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Notes from a suitcase
We have recently learned the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, one of the biggest yet quiet heroes in history. Now I’ve finally come to a conclusion. Justice always lacks in our lives.İvo MOLİNAS
About four years ago, a retired ballet dancer from Moscow, Vera Serova, renovated the country house in northern Moscow she inherited from her grandfather, thus bringing a dark page in history into light.
Vera Serova was the granddaughter of Ivan Serov, Head of Soviet Union’s KGB who ran the intelligence agency from 1954 to 1957.
When the walls of the country house were torn down, Vera found a couple of large suitcases hidden between two internal walls. With those suitcases Vera’s life changed. By all means, the suitcases belonged to her grandfather. One would normally think to find money or gold in such suitcases, but Vera found thousands of documents, instead.
The documents contained historical facts about the World War II and post-war period. They specifically contained information regarding Stalin, his Foreign Minister Molotov and Khrushchev who succeeded Stalin.
Vera Serova had always resented the fact that her grandfather after working for three years at his post was discharged and disgraced. Finding those suitcases would give her an opportunity to restore her grandfather’s reputation. After four years of hard work, the documents were compiled in a book which was recently released with the title, “Notes from a Suitcase”.
Undoubtedly, one of the most significant documents in the book that included hundreds of documents, was the document about Raoul Wallenberg. Wallenberg, as is known, was one of the most unique “heroes” in the history of humanity.
By the end of World War II, USA finally decided to interfere in Nazis unprecedented persecution of the Jews. In order to liberate Hungarian Jews who were sent to the concentration camps where they were killed in groups of 12 thousand every day, USA asked Sweden’s help.
Swedish government appointed a 32-year-old businessman, Raoul Wallenberg, as Sweden’s Ambassador to Budapest. Wallenberg coming from a wealthy family dedicated himself to saving the lives of Hungarian Jews. He issued fake Swedish passports for them. He harbored them in buildings bought by the Swedish government. He threatened the Commander of Budapest Ghetto and saved the lives of 70 thousand Jews who were residing there. By the end of the war, he even tried to save the Jews who were being forced to march to their death, one by one by taking them in his own car. He reunited mothers with their children.
Finally the war ended. While 400 thousand Hungarian Jews out of 600 thousand died, 120 thousand Hungarian Jews got saved by Raoul Wallenberg. On January 1945, Russians arrived at Budapest and arrested Wallenberg suspecting him of being an American spy. Since then Wallenberg has never been seen again and since then, there has been no evidence regarding his fate. The Soviet authorities never disclosed any information regarding Wallenberg. Only in 1957, they reported to his family and informed them that their son died in 1947 from a heart attack, but no one believed this.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a Swedish- Russian joint commission was formed. They failed to come to a definitive conclusion whether Wallenberg was alive or not, since Russians did not disclose any information from their archive. In 1979, Wallenberg’s mother and father not being able to endure the pain of losing their son, committed suicide.
History has the power to not let anything stay in the dark. Retired ballet dancer Vera Serova obtained astounding information from her grandfather’s hidden documents. In one of the documents his grandfather wrote, “I have no doubt that Wallenberg was killed in 1947 in the Russian prison.”
In one document, she found a report regarding the cremation of Wallenberg’s dead body and in another, she found a quote by head of KGB, Viktor Abakumov who preceded Serov. In his quote, Abakumov stated that the order to “kill” Wallenberg had come from Stalin and Molotov, the foreign minister.
In the description section of the documents, Serov stated that he was appointed by Stalin’s successor Khrushchev for investigating Wallenberg case and that all these documents were gathered after intense work.
The granddaughter Serova’s 600-page book was a top-seller in Russia this summer. Even though Wallenberg’s fate was mostly unearthed, his family, his country and all others who are sensitive about this issue persist for Wallenberg archive which is said to have been either burnt or non-existing to be opened.
If even Vladimir Putin is leaving this issue hanging, maybe what happened to Wallenberg can be explained as ordinary evil happening to good people.
Good people should not be paying this price and especially those special people who risk their own lives to save thousands from the hands of the Devil.
Justice always lacked in this world.
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