Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg. Two men who, during World War II, risked so much to save as many Jews as they could from the Nazi peril. Similar missions, different fates.
Schindler rescued 1,200 Jews by employing them at his plants, then lived for nearly three decades after the war. He died of liver failure in 1974 in Germany.
Wallenberg, a young Swedish diplomat stationed in Budapest, saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews by issuing them protective passports and giving them refuge in buildings rented by the Swedish government and therefore protected as Swedish territory. In January 1945, the 32-year-old envoy disappeared--swallowed up by postwar Soviet secrecy. And ever since, slowly unfolding revelations:
We now know from witness accounts that Soviet soldiers swept Wallenberg off a Budapest street after they entered the Hungarian capital. It's not known why. In the years that followed, Sweden failed to punch through Soviet denials and cover stories. The Kremlin kept insisting it had no one in a Soviet prison by Wallenberg's name. Then in 1956, the Soviets acknowledged they once had him, but claimed he died of a heart attack in prison in 1947.
Now, however, new clues about Wallenberg's death have emerged from the unlikeliest of places, the New York Times reports--suitcases of letters hidden in a wall in a Moscow summer home. Four years ago, Vera Serova, granddaughter of a former KGB chief, hired workers to renovate her summer home's garage. When they tore into the walls, they found the suitcases filled with documents. Among them: references to Wallenberg's "liquidation" in 1947, ordered by Soviet leader Josef Stalin and his foreign minister.
But for Russians, the documents illuminate something else.
They're a reminder of the coarse ruthlessness that defined Stalin's brand of autocracy. It's a dose of reality Russians sorely need, because Stalin's image has undergone a profound makeover under President Vladimir Putin.
Putin's Kremlin is adept at forging--and remaking--brands, and its retooling of Stalin is proof of that. Russia's preeminent polling group, the Levada Center, reported earlier this year that more than half of Russians believe Stalin played a positive role in history and see him as a wise leader. We hope that revelations about Stalin's role in the execution of one of the world's most courageous humanitarians will give Russians a clearer prism into the Soviet leader's true nature.
Editorial on 08/11/2016