Mr Raoul Wallenberg and Mr Vilmos Langfelder
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- See Doc. 6444, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Rapporteur : Mr Pontillon. Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 25 November 1991.
- Thesaurus
1. The Assembly refers to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Helsinki Final Act, the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the resolution unanimously passed by the European Parliament on 17 May 1990.
2. Mr Raoul Wallenberg's humanitarian activities made it possible to save some 100 000 people at the time of the mass deportation of Hungarian Jews to their deaths.
3. He and his chauffeur completely disappeared in January 1945 after he had been summoned by the Soviet liberation troops stationed in Hungary.
4. The Soviet authorities' contradictory statements on Mr Wallenberg's fate, which until 1947 denied his presence on Soviet territory and then reported that he had died, without being able to provide any irrefutable proof, all constitute evidence of his possible survival.
5. This view has been strengthened by the discovery of documents (the most recent dated November 1990) testifying to Mr Wallenberg's detention in the Soviet Union since 1947 and by numerous reports by former prisoners of war and Soviet and foreign political prisoners of Mr Wallenberg's survival after 1947.
6. The maintenance of a relationship with the Soviet Union based on confidence cannot be viewed with equanimity unless full light is shed on the past, and in particular on this case.
7. The Assembly welcomes the recent, frank and understanding attitude of the Soviet authorities, as a result of which Mr Wallenberg's family have made an official visit to Moscow at the invitation of the Kremlin and a committee of experts has been given permission to examine the files of Vladimir prison.
8. In the light of the above, and bearing in mind the Conference on the Human Dimension held in Moscow from 10 September to 4 October 1991 and the new relations which have been established with the Soviet Union, the Assembly invites the Soviet authorities :
8.1 to reopen the file on Mr Raoul Wallenberg and his driver, Mr Vilmos Langfelder, and to state unambiguously what has become of them ;
8.2 to allow an international commission made up of historians and other experts access to all the relevant archives ;
8.3 to give them back their freedom if they are still alive.
9. Finally, it asks that the fate of other foreign nationals who are still arbitrarily detained in the Soviet Union and whose present circumstances are unknown be linked to that of Mr Raoul Wallenberg and Mr Vilmos Langfelder.
