Letter to Raoul Wallenberg and the Official Extract of the Wallenberg Commemoration Gathering of the Jewish Community of Pest on June 21, 1945
Budapest: NP, 1945. First edition. Softcover. Folio. Unpaginated. [16]pp. Original printed wrappers. Extremely rare document published by the Jewish community of Pest for commemorating Raoul Wallenberg's life saving activities during the Holocaust in Hungary. This work contains an official letter to Wallenberg dated July 2, 1945, and the extract of the commemoration gathering that was held on June 21, 1945. Both documents are in Swedish and Hungarian. In the letter, the leaders of the Jewish community of Pest summarize the Wallenberg commemoration gathering, they express their utmost respect for the Swedish diplomat's tireless deeds in the life saving activities he achieved during the time of the persecution of the Hungarian Jewry. They also inform Wallenberg that a ward in the reconstructed Jewish Central Hospital will be named after him. They end their letter by wishing Wallenberg a healthy, long and successful life, and assuring him of the eternal gratitude of the entire Hungarian Jewry. The letter bears the printed names of Miksa Domonkos*, and Lajos Stöckler**, respectively Administrator and Chairman of the Jewish Community of Pest. The second part of the document is the official extract of the commemoration gathering. This document was sent to Raoul Wallenberg's address (Legationssekreterare, Stockholm) in Sweden as his whereabouts was still unknown at the time.
Now we know that at the time this document was issued, Raoul Wallenberg was detained (since January 17, 1945) by Soviet authorities on suspicion of espionage and subsequently disappeared. He was later reported to have died on 17 July 1947 while imprisoned by communist authorities and KGB secret police in the Lubyanka, the KGB headquarters and affiliated prison in Moscow. Heavy foxing and sunning to wrappers. Upper margin of front cover partly creased. Sporadic and moderate foxing and age-toning along paper margin throughout. Text in Swedish and Hungarian. Wrappers in overall fair, interior in good to good+ condition. f to g+. Item #39393
* On April 7, 1953, early in the morning, Miksa Domonkos, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Budapest was kidnapped by State Protection Authority (Államvédelmi Hatóság, ÁVH) officials to extract "confessions". Preparations for a show trial started in Budapest in 1953 to prove that Raoul Wallenberg had not been dragged off in 1945 to the Soviet Union but was the victim of cosmopolitan Zionists. For the purposes of this show trial, two more Jewish leaders - László Benedek and Lajos Stöckler** - as well as two would-be "eyewitnesses" - Pál Szalai and Károly Szabó - were arrested and interrogated by torture. The last people to meet Wallenberg in Budapest were Ottó Fleischmann, Károly Szabó, and Pál Szalai, who were invited to a supper at the Swedish Embassy building in Gyopár street on January 12, 1945. The next day, January 13, Wallenberg contacted the Russians. By 1953, Ottó Fleischmann had left Hungary, working as a physician in Vienna. On 8 April, 1953, Károly Szabó was captured on the street and arrested without any legal procedure. His family had no news of him throughout the following six months. A secret trial was conducted against him of which no official record is available to date. After six months of interrogation, the defendants were driven to despair and exhaustion. The idea that the "murderers of Wallenberg" were Budapest Zionists was primarily supported by Hungarian Communist leader (by origins Jewish) Ernő Gerő, which is shown by a note sent by him to First Secretary Mátyás Rákosi (Jewish too). The show trial was then initiated in Moscow, following Stalin's anti-Zionist campaign. After the death of Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria, the preparations for the trial were stopped and the arrested persons were released. Miksa Domonkos spent a week in hospital and died shortly afterwards at home, mainly due to the torture he had been subject to.
Price: $6,500.00