I 2 Friday, June 20, 1975 ? i) I I THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Purely Commentary Raoul Wallenberg: Is Solzhenitsyn Message One of Hope that He Lives? Raoul Wallenberg may be alive, suffering in a Russian prison. This, at least, may be inferred from a message by Alek- sandr Solzhenitsyn, who was interviewed during his visit to Sweden by a correspondent of "Russian Thought." That her son is alive has remained the contention of Raoul's mother with whom Solzhenitsyn met and discussed the case of the famous hero who rescued many Jews. In the interview with Solzhenitsyn, which was reprinted in Na- tional Review in a translation from the Russian by Albert and Tanya Schmidt, the num- ber of Jews Wallenberg had rescued in Hungary in the last years of the Nazi occupa- tion of Hungary is given as 20,000. Some have credited him with rescuing as many as 50,000 to 70,000. The Swedish interviewer asked Solzhenitsyn about Raoul Wallenberg. It is evi- dent that Wallenberg's role as a rescuer • of Jews from the —AP Wirephoto Nazis is not forgotten in his SOLZHENITSYN native Sweden. There has been no pressure upon the USSR to ascertain his wher- eabouts because involve- ments with the Soviet Union are being avoided diplomati- cally. Because of the great concern in the Wallenberg case, the Swedish interview merits widest circulation to inspire renewed interest in the fate of Wallenberg. Sol- zhenitsyn thus recapitulates the story of Wallenberg: Q. What can you say about the fate of Raoul Wallenberg? Did you hear about him when WU, WALLENBERG you were in tie camps? A: No, I heard nothing of him when I was a prisoner, or for many years after that. This just shows how vast is the Gulag Archipelago, and how many hidden places it con- tains. There are many such secret places, where prisoners are isolated forever, where no word ever trickles out, so that no one will know about these people. I happened to meet another Scandinavian who called himself Erik Arvid Andersen. When I tried to find out something about him here in Sweden, and to learn who his relatives are, I came across the Wallenberg story. Yesterday I saw Wallenberg's mother. It was heartbreak- ing to see this old lady, who has been waiting for her son for 29 years. Please weigh and consider the full meaning of what I am saying — 29 years! Wallenberg was arrested at almost the same time as I was. I served my entire sentence, both imprisonment and exile, was set free for a number of years, as you know from my published writings . . . But this man has been in prison for 29 years and is still there today! Nor is he the only one like that in the Soviet Union. Many who were sentenced to 25 years at the end of the war are still in confinement. Some have been imprisoned since 194 7 or since 1939, and their sentences are even extended. A whole epoch has passed since that time. People whose arrest somewhere in Africa was written about by leaders of national movements have long since been freed, have be- come presidents of their countries, have been running their governments for decades, have left office or been. over- thrown . . . Generation after generation has been written up in the press: so-and-so is in prison, so-and-so is being tormented . . . They have all long since been liberated, but our people are still in prison. Wallenberg's mother has information on who was in prison with her son, and when. I do not for a minute dqubt the authenticity of her data. In the Gulag Archipelago, if a. man said he was in prison with someone else, that is the truth. Fourteen witnesses are listed here, and it is evident that he has been kept in secret confinement, but occasion- ally someone or other saw him briefly and this is how the information seeped out. But here is the difference: if a man is arrested in. the West or in the Third World, it is open knowledge in what prison he is held and how he is being treated. We can even see him photographed behind the bars, this is often permitted. But Wallenberg is in a Soviet prison, so all we have is this kind of indirect testimony from people, some of whom conceal their identity either because they are still in Eastern Eu- rope or because they have relatives there . . And so, since they are all so well hidden in Russia, since prisoner's are so well concealed and kept incommunicado, no one tries to free them; I have heard that your Prime Minister (Olaf Pointe) considers that there is too little information to justify spoil- Raoul Wallenberg, the Great Hero of the World War II Res- cue Movement . Solzhenitsyn's Interest and Mother's Con- fidence He Survives .. . Rabbi Glasner's Recollections ing relations with the Soviet Union on account of Wallen- berg. Here in Sweden I have been told of other cases — the disappearance of Swedish sailors and fishermen in the Bal- tic Sea during the immediate postwar period. They van- ished silently, without a trace, apparently into the Soviet Union, and no one tries to defend them or get them out. Western governments as much as say: lock them up tigh t and keep them out of sight; we will liberate anyone who is not securely held, but if you have a good grip on their throats, go ahead and throttle them, we're not going to free them. Now here is an amazing story. Wallenberg's mother is currently in correspondence with a certain. Yefim Mash in- sky, the former KGB captain who arrested Wallenberg. Now in Israel, he tells of what a nice man Wallenberg was, the man he was ordered to arrest. Ordered toD.rrest a Swed- ish diplomat! Well, all right. The State Security captain sum mon.ed him amicably from the Embassy, drove off with him in hig car. then arrested him. Wallenberg was then sent from one Soviet secret prison to the next. In order to avoid trouble over Wallenberg, Soviet authori- ties falsified the records as follows: a certificate was al- legedly found at the Lubyanka prison in 1957 stating that he had died in 1947, and they tried to close the case in this fashion. • However, much of the information in the possession of Wallenberg's mother dates from later, and even very recent times . . . from fellow prisoners who said he was still alive in 1970. He is now 62 years old. We must hurry, hurry to have him, released. What is needed for that is a powerful public opinion movement able to force your government and other governments to save this man. And here I think that Jewish world opinion could be very helpful. Here is why I say this: you probably know that Wallenberg, as an official of the Swedish embassy in Budapest, rescued Jews from death by getting them out to the West. According to the data, he saved over 20,000 Jews in this manner, and I think that Jewish public opinion, which has been so effec- tive in defending Jewish people in the Soviet Union impris- oned for one, three, or five years, could come out strongly for Wallenberg and save him. How interesting, that Solzhenitsyn should suggest Jew- ish activism in Raoul's behalf! The case has not been forgotten. Wallenberg, a. graduate from the University of Michigan College of Architecture, is honored annually through the Wallenberg Architectural Lectures in Ann Arbor. But there has been little pressure on Russia in recent years to ascertain the fate of the liber- tarian. Perhaps Solzhenitsyn has inspired renewed activity for truth in the case of a great humanitarian who is mar- tyred in Russia. Sakharov on Need for Protests Solzhenitsyn's view on a need for protests and interces- sions by world Jewish organizations in the Raoul Wallen- berg matter renews consideration of the value of the voices raised by libertarians in defense of social and political jus- tice of the oppressed in foreign lands. Jewish protests against discriminations in Czarist and later in Soviet Russia date back several decades. Now such protests gain validity and forcefulness from the support provided by dissidents who are demanding changes in the Russian social and political structures. Andrei Sakharov, one of Russia's most eminent aca- demicians and one of the world's most distinguished scien- tists, unable to attend a conference called by the Research Center of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, sent a lengthy message to the American sponsors of the confer- ence. He reiterated his firm stand on justice to the Jew and his right to emigrate, emphasized the justice of the demand by Soviet Jews to leave for settlement in Israel and advised continued American protests against the prevailing condi- tions in Russia. The right of protest and to change domiciles is consist- ently emphasized by Sakharov and his associates. They remain basic human rights among all nations. Additional Testimony: Wallenberg's Heroism Periodically, new evidence is offered to revive interest in the Raoul Wallenberg chapter of World War II. Among the latest, additional to the Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn com- ments, is the dramatic story of the experiences of Rabbi Juda Glasner. Rabbi Glasner, in an impressive account of his experi- ences and his tasks in assisting sufferers from Nazism in Hungary, detailed in his hook, "Faith in Spite of All," (Vantage Press) many references to Wallenberg. It was in Cluj, the Transylvanian capital, that Rabbi Glasner served. He was witness to the Nazi horrors during the war, when he was separated from his family and was among those who escaped death miraculously. He was active for several years after the war in tasks to assist in the rehabilitation of Jews who escaped to Sweden, and in that capacity he befriended the late Count Folke Bernadotte, then head of the Red Cross. In the proc- ess, the two labored in rescue efforts through the Red Cross, in the era prior to Bernadotte's having assumed a United Nations role in pre-Israel Palestine. Bernadotte, who was murdered while pursuing his task in behalf of the UN, is highly lauded by Rabbi Glasner. His faith helped Rabbi Glasner overcome the many ob- stacles in a path of suffering as a witness to the Hitler crimes, and he glories in a faith that brought rehabilitation, reunion with his family and resumption of his religious activities. Inevitably, in his description of the experiences during the war, and in his account of the rescue efforts by Raoul Wallenberg as a volunteer member of the Swedish legation in Budapest, Rabbi Glasner relates many of the incidents of courage; how Wallenberg confronted the Nazi leaders while they were escorting Jews for transportation to death camps and secured their release. The Glasner story mentions Wal- lenberg's arrest by the Russians for unaccountable reasons, and the only factor accountable for the cruelty is that Wal- lenberg had insisted on providing a record of Jewish prop- erty to be retained for the rightful owners and the Russians had resisted such meticulousness while they were the conquerors. Rabbi Juda Glasner's "Faith in Spite of All" is a record of faith in the triumph of justice, as it did in the personal instance of the reminiscences recorded in this new account of a World War II experience. At the same time it serves as a reminder of the tragedy that marked the life of a hero of the last war. As in other similar recapitulations of the 'Wal- lenberg story, Glasner's is an admonition that Wallenberg may be alive. Perhaps renewed pressures will compel a truthful account about him from the Kremlin. Rise in Converts to Judaism Seen A California Reform rabbi who is active in efforts to convert non-Jews to Juda- ism has estimated that at current rates of conversion, between 100,000 and 150,000 Jewish families in the United States in the next 20 years will have a convert as husband or wife. Rabbi Allen S. Maller, writing in Davka, the quar- terly student journal pub- lished by the Hillel Council at the University of Califor- nia at Los Angeles, noted the widespread concern over the growing rate of mixed marriages. But, he declared, "another statistic of even greater significance has been almost entirely ig- nored. The number and per- centage of mitzva marriages has been growing even more rapidly than that of mixed marriages." He said that by mitzva marriages he meant those in which the non-Jewish spouse converts to Judaism which he said was a mitzva for three reasons, one being that "the loyalty and dedica- tion of the Jewish partner was strong enough to influ- ence the non-Jew to become Jewish." The second reason, he asserted, was that "the very high divorce rate in Jewish-Gentile marriages is substantially reduced by the unification of the fami- ly's identity." The third reason, he as- serted was that unlike mixed marriages, "where only 15 to 20 percent of the children receive any Jewish education, in mitzva mar- riages almost all the chil- dren are given a Jewish edu- cation and the average level By Philip Slomov;;A. of involvement of converts to Judaism and their children is higher than that of a ma- jority of Jews." In discussing the possibil- ity of a split in the Jewish people developing from re- jection by Jews of converts and would-be converts, Rabbi Maller asserted that "the vast majority" of Or- thodox rabbis "are still guided by the legal and in- tellectual norms of the me- dieval ghetto" and therefore will not accept a convert "who is planning to marry a Jew." He contended that "this is one of the best rea- sons for a Gentile to con- vert." He charged that the re- fusal to accept a convert as Jewish because the rabbi who performed the conver- sion was not Orthodox, even if the procedure was accord- By BEN GAL.LOB (Copyright 1975, JTA, Inc.) ing to Halakha, Jewish reli- gious law, "is a political and not a religious position." Rabbi Maller contended "it is too simple" to say that an individual con- verts "just for the sake of marriage." Currently, he declared, three-quarters of all Jewish-Gentile mar- riages are mixed mar- riaggs in which neither party converts. He as- serted that it was clear that "the 25 percent of Jewish-Gentile romances that result in a mitzva marriage" do not happen "just for the sake of mar- riage." If the Jewish people are to remain strong "in the Dias- pora, conversion to Judaism must be strongly encour- aged," he said.