Righteous Gentile: The Story of Raoul Wallenberg, Missing Hero of the Holocaust

by Bierman, John

  With respect to the Soviet wish that Sweden should not allow relations to be poisoned, the Swedes stressed that their only motive was to shed light on the fate of Wallenberg. ‘If this happens it will remove a serious irritant in Swedish–Soviet relations.’

  In early 1960 the Swedish government again brought two Supreme Court justices – Ragnar Gyllensward and Per Santesson – into the picture. They studied all the information so far received and on 25 April they produced a joint report saying that they were satisfied that ‘the records are made with great care and do not give rise to the assumption that the statements were made after leading questions or in other circumstances which might have influenced the content. The statements contain a great amount of information, the correctness of which it was possible to check, and they support each other…According to our opinion the present investigations must, according to Swedish law (although it does not include a full evidence in this respect), be considered to make it likely that Wallenberg was alive at least in the beginning of the 1950s and was then detained in Vladimir Prison.’

  Chapter 15

  The next link in the chain of evidence was quite the most sensational thus far, although it was to be four and a half years before it became known to the Swedish public – the only people in the world, it seemed, who, by now, were concerned about Wallenberg’s fate.

  In January 1961 Professor Nanna Svartz, a distinguished physician from Stockholm’s Karolinska Hospital* went to Moscow, as she had done many times previously, to attend a medical-scientific congress. There, she met several prominent Soviet colleagues, among them Professor Aleksandr Miashnikov. They had met before, in Moscow and elsewhere, and it was their habit to discuss matters of common interest, often of a highly technical nature, in German.

  Sitting together in Miashnikov’s office on 27 January, Professors Svartz and Miashnikov discussed the congress, certain lines of medical research, and similar topics. Professor Svartz then directed the conversation along other lines:

  I asked him to pardon me if I brought up a question which was very close to my heart and to the heart of other Swedes. I gave him an account of the Raoul Wallenberg case, and asked whether he knew about it, whereupon he nodded in the affirmative.

  I asked him whether he could give me some advice on how I might go about finding where Wallenberg might be. I told him that we in Sweden had information to the effect that Wallenberg; was alive only two years earlier and that his next of kin had received reports that indicated he was still alive. My informant then suddenly said that he knew about the case and that the person I was asking about was in poor condition.

  He asked what I wanted, and I replied that the main thing was that Wallenberg be brought home, no matter in what condition. My informant then said in a very low voice that the person inquired about was in a mental hospital.

  Professor Svartz was dumbfounded by this news. Realizing that she was on the very brink of solving the mystery that had so tantalized and disturbed her country for sixteen years, and of gaining the freedom of a man who had become a national hero, she was filled with an almost unbearable excitement. According to her account of the incident for the Swedish government, Professor Miashnikov then asked her to wait where she was while he went to fetch a colleague for consultations. After a while he returned with another Russian scientist (this man’s name has never been disclosed), who remained with Dr Svartz when Miashnikov withdrew.

  His colleague sat down, facing me. I asked him whether he had been briefed on what the matter was about and he confirmed that this was so. He asked me carefully about where Wallenberg had been serving and asked me to write his name on a piece of paper. I then wrote: Attaché Raoul Wallenberg.

  I told him that Wallenberg’s mother was one of my patients, and that she would be greatly relieved to have peace of mind and to be given full certainty. No matter how sick her son might be, it would be a blessing to her, as it would be for all of Sweden, if he could be given treatment in his home country. I asked him whether he could help us and he replied he would do everything within his power. I told him the entire Swedish nation would be grateful to the Soviet Union if Wallenberg were permitted to be brought home, even if he were seriously ill, both physically and mentally. This matter, I said, lies close to the heart of our government.

  Dr Svartz mentioned to the Russian that she had made the personal acquaintance of the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Semyonov during a visit he had made to Sweden. Her Russian colleague advised her to approach Semyonov directly. ‘I further asked the colleague whether he considered it possible for me, as a doctor, to take Wallenberg home. He believed – “if he is still alive” – that such a procedure would not be impossible, but that I ought to talk to Semyonov about this.’

  Dr Svartz hurried back to her hotel, got Semyonov’s telephone number from the Swedish embassy, and phoned him – but his secretary said that he was abroad. That evening a banquet was held in connection with the medical congress. There, Dr Svartz spotted the Soviet colleague who had advised her to contact Semyonov and asked him if, as Semyonov was abroad, it would be a good idea to write to the deputy foreign minister. Her colleague advised that this would be the best course to follow.

  ‘The colleague told me that after I had left them earlier in the day they had discussed the matter together…[and] both were of the opinion that a possible transportation to Sweden of the person in question – “if he is still alive” – naturally had to be organized through diplomatic channels…’

  Immediately on her return to Stockholm a couple of days later, Dr Svartz telephoned the home of Prime Minister Erlander, with whom she was on terms of personal friendship. As soon as he had heard her account of what had transpired in Moscow, he asked her to come to his residence straight away and summoned Foreign Minister Undén.

  Undén’s reactions to Dr Svartz’s astonishing story can only be guessed at; Erlander’s are known. Having total confidence in Nanna Svartz’s reliability, he lost no time in drafting a personal letter to Khrushchev, which was delivered to the Soviet party boss on 9 February by Ambassador Sohlman. It did not skate around the issue.

  I now wish to inform you that I have been informed by a Swedish physician, Professor Nanna Svartz, who visited Moscow at the end of January 1961…that Wallenberg was alive at that time and that he was a patient at a mental hospital in Moscow. His health was not good. Mrs Svartz got this information from an internationally known, prominent representative of Soviet medical science.

  Foreign Minister Undén and I have discussed the most suitable way of transferring Wallenberg to Sweden. We have found that the best would be if a Swedish physician were permitted to come to Moscow and discuss with his Soviet colleagues the means of transportation, medical care, etc.

  Professor Svartz, still brimming with excitement at her discovery, could be forgiven for believing that her next trip to Moscow would be to collect Raoul Wallenberg and deliver him to his family. While she and Erlander waited for Khrushchev’s reply, she wrote a personal letter to Miashnikov, expressing the hope that she would see him again very soon. She also wrote to Deputy Foreign Minister Semyonov, asking how far the investigation about Wallenberg had gone and about the possibilities of taking him home.

  She received a reply from Miashnikov not long after. He wrote that he would be happy to see her again in Moscow. The following month – still without a reply from Khrushchev or Semyonov – Professor Svartz went again to the Soviet capital, where she went straight to see Miashnikov. In their first talk, with another Soviet scientist present, she asked Miashnikov if she might visit Wallenberg in hospital.

  ‘He replied that this would have to be decided in higher quarters, and he added, “Unless he is dead.” To this I rejoined, “But then he must have died quite recently.” ’

  Professor Svartz began to sense that things were going badly wrong – a feeling which was accentuated when, at a second meeting with no third person present, Miashnikov told her she should not have told the Swedish gov
ernment about their original conversation in January. ‘He did not deny the conversation, but maintained that his poor German had led to a misunderstanding, and he declared now that he knew nothing about the Wallenberg case. He told me that he had been summoned to Minister President Khrushchev, who had been informed about our conversation and had been angered because of it.’*

  Her earlier optimism waning fast, Professor Svartz tried again to contact Semyonov, this time dialling his private number, which she had been given by Miashnikov. Again she failed to find him. When she got back to Stockholm, Professor Svartz wrote to Semyonov again, asking for an appointment as soon as possible and declaring herself ready to travel to Moscow immediately. She never had a reply to either of her letters to Semyonov, not even an acknowledgement.

  In May 1962 she was invited to another medical congress in Moscow. There, she met Miashnikov again, ‘but when I tried to lead our conversation to the Wallenberg question, he merely declared that this question would have to be taken up through diplomatic channels and that no private talks between the two of us on this subject ought to be held.’

  When Ambassador Sohlman had handed over his prime minister’s letter to Khrushchev in February 1961, the Soviet leader had replied with obvious irritation that the Soviet Union had already given the Swedes all the information they had on Wallenberg and that there was nothing new to add. No further reply, either verbal or written, was forthcoming from the Soviet leadership in the next eighteen months. Then, on 17 August 1962, Erlander sent for Soviet Ambassador Feodor Gusev, who was about to leave for a new post, and delivered to him a crisp message to be transmitted to Khrushchev.

  As you may understand, Mr Ambassador, this situation causes me serious concern, and on your return to Moscow I ask you to convey this to the Soviet government and personally to its chief. When I speak about concern, I mean in the first place that the matter is of importance for Soviet-Swedish relations, in whose further development in a harmonious and friendly spirit I know you have a great interest.

  What is involved is the question of a Swedish diplomat who was captured by Soviet troops more than seventeen years ago. You will certainly agree with me that no government in such a situation can refrain from demanding that the requests it makes, on the basis of information which it has received and found reliable, be given both thorough investigation and courteous treatment.

  Erlander went on to point out that it was a generally accepted principle of humane behaviour that all efforts should be made to reunite close relatives who have been separated by circumstances beyond their control. ‘This principle is not only generally accepted in theory,’ he said, ‘it has also come to be put more and more into practice. I appeal urgently to your government and to the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Mr Khrushchev, personally also to take this into consideration in dealing with this matter. I make this appeal with the strong hope of a positive reply.’

  But there was no reply. Neither did Professor Svartz succeed in numerous attempts between 1962 and 1964 to renew contact with Professor Miashnikov. In mid-March 1964 Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko paid a visit to Stockholm, during which Erlander again pressed him for an answer and suggested a meeting between Professors Svartz and Miashnikov. Six weeks later, on 29 April, Professor Svartz at last received a letter from Miashnikov.

  I write to you in connection with new statements appearing in Stockholm concerning Mr Wallenberg’s fate.* I was cited in these statements in a way such as to indicate that I had given you some sort of information about him during your visit to Moscow in 1961.

  As you will surely recall, I told you then that I knew nothing about Mr Wallenberg, had never heard his name, and had not the slightest idea whether or not he was alive.

  I advised you to address yourself to our Foreign Ministry on this matter, through your ambassador or in person. Upon your request that I inquire about the fate of this person with our Chief of Government, N. S. Khrushchev, whose doctor I was according to your account, I replied to you that N. S. Khrushchev, as everyone knew full well, was in absolutely good health and that I was not his doctor.

  Owing to some misunderstanding inconceivable to me, this short talk with you (it was carried on in the German language, of which I may not be fully master) has come to be erroneously interpreted in official Swedish quarters.

  Professor Svartz wrote a detailed reply on 28 May 1964, recapitulating their conversation of January 1961 as she remembered it, and replying to his suggestion that language difficulties must have caused a misunderstanding. ‘I reminded him that the two of us at a number of conversations during the 1950s, when we first met, had always understood both questions and answers very well, as had also been the case of our conversation of January 1961, as well as the conversations which followed.’

  In July 1965 Professor Svartz had one last encounter with Miashnikov. As a result of further Swedish representations to the Soviet government, a meeting was arranged between the two doctors in Moscow, in the presence of Swedish Ambassador Gunnar Jarring and two representatives of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, one of whom acted as interpreter. The ensuing three-hour talk was conducted in Swedish and Russian. It produced nothing new.

  Professor Svartz stuck to her version of what had passed between them, while Professor Miashnikov stuck to his, adding the fresh information that in any event he could not possibly have known about the Wallenberg affair before she mentioned it in January 1961, ‘since he had nothing to do with prisons or prison hospitals or with prisoners of war…Moreover, he had never been invited by any Soviet authorities to treat any foreign or other prisoners of war, therefore he could not have seen or heard of Wallenberg.’

  Miashnikov claimed that during the January 1961 conversation he had said, ‘If Wallenberg is alive, perhaps he may be ill.’ He added that by a misunderstanding of his syntax, Professor Svartz might have misinterpreted his words ‘not as assumptions but as statements of fact.’

  ‘He said he had been talking to me in a humane spirit and had not believed that I was on any official or semi-official errand. Had he believed so, he would naturally have summoned an interpreter who would have had to write down what was being said…

  ‘The discussions ended with a concluding declaration by my informant that he considered the question brought to an end between the two of us and that we had not come to the result that either one of us had wanted. To this I declared that neither did I believe that we could come any further and that testimony stood against testimony.’*

  Four months after this last encounter between the two professors, Miashnikov died suddenly. ‘He must have been in his early sixties and had never appeared to me to be in poor health,’ Nanna Svartz told me in 1979. ‘I must admit I have often wondered whether it was really a case of natural death.’

  Chapter 16

  If the Swedish public had known about Nanna Svartz’s testimony and the Vladimir Prison sightings, there might well have been uncontrollable riots when Khrushchev paid a five-day official visit to Stockholm between 22 and 27 June 1964. As it was, there were huge demonstrations, and attempts were made to present the Soviet leader personally with a petition that contained over a million signatures demanding Wallenberg’s release.

  The day Khrushchev arrived in Stockholm, the daily newspaper Expressen covered its front page with an editorial in Russian, under the huge headline ‘Where is Raoul Wallenberg?’ The editorial, in the form of an open letter to Khrushchev, declared, ‘Even if you have brought fifty people with you, it is one too few – you have not brought Raoul Wallenberg,’

  In an attempt to ward off any unpleasantness over the Wallenberg affair, or indeed any discussion of it at all during the Khrushchev visit, the Russians had ten days before summoned Ambassador Jarring to the Foreign Ministry to receive an oral statement from Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Orlov. Orlov stated firmly the official Soviet position that ‘there was no doubt whatsoever’ that Wallenberg had died in 1947 in Lubianka Prison.* Assertions that he was alive after that were �
��either due to mistakes or else they reflected the efforts of certain persons to complicate relations between the Soviet Union and Sweden.’

  Since all possibilities for investigating the case had been ‘completely exhausted,’ said Orlov, the Soviet government saw ‘no further reason for engaging itself any longer in this question.’ This harsh, almost contemptuous, message ended with the thinly veiled warning that ‘any return to a discussion on this regrettable fact belonging to the past could only cause harm to Soviet–Swedish relations.’

  To his credit, Erlander ignored this warning. During Khrushchev’s visit, he several times raised the embarrassing Wallenberg question, risking Khrushchev’s notorious temper, which at one point reportedly exploded in a threat that if the name Wallenberg were mentioned once more he would cut short his visit and leave.

  The main discussion of the question took place immediately after intergovernmental negotiations on trade and other matters on 23 June. The official Swedish account does little to disguise the sharpness of tone. After Erlander ‘pointed to the necessity of at least bringing about clarity on this outstanding question,’ Khrushchev declared that ‘he could not have imagined the Wallenberg question would be brought up anew.’ The fact that Wallenberg was not to be found alive in the Soviet Union had been ‘already made sharply clear’ to the Swedes.

  ‘The Swedish government must realize that the Soviet Union naturally would extradite Wallenberg if he were alive, irrespective of his physical or mental status. The Soviet Union had expatriated and extradited all sorts of people. What interest would they have in keeping Wallenberg?’ Despite Professor Svartz’s evidence, which must all be a misunderstanding based on language difficulties, ‘as far as the Soviet government was concerned the matter was closed.’