospital later the russian says he was misunderstood
32:19not until the 1970s when the world learns about raul's heroic acts who demonstrators start demanding
32:26the truth from the soviets raul is made an honorary citizen of the united states in 1981 only the second
32:35person after winston churchill to receive that status in 1945 in violation of diplomatic immunity and
32:43international law he was seized with the soviet union the nazis were gone and the soviets had come
32:49in as an ally and yet today there is evidence that he is still imprisoned by the soviets wherever he
32:59is
32:59his humanity burns like a torch the iron curtain concealing soviet secrets opened slightly in the late 1980s
33:08with president gorbachev's glasnost liberalizing the ussr government
33:14in 1989 raul's half-brother gie van derdel and half-sister lina lagergren are invited to moscow by the soviet
33:23foreign ministry unexpectedly they are given raul's belongings taken when he was arrested
33:29his diplomatic passport foreign currency car registration diary and his prison registration card
33:38they're told the articles were discovered accidentally at lubianka prison
33:42they were found in a bag together with forms some application forms and archive drafts and other things
33:55like that in a storage room during reconstruction of some shells
34:05this is extraordinary for 40 years you have said there is not any document or nothing about gold
34:14and all of a sudden when we are coming there is all this material and how come
34:20we thought that some may think that this was a specially arranged present for the future visit of the
34:27relatives and swedish officials but i'm inclined to say that it was more a present by fate because we
34:34didn't shrewdly arrange it it just happened it raised our hopes very much if we find the well his personal
34:47belongings they should be able to from that point to follow up through the russian prison system
34:56what happened to raul was it still would he still be alive
35:00what could be done to find out more about him
35:08as 74 years of communism are coming to an end there are clear signs that the wallenberg question is
35:15finally being explored
35:19in 1991 the kremlin agrees with the swedes to a joint investigation into wallenberg even the secretive
35:26former kgb will cooperate the commission that was set up between sweden and russia after the
35:33fall of communism was of course a completely different commission than any other type of
35:37cooperation we had had in the past suddenly we we felt that we were talking to people who were
35:43speaking the truth who were doing their best to recover the truth and we are basically very very
35:51positive to the cooperation after 1990-91
35:59the swedish russian working group sets out to unearth whatever it can find about wallenberg
36:05its work is long and arduous and the answers to two major questions elusive
36:12why was he arrested and what really happened to rule
36:19records in moscow stockholm and the u.s are searched for the answers
36:26wallenberg's arrest record in 1945 is located in a secret russian archive it was a real discovery and
36:34in this point of view it is real evidence that he was in prison and they have some kind of
36:44prison of war nikita petrov works for russia's first human rights organization they too have followed
36:53the wallenberg case with interest for years other documents uncovered disclose he was captive both in
37:01moscow's lublyanka and lefortova prisons wallenberg's name is revealed on a 1947 interrogation record
37:10visible only after blacked out lines are treated chemically he has been questioned only five times
37:17in two and a half years other records and testimony disclose that prisoners who had any contact with
37:24wallenberg are interrogated intensively in july 1947 and then put into isolation cells for months
37:37though investigators find no direct evidence there is enough proof to finally answer one elusive question
37:44why did the soviets take rollenberg of course because in their paranoia they thought he was a spy
37:51because how could a swedish diplomat come to put up this just to save jewish people's lives that must be
37:58pretext for something else he was of course a spy for the americans because he got money from the united
38:04states and all that and and perhaps he was a double agent because he had contact with eichmann
38:11probably unknown to wallenberg his war refugee board contact in stockholm ivor olsen is also an agent of
38:19the oss the predecessor of the american cia the u.s denies wallenberg was a spy but an oss cable
38:28to olsen
38:29in 1944 suggests that raoul could be helpful to the organization
38:36what we can tell as of now is quite clearly that the oss got involved in this mission as it
38:43is stated in
38:43one of the documents for two reasons one is that it felt it could provide very efficient communication
38:50and two it would then receive certain important benefits which is that it would receive information
38:56about the order of battle in eastern europe that could have been a fatal thing if soviet intelligence
39:06got to know that the man was reporting not only for stockholm that he was not a simple diplomat
39:22the man was somehow engaged in negotiations how to get hungary away from the war
39:31in such a way that hungary would not have been occupied by the soviet union
39:36that could be a very big irritation for the soviet union while the ussr focuses on broadening its
39:44hegemony the united states is fast losing ground in eastern europe to its future cold war adversary
39:50in 1944 the u.s was desperate to penetrate hungary we had perhaps no assets there the two best sources
40:02of
40:02intelligence information the two best kinds of agents even were businessmen because of the kinds
40:07of access that they have and refugees someone like wallenberg would have been seen as virtually ideal
40:17after 10 years of digging into the soviet archives as part of the working group the russians have come
40:23to a decisive conclusion the task of our group was to find out the circumstances under which the man died
40:32and we came to conclusion that at all probability it was not a natural death the man was executed
40:41and according to some non-direct evidence executed as a spy but the russians provide no concrete evidence
40:51to support their conclusion we know and i'm sure also that the investigation file against wallenberg and
41:01his driver was destroyed in the early 50s or in the middle 50s it is not clear now and that
41:09is all
41:10no another additional papers about his death or existence after july of 1947 let's say that that
41:20the russians are right that he was executed or succumbed due to bad treatment in 1947
41:28the reason to get rid of him then would be that he had become an embarrassment to the soviet government
41:37on the other hand you can argue that raul wallenberg may have had indeed some very great value for
41:45stalin because if the swedish side was not interested in an exchange now in 1946-47 who knows what might
41:54happen down the road so in that sense he might have considered of keeping him as an insurance policy
42:01in the soviet union that meant relocation to the notorious gulag the many reports that wallenberg
42:08has been cited in the gulag after his reported death one location stands out more than the others
42:14it is vladimir prison run by the former kgb many prominent inmates were held there often under brutal
42:25conditions nearly a dozen people have placed raul at vladimir unlike some earlier testimony claiming
42:32indirect contact with raul in the gulag through wall or pipe tapping eyewitnesses report actually
42:39seeing him in vladimir as late as the mid-1970s in a hospital not far from vladimir prison we tracked
42:48down
42:48a woman who had worked at the prison for 51 years varvara larina identified raul wallenberg as a prisoner
42:56there in the late 1950s and 1960s confirming what she had told american professor marvin mackinen an
43:04independent consultant for the working group she immediately picked out this photograph here as one
43:10of the prisoner held in solitary confinement at the time later she picked out this photograph here an
43:17age progression photograph of wallenberg at about 40 to 50 years old how did i know him from his face
43:26for police he had very typical teachers a narrow face and a sharp nose black eyebrows black eyes he had
43:42black hair
43:44parted to the side when i asked her why did you remember this person she answered to me that
43:52he complained about everything and i said well okay so he complained a lot of every prisoner
43:59you hear them always swearing and complaining he said but his complaints were about everything
44:05of course he was capricious at times for instance you give him soup and he says that it is too
44:17watery
44:18the head guy told her after this happened several times okay just serve this prisoner first so she had
44:25to go up to the third floor get his dishes his soup bowl and his plate bring them down fill
44:33them up bring
44:34them up to him and then commence with the serving distribution of food to the other prisoners this
44:39changed her life for months because every time we served lunch to them he always asked if there is
44:51anything left would you please bring me the leftovers i'll bring i'll bring always as soon as we open the
45:00hatch
45:00he was standing right there we talked to this lady she was very old when she gave this evidence we
45:11do not
45:11believe her actually yes he found this photograph out of many out of 15 photographs it could have been a
45:22coincidence according to our checking work the men have never been sent to ladimir prison never but by tracing
45:33cell occupancy based on varvara's testimony mackinen believes wallenberg was imprisoned in a cell listed
45:40in the records as empty this cell here remained empty for 380 consecutive days what it really means
45:48is that the authorities have removed the information of those on those prisoners who were in these cells
45:56at that time they are not in the cart to take or the prison registry meaning that they were very
46:04important prisoners because that information has been removed the independent investigators find that
46:11many vladimir prisoners were registered by number only their identities hidden to all but a few kremlin
46:17authorities the experts believe that raul wallenberg may have been inmate number 14 a number omitted from
46:25a list of important foreign prisoners held at vladimir prison in the 1940s and 50s
46:35scores of people claimed to have seen wallenberg in more than a dozen locations in the gigantic system
46:41of soviet prisons the gulag after the kremlin certified him as dead but the russians reject those sightings
46:50maintaining they don't hold up under careful scrutiny nor does the research into the occupants of vladimir's cells
46:59we have not found any documentary evidence only oral oral evidence of people which is very contradictory
47:11these if we compare them between themselves so the men could have been at the same time in many places
47:20of gulag i point out to them that we have oral testimony of prisoners which has equal weight as
47:28far as oral testimony goes but i believe the oral testimony in many cases is even more important because
47:37we have tested it if wallenberg's life was snuffed out as the russians say where is his body
47:45while the smoltov note claims wallenberg was to be cremated the only crematorium active in moscow in 1947
47:52reports it has no record of role searches of prison cemeteries along with their records have failed to find his
48:15remains
48:16ten years after it began the swedish russian working group finally winds up its investigation
48:24the group reports its findings and says the job is complete
48:31one has to carry on as long as i can
48:37i personally i have come to the end of what i can do
48:44the swedes and russians issue separate reports the russians is a thin summary the swedes a thick
48:52detailed volume neither unravel the wallenberg mystery the independent investigators offer their
48:59own conclusions and critical assessment of the official work there is a feeling of resignation
49:06bitterness among the independent investigators a feeling raoul wallenberg has been abandoned once again
49:14i personally was very upset because uh by no means had we come to a final end i felt that
49:23the
49:24minimum legal requirement was that it is necessary to document his death beyond reasonable doubt
49:32and that certainly had not been satisfied through this investigation
49:37the belief persists that not all the records have been unearthed that too many issues remain unresolved
49:45that aging ex-soviet kgb operatives have not revealed all they know i know one thing and i
49:52sure that exists an official report from abakumov to stalin what happened with wallenberg or what to do
50:00with him and we know the number of this report we know the date it is 17 of july of
50:061947 and this paper
50:10not exists in the archive or maybe exists but we cannot find it this is interesting and i cannot believe
50:17that such kind of important papers was destroyed perhaps with the remnants of the gulag lie the untarnished
50:27facts possibly a single sheet of paper that will one day reveal what actually happened to roll wallenberg
50:38stockholm refuses to close the door on the wallenberg case
50:44the swedish report declares the burden of proof lies with the russian government
50:51i see the reason why the russian sides now don't want to show all details about
50:58wallenberg case they want to finish this investigation official investigation to put a point and forget
51:04about this case and said okay it was all things on the stalin period and now it's new russia new
51:11things
51:11new relationship with the western countries and everything must be okay
51:18even if the truth about raul wallenberg is never brought to light
51:27in a world where genocide and inhumanity persist his heroism leaves an indelible message
51:35he was a man who proved that it was possible to stop the killer
51:40it was possible to save the victim all that was needed was some compassion and courage and he had both
51:49he saved us he is our savior and i just hope to god that he is alive somewhere and one
51:57day i can still
51:58meet him shake his hands and thank him from the bottom of my heart for saving our lives
52:14so
52:24so
52:25so
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