WWII mystery plays out in Wallenberg Forest

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Observant visitors to Raoul Wallenberg Forest may notice a new sign there in the coming months, replacing one that critics have argued is historically inaccurate. 

A sign commemorating Swedish diplomat Raoul Gustav Wallenberg describes Mr. Wallenberg’s efforts to save thousands of Hungarian Jewish people from death at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. It also states that he died in 1947 — something historians heatedly dispute. 

On Jan. 22, Parks Department spokeswoman Tara Kiernan confirmed plans to replace the sign with one that acknowledges the history surrounding this supposed death date is murky. 

“Previous versions of the sign did have a ‘?’ for the year of death, and we will be making a new sign with the correct information,” Ms. Kiernan said in an e-mail statement. 

Born in 1912, Mr. Wallenberg, who worked in Nazi-occupied Budapest as a special envoy for Sweden in 1944, used his clout as a diplomat to issue protective passes to Jewish people in Hungary at the time. He also housed housing many Jewish people in Swedish-owned buildings in Budapest, 

On Jan. 17, 1945, Soviet authorities captured the diplomat during the Siege of Budapest, and he disappeared. 

Speculation based on historical documents has suggested that he died in 1947, but scholars like Susan Mesinai, a researcher who founded the Independent Investigation into Raoul Wallenberg’s Fate, a non-profit charity, have argued that the date, along with a few other details on the current sign, are incorrect; Mr. Wallenberg may, in fact, have lived well into the 1990s. 

“Raoul was, at least in the past decades, very important to the Riverdale Community,” Ms. Mesinai said. “You don’t take a man who’s a hero, who saved 100,000 people, and slap a death date on him without proof.” 

Though the sign states in a later paragraph that Wallenberg’s fate remains unknown to this day, it references Russian documents that state he died of a heart attack in a Russian prison in 1947.  

Raoul Wallenberg Forest, Raoul Wallenberg, Parks Department, Susan Mesinai, Maya Rajamani
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